Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may need a crash course in basic Middle East geopolitics. In a statement issued as Israel faced legions of Palestinian rockets fired toward its territory this month, Ottawa rightly affirmed the Jewish state’s “right to defend its security from terrorist attacks” by the terrorist group Islamic Jihad. Yet the statement contained a curious omission. It failed to attribute responsibility where it truly belongs: the Islamic Republic of Iran, the chief backer, funder, and military supplier of Islamic Jihad.

It was a missed opportunity. As a proxy of Iran, Islamic Jihad has the same objective as its patron: the destruction of Israel and the termination of Western political, military, and ideological influence in the Middle East. Islamic Jihad’s manifesto repudiates “any peaceful solution to the Palestinian cause” and affirms “the Jihad solution and the martyrdom style as the only choice for liberation.” The United States, the manifesto asserts, is the “Great-Satan.”