Israel Matzav

Meanwhile, back in Canada....

“A lot of us were a bit taken aback that members of a national parliament would heckle a visiting foreign leader,” Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister of employment and social development, told The Times of Israel Tuesday.

Kenney added that the Arab MKs’ conduct contrasted strikingly with the attitude of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who hosted Harper earlier on Monday in Ramallah. “I attended our meetings with President Abbas earlier in the day,” said Kenney. Abbas “was extremely gracious, offered nothing but warm words of welcome and partnership, expressed gratitude for Canada’s constructive role that we’re playing here.”

Abbas was also “asked by Canadian media to criticize us,” but “refrained from doing so,” added Kenney. “I mean if the president of the Palestinian Authority could do that, I would hope that a member of the Israeli Knesset could.”

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Kenney said Harper “was prepared” for possible interruptions, “because he saw what was happening with the prime minister’s [Netanyahu's] speech.” He noted, too, that Harper had plenty of experience with heckling, since “our House of Commons is as boisterous as the Knesset… Everyone here thinks you’ve got the wildest show in town” but a quick YouTube search can show “how rancorous our Question Time can be.”

Nonetheless, Canada’s parliament wouldn’t heckle a visiting foreign leader, Kenney stressed. “It only happened once, in the 1980s, when a Socialist [member of parliament] heckled Ronald Reagan. But that was really an exception.”

The interruptions did “prove a point,” however, Kenney noted. “This is the only parliament in the Middle East where that could possibly happen. I think that’s fair to say.”

Labels: Ahmed Tibi, Israeli Knesset, Stephen Harper

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:10 PM