Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird breaks taboos
Can we make it official yet? With the United States under Obama no longer as officially friendly to Israel as was once the case, I think we ought to declare Canada to be Israel's best friend. Case in point:
Canadian foreign minister John Baird.
Canada’s foreign minister did something this week that most of his
Western colleagues adamantly refuse to do: he met with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni in her office at the Justice Ministry, which is located in East Jerusalem.
Most
Western countries refuse to let their officials attend meetings at
Israeli government offices in East Jerusalem, lest this be viewed as
recognizing Israel’s annexation of that part of the city.
Nor
was that all John Baird did: He also visited an Israeli army outpost in
the Golan Heights to view the situation on the Syrian border firsthand
and receive an intelligence briefing on Syria’s civil war. The Golan is
another area many Western countries bar their officials from visiting,
lest it be viewed as recognizing Israel’s annexation of the heights.
A
senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official said that Baird made both
visits despite opposition from diplomats at Canada’s embassy in Tel
Aviv.
A
nongovernmental Israeli source involved in Israeli-Canadian relations
noted that Baird also violated the East Jerusalem taboo last time he was
here, by visiting Jerusalem’s Old City with an official Israeli escort.
“Baird recognizes the sensitivity, but he wants to set a precedent,”
this source said.
Ironically, Baird met with Livni to hear her views on 'negotiations' with the 'Palestinians' since Livni is now nominally in charge of those 'negotiations.'
Perhaps more ironically, I would rate Baird as being more pro-Israel than Livni.
I haven't been to Canada since 1999, although I've had (and have) clients in Toronto and Vancouver. If you can find me a reason to take a business trip there, I would love to come visit Israel's best friend.
Thanks Canada! Thanks John Baird!
Labels: Canada, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, John Baird, Tzipi Livni
Canada closes embassy in Iran, expels Iranian diplomats
Canada has closed its embassy in Iran, expelled all Iranian diplomats from Canada and
suspended all diplomatic relations with the mullahcracy. The move by foreign affairs minister John Baird on Friday was sudden and unexpected (Hat Tip:
Pat M).
Baird branded Iran as the “most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today.”
He cited a list of long-standing beefs with the regime in Tehran as justification for the abrupt move, including Iranian military assistance to Syria and its refusal to comply with United Nations resolutions on its nuclear program.
“It routinely threatens the existence of Israel and engages in racist anti-Semitic rhetoric and incitement to genocide; it is among the world’s worst violators of human rights,” Baird told reporters in Vladivostok, Russia.
Pressed on why Canada decided to act now on grievances it’s had for months and years, Baird said only, “There’s just a long list of reasons why we’re coming to this decision.”
But he said the main motivation was an attack on the British embassy in Tehran nine months ago and worries that Canadian diplomats were in danger.
“It just got to a point where we just are very uncomfortable putting their lives at risk, and I’ll tell you . . . this is a decision obviously we don’t take lightly,” said Baird as he arrived in the Russian city for a meeting of APEC leaders.
Yet the sudden decision immediately provoked speculation that the long-discussed military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities by Israel and others was imminent, a suggestion that Baird’s office later sought to downplay.
The decision was announced after a skeleton staff of about eight Canadian foreign affairs employees had already returned home from Iran. There are about 17 workers in the Iranian embassy and they’ve been given five days to leave Canada, a foreign affairs official said.
The federal government is also urging Canadians to avoid travel to Iran.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Ramin Mehmanparast, called Canada’s decision “hasty and extreme” and said that Iran would soon respond, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
But the diplomatic ousting won applause in other quarters, including from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Canada also had some domestic considerations.
The latest move also comes amid accusations that officials working out of the Iranian embassy in Ottawa have been attempting to infiltrate the Iranian community in Canada.
“These activities using cultural organizations, student groups, as fronts have seen to be aimed at infiltrating the Iranian diaspora and neutralizing opposition to the regime,” said Payam Akhavan, a law professor at McGill University and founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre.
“Many of us involved in human rights activities have had to contend with the infiltration of our community by individuals who are effectively agents of the regime,” he said in an interview Friday.
Over the course of the Sabbath, I finished reading Reza Khalili's book
A Time to Betray (that's not his real name - it's a pseudonym). 'Khalili' is an Iranian who volunteered to be a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the 1980's, and also spent about a year and a half as a double agent in London, continuing serving the CIA while the Guards thought he was working for them. He is now living in California under a name other than Khalili and does not go out in public without a mask. Every Iranian embassy around the world is full of Revolutionary Guards and is used to spy on Iranians in the host country. It's not surprising that the Iranian embassy in Ottawa would be attempting to infiltrate the local community. I'm glad that the Canadians were strong enough to put a stop to it.
Iran may yet retaliate.
Labels: Canada, Iranian nuclear threat, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, John Baird, Reza Khalili
Canada reverses itself?
Last week, Canada
'saved' Israel at the G8 by lobbying hard not to include a reference to Israel retreating to the '1967 lines' as part of the final communique. That was accredited to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is viewed as a friend of Israel. Now, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird seems to be
reversing the policy.
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill, Mr. Baird backed U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for Israel to either return East Jerusalem to the Palestinians and dismantle settlements in the West Bank or hand over other territory in compensation as part of the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
“We support, obviously, that that solution has to be based on the ’67 border, with mutually agreed upon swaps, as President Obama said,” Mr. Baird said.
...
Mr. Baird said his statement was not an about-face in Tory policy, but he appeared not to be familiar with Resolution 242, the 1967 UN declaration calling on Israel to pull its troops back.
Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, who has an interest in foreign affairs, demonstrated his knowledge of the issue with a casual reference to 242.
“Go back to President Nixon, Mr. Kissinger, all that, all the efforts, the Madrid process, the Oslo process, all the events, the Annapolis process, more recently the effort that President Obama began. All these efforts since what, 40 years, are based on 242.”
It's not certain that Baird was reversing policy. After all, from reading what Harper actually said, it seems that he objected to including
only the reference to the '1967 lines' without including
other aspects of Obama's speech.
That may be the policy, but the real question here is why do there need to be 'agreed swaps' at all. Israel gained control of Judea and Samaria (and all of the other territory liberated in the 1967 war) in a defensive action against a war of aggression by three Arab armies attacking simultaneously. No other country in the World would be asked to return land won under such circumstances. And certainly, no other country in the World would be asked to compensate for land that it kept under such circumstances at a one-for-one ratio.
And indeed, until Ehud Olmert came along, no Israeli Prime Minister had ever agreed to a one-for-one 'exchange.' Resolution 242, which calls for the return of 'territories' certainly doesn't call for it, and nearly everyone involved in its drafting agrees that the intention was for Israel to retain at least enough of the land that it liberated to ensure its security.
So even if Baird has correctly stated Canadian policy, is that policy correct?
A one-for-one exchange certainly seems out of place.
Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, John Baird, Stephen Harper
