Labels: Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Operation Protective Edge, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:22 AM
2 comments
Labels: Canada, Jason Kenney, Scarlet Johansson, SodaStream, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:21 AM
0 comments
Labels: Canada, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:49 PM
4 comments
Israel's mainstream media conducted an unofficial boycott of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's visit to Israel last week. The leading nationwide television channel, Channel 2, devoted only a single minute of coverage to Harper's address to the Knesset, and did so only in the second half of the evening news program, according to Maariv's Kalman Libeskind, who analyzed the shameful phenomenon in his latest column. Half of that minute covered hostile Arab MK Ahmed Tibi's heckling of Harper.
Channel 10, the second nationwide commercial channel, completely blacked out the visit. Its news show did not cover the speech with even a single second of airtime.And you can probably guess why. But of course, there was no way Israel's Leftist media was going to cover the visit of a pro-Israel foreign leader who came here with his foreign minister and five other cabinet members. But Harper took it straight to the media.
Harper was quick to understand how things work in Israel, added Libeskind. In a news conference on the day after his Knesset speech, he berated Israeli reporters, who kept on asking him about Israeli “settlements.”
"Yesterday in the Palestinian Authority,” Harper said, “no one asked me to criticize the Palestinian Authority on matters of governance, human rights or any other subject. When I am in Israel I'm asked to criticize Israel, and when I am in the Palestinian Authority I am asked to criticize Israel.”We really are our own worst enemy.
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, anti-Israeli Israelis, Israeli media bias, Kalman Liebskind, liberal media bias, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:51 PM
3 comments
This is to inform you that I have cancelled my subscription to the Montreal Gazette in protest of that disgusting cartoon your paper has chosen to publish of Prime Minister Stephen Harper dated January 21, 2014.
In a time when the Muslim world is exploding into war, mass slaughter, mayhem, fratricide, suicide bombings, persecution of Christians and gays, incitement to hatred being taught in schools, the export of terror and the spreading of fanatic Islamic ideology, your “newspaper” has chosen to seize the opportunity to denigrate our Prime Minister for his support of the State of Israel, a nation that reflects Canada’s social principles and values.
This so-called “cartoon” is vulgar in so many ways, it should be banished to the trash can of ignorance and veiled anti-Semitisim.
It portrays Israel (and the Jews as a whole) as being in control of Canada’s policies (this which is echoed and chirped by Jew haters of every stripe).
It portrays Prime Minister Harper as a passive lackey of Israel, bending to the wishes of the Jewish State.
I don’t recall seeing a similar portrayal of Barack Obama after his famous love-in speech given to the Muslim world in Cairo, back in 2009. No way would your left wing publication print such a vile representation of a statesman who quoted the wonderful contributions Islam has bestowed upon America.Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Leftist anti-Semitism, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:26 PM
3 comments
The Times of Israel: In light of Harper’s very supportive speech, many Israelis think he was spot on, broadly speaking, and that the rest of the world doesn’t get it. Why is there a gulf between Canada and very few other countries on the one side, and the rest of the world on the other, where Israel is concerned?
Jason Kenney: Partly because as our prime minister said, “it’s always easier to go along to get along” — that is to say, [to follow] the path of least resistance. That certainly characterized Canada’s status quo-ante policy.
It’s no secret that the foreign ministries of most Western countries have an institutional bias against Israel that is probably informed by the fact that there is one Jewish state and dozens of other Islamic and Arabic states. That frankly informs the professional public service in most Western foreign ministries.
You mean there are 20 times as many diplomats who have served in Arab countries?
And 40 times more in Muslim countries. That’s right. The prime minister more or less intimated that in his speech. That means you’ve got dozens more diplomats and foreign policy wonks who absorb a particular perspective which is frankly and obviously hostile to Israel.
So that becomes the default position. It takes a profound act, it takes great intentionality on the part of political actors, to overcome that kind of institutional bias to begin with.
Secondly, the political incentives are not in favor of this. In the United State of course, with a large constituency of Christian Zionists, and the not insignificant influence of the Jewish community, there’s always been a strong political constituency generally to support Israel, but that doesn’t exist in Western Europe and it doesn’t exist in Canada.
The Jewish community constitutes 1% of our population at most, and there’s no Christian Zionist constituency to speak of. For most people, if they’re not familiar with the complicated politics and history of the region, they don’t understand why a government would want to take clear positions on this.
So you’ve got an institutional bias built into most Western foreign ministries, you’ve got a lack of political incentives to take these positions. I think that helps to explain it.
Those are the only two factors, or would you bring other factors into the mix? Is anti-Semitism in there somewhere, if not the dominant feature? Demographics — the fact that, for instance, there are 10 times as many Muslims as Jews in France? That hardly encourages a French MP, say, to take a fair-minded position on Israel and the region.
The positions that we have taken have been demonstrably against our electoral advantage. Some of the superannuated foreign policy establishment in Canada have grasped for an explanation as to why our government has taken these arguably contentious positions. And the simplest explanation they can come up with, which is really the dumbest, is that the Conservative Party has taken this position to advance our electoral interests. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is this: With the Jewish community representing less than 1% of our population, it tends to be concentrated in urban core electoral districts which have typically been inaccessible to the Conservative Party.
During the Lebanon conflict in 2006, our prime minister was flying to his first G8 summit, in Saint Petersburg, the day after the IDF began its operation in Lebanon, and he was asked by our media to respond. He was advised by officials to take a pass: Get to Saint Petersburg, hear what the consensus is, and follow it. That’s the Canadian modus operandi. He said no, I think under the circumstances we need to assert Israel’s right to defend itself. So he went to the back of his plane and said in a press scrum, he said, Under the circumstances I think that Israel’s reaction is restrained. Well, this quote was considered verboten by many, and it was played along with images of the devastation in Lebanon for the next several weeks and our party lost over the course of the six weeks of that conflict I think about eight percent in the public opinion polls.
So right from the very beginning we’ve been willing to spend political capital to do what’s right on this issue.
Read the whole thing.On anti-Semitism, one thing that’s not recognized here perhaps is that in addition to the positions we’ve taken on Israel and the politics of the Middle East, we’ve also become a global leader in combating anti-Semitism and promoting Holocaust commemoration, education and research. This year Canada’s chairing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. We hosted the last meeting of the inter-parliamentary coalition for combating anti-Semitism. That led to the Ottawa protocol, that essentially said that not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, but those who tend to single out Israel for opprobrium or condemnation or question the legitimacy of the Jewish state are arguably giving expression to hateful views.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Canada, Conservatives, Durban II Conference, Jason Kenney, Second Lebanon War, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:54 PM
0 comments
“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.”
Somehow, I think that point will be lost on Tibi and his friends.
Labels: Ahmed Tibi, Israeli Knesset, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:10 PM
1 comments
Members of Harper's entourage had made a preliminary tour of the Mount Sunday morning. The Waqf's announcement that it would not allow the Jewish bodyguards in was made at the last moment, supposedly because the Waqf did not know earlier that some of the guards were Jewish.
Harper would not enter the Mount without the bodyguards and the visit was cancelled, according to a press statement by B'nai Brith Canada.
...
However, the Huffington Post has a different version of what happened.
"Planning and logistics required on a trip like this can be complicated and unfortunately we weren't able to make it work in a manner that satisfied the security organizations involved," Harper spokesman Jason MacDonald said of the decision to cancel the visit, according to the publication.
"Specifically,” he is cited as saying, “Shin Bet (the Israel Security Agency) would not guarantee that they would not enter the mosque."
While the Huffington Post quote is ambiguous, MacDonald was apparently saying that the Shin Bet refused to promise that if disturbances occur, its men would refrain from entering the Al Aqsa Mosque. It is not clear whether the people demanding this commitment were the Waqf or the Canadians.
...
Arutz Sheva spoke to sources in the Foreign Ministry who confirmed that the Waqf had cancelled Harper's visit. However, their version was that the Waqf simply refused to allow Canadian security men into the Temple Mount.You can bet that if Israel gives up 'control' of the Old City, there won't be any Jews allowed in.
Glick, a prominent Temple activist and LIBA project coordinator, told Arutz Sheva Wednesday that he spoke to sources within Harper's entourage who confirmed that the Waqf refused to allow Jewish bodyguards into the Mount.
Labels: Stephen Harper, Temple Mount, Wakf
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:04 PM
0 comments
"We are 20 per cent of the population, we are suffering discrimination," Tibi said in an interview to air at 5 p.m. ET on CBC News Network.
"That democracy of Israel is a selective democracy, ethnic democracy. Canada is a democracy and people are equal without relation to their ethnic background. Here, there's a problem with that," he said.
Tibi is a deputy speaker of Knesset and leader of the Arab Movement for Change, or Ta'al.
Canada's foreign policy toward Israel is "biased, non-balanced, and that's why Canada has a very marginal role in the Middle East," Tibi said.
He and colleague Abu Arar walked out, Tibi said, "to say that we are very much unsatisfied with the remarks and the policy of Prime Minister Harper. It is very diplomatic. It's a protest which is legitimate in any parliament."
...
Tibi said Harper didn't mention the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Canada officially opposes Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967, although Harper has refrained from criticizing Israel for its policy.
"When you are controlling, discriminating, confiscating, occupying lands from one side and putting them in the corner without any basic rights, you are by this way ruling and committing apartheid in the occupied Palestinian Territories," Tibi said.
"If he is talking about freedom, why [is he] totally neglecting the absence of freedom of the Palestinians under occupation? It is a double-standard. These words are moral double-standard from the prime minister of Canada."Isn't it funny, then, that every time Avigdor Lieberman proposes a population exchange that would send 'Israeli Arabs' to 'Palestine' and Jews to Israel, the 'Israeli Arabs' object? I wonder why....
Labels: Ahmed Tibi, Israeli apartheid, Israeli Arabs are a fifth column, Israeli Knesset, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:34 AM
1 comments
[T]he Rabbi attended and spoke briefly at my September talk in Canada.
Their letter charged that both Robert Spencer, who also spoke at that September event, and I “have a lengthy and clear record of promoting anti-Muslim sentiments and demonization.” In support of this, they listed a number of statements (wrenched from explanatory context, of course) that are demonstrably true and abundantly established by every day’s headlines. Do they think Harper, a strong defender of Israel, is so stupid as to be blind to the reality of Islamic jihad?
Whatever the nature of the things that I say, Rabbi Korobkin didn’t utter them and is not by any conceivable stretch of the imagination responsible for them. It is bitterly ironic that Islamic supremacist groups would label my efforts to defend the freedom of speech and equality of rights for all people before the law as “anti-Muslim.” That speaks volumes. However, whatever my work may be about, it is not Rabbi Korobkin’s work or his responsibility.
There is another strategy at play here: the message is being sent to every rabbi and clergyman, and everyone in the public square, that if you have anything to do in the public square with those fighting jihad and Sharia, they will come after you.You don't think Canada's Muslims are trying to shut their opponents up, do you?
Labels: Canada, freedom of speech, Islam, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:16 AM
0 comments
Here's an exception that proves the rule that (nearly) all politicians are liars: Canada's Stephen Harper (Hat Tip: Jack).“Iran is a very serious threat to international peace and security. In my judgment, it is the world’s most serious threat to international peace and security,” Harper said Thursday in an interview with Calgary radio station CHQR.It's a pity that Canada is not a bigger power and that Harper apparently has little influence on his American counterpart.
“This is a regime that wants to acquire nuclear weapons, it is clearly trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and it has indicated some desire to actually use nuclear weapons.”
...
Harper said Canada’s sanctions on Iran, which include prohibiting financial transactions with the country, are having some impact, but a co-ordinated international response may be needed.
“The wider international community — even including the Chinese and Russians — that community I think does appreciate that this is a serious threat. I think the problem is there’s not a consensus on what to do about it precisely,” he added.
On the situation in Syria, Harper said President Bashar al-Assad “must go” and that the violent repression is “disgraceful” and will prove to be unsuccessful.
However, he said that unlike Libya, there hasn’t yet been a resolution from the United Nations Security Council for a military operation in Syria and he doubts there’s an appetite for it at this point.
“My own read of the situation is that Canada’s principal allies would not be prepared to go to a military option in this case without such a resolution,” Harper said. “I don’t anticipate that at this point.”
Labels: Canada, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:16 PM
1 comments
A series of interviews with participants at the Conservative party conference in Ottowa this past week ought to be music to the ears of Israelis. When asked about Harper’s government taking the lead in rejecting the UN Durban Review Conference in Geneva (Durban II) in 2009 and the Durban III event slated to take place in New York City on September 21, Jason Kenney, the minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, said: “Under the previous liberal government, Canada participated at Durban I [in 2001], and I think there was a pretty broad recognition after the fact that it was mistake for Canada to lend its good name to that circus of hatred at Durban I.”Read the whole thing.
Human rights groups and the US and Israeli governments said the UN World Conference against Racism 2001 held in Durban was marred by rabidly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups’ protests and a resolution that singled out and attacked Israel.
When “our government came to office, we were the first country in the world to announce that we would not participate in the Durban II review conference. We did so because our assessment was that a repeat of the some of the most egregious aspects of Durban I was likely... because countries like Iran and Libya were on the organizing committee for Durban II, which was all we needed to know,” Kenney, 43, a charismatic MP and gifted public speaker from Calgary, Alberta, said.
The organizers of the Durban II conference invited all of the NGOs from the Durban I event, including some of the most “egregious anti-Semitic” groups, and scheduled meetings on Jewish High Holy Days, “presumably to limit the participation of Jewish NGOs,” he said.
According to Kenney, Canada decided that the Durban process was “basically irredeemable” and the “UN should drop it.” It has become a “sick joke and sullies the reputation of the UN,” he said.
Canada was the first country to announce, on November 25, 2010, that it will not participate in the Durban III conference in New York.
“Navi Pillay and her crew should stop the process and realize that the poison at Durban I” has placed “the entire process under a permanent cloud,” Kenney said. Pillay is the UN high commissioner for human rights and oversees the Durban conference process.
“A conference that gives a platform to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to advocate genocide is a sick joke,” and advocates of Durban should stop defending the process, Kenney said.
He pointed to Canada’s multicultural system as the “most successful model of pluralism” and said Canada is always keen to participate in a legitimate process to address xenophobia, hatred, prejudice and racism.
Canada has set a example for the world on how “to deal with diversity in a positive way” and “the official policy of multiculturalism is an example to other liberal democracies, he said. Canadian multiculturalism rejects cultural relativism, Kenney said, citing such “barbaric cultural practices” as “honor killings,” female genital mutilation, and forced marriages.
Labels: Canada, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Durban III, Hamilton Jewish Federation, Jason Kenney, Never Again Group, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:03 AM
2 comments
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.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.
“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.”
Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, John Baird, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:29 PM
3 comments
Israel has thanked Canada for being a 'true friend' after the Canadians stood up for Israel at the G8 in Deauville, France on Friday and prevented the adoption of a resolution referring to the '1967 lines.' Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman phoned Canada’s new Foreign Minister John Baird over the weekend to thank him for Ottawa’s position at the Group of Eight meeting in France that led to the softening of a statement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the elimination of a reference to the 1967 lines.The Canadians said that if you're going to specifically cite the '1967 lines' you also have to cite other parts of the speech such as that one of the two states be a Jewish state, and that the 'Palestinian state' be demilitarized.
Canada was a “true friend of Israel,” and through a correct reading of the situation understand that the 1967 lines were incompatible with both defensible borders for Israel and demographic realities, Lieberman said.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had insisted that no mention of the 1967 lines be made in the leaders’ final communiqué, even though most of the other leaders wanted a mention, diplomats said on Friday.
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with Harper by phone from Washington last week, Israeli officials said. Netanyahu had originally hoped to stop in Canada on his way back from the US, but was unable to do so because of scheduling conflicts.
“The Canadians were really very adamant, even though Obama expressly referred to 1967 borders in his speech last week,” one European diplomat said of Harper’s position.
In the final communiqué, the leaders called for the immediate resumption of peace talks, but did not mention the 1967 lines.
“Negotiations are the only way toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict,” the communiqué said. “The framework for these negotiations is well known. We urge both parties to return to substantive talks with a view to concluding a framework agreement on all final-status issues. To that effect, we express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama on May 19, 2011.”
Stephen Harper's spokesman is denying a report that Israel's prime minister specifically asked Canada to thwart G8 support for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders.Poor Israeli media. Poor Tzipi Livni. There's someone else aside from Israel who doesn't accept the '67 borders.'
A report published by Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Sunday quoted a senior Israeli official saying Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned Harper two days before the Group of Eight leaders met, and asked the prime minister to prevent the G8 from supporting the border proposal outlined in a statement by U.S. President Barack Obama.
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Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas told The Canadian Press Sunday that there was no G8 discussion with Netanyahu.
"The prime minister's views are long-standing and well known on the Middle East process towards a two state solution," Soudas said. "It's important that any statement on the Middle East always have balanced references to the various positions and the G8 statement is a balanced statement."
According to Haaretz however, Netanyahu told Harper that mentioning the border issue would be detrimental to Israeli interests and a reward to the Palestinians.
As the summit wrapped, European diplomats told reporters the omission of the Obama border proposal from the G8 statement was brought about because of objections from Canada.
Harper neither confirmed nor denied that report at the time. He told reporters that while he broadly supported the theme of Obama's speech, bits of it could not be cherry-picked as the basis for a peace deal.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Canada, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:31 PM
2 comments
Let's start finding ways to invest in and tour Canada. This is unreal!12.52 A G8 statement on Israel and Palestine had to be toned down after the Canadians objected to a specific mention of a return to the 1967 borders, according to unnamed diplomatic sources. Canada's right-leaning Conservative government insisted that no mention be made, against the wishes of most other leaders present, said the source:But it sounds like Barack Hussein Obama would have gone along with that statement. And you thought he walked back the '67 lines' (1949 armistice lines) when he spoke at AIPAC on Sunday, didn't you?The Canadians were really very adamant, even though Obama expressly referred to 1967 borders in his speech last week.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, G8 Conference, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:10 PM
5 comments
Coming just a few weeks after the stunning (due to its margin) re-election of Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Canada is not going to back Barack Hussein Obama's pressure on Israel (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). “What the government of Canada supports is basically a two-state solution that is negotiated,” a senior federal official said. “If it’s border, if it’s others issues, it has to be negotiated, it cannot be unilateral action.”Canada under Stephen Harper is a true friend of Israel.
Pressed by reporters, federal officials said both the Israelis and the Palestinians have to decide on their bottom lines, which the Israelis have said will not include a return to the 1967 border.
“If the two parties are of the view that this is a starting point, that is fine for them,” said the federal official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Prime Minister’s director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, added that Canada’s position continues to be the search for a two-state solution.
“No solution, ultimately, is possible without both parties sitting down, negotiating and agreeing on what that final outcome will look like,” he said.
Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Barack Hussein Obama, Canada, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Stephen Harper, two-state solution
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:20 PM
1 comments
Once upon a time, the United States could be counted on for moral clarity and to act as the World's conscience. With President Obama's attack on American exceptionalism, those days are now gone, and the burden of acting as the World's moral compass has fallen to other countries. Take Canada, for instance.Minister Jason Kenney said Canada has lost faith in the Durban process, a conference that began in 2001 to develop strategies to defeat racism.Is there any other country willing to stand up for moral principle? Speak now, and don't wait until 48 hours before the 'conference' is scheduled to take place.
"Canada is clearly committed to the fight against racism, but the Durban process commemorates an agenda that actually promotes racism rather than combats it."
Next year's event commemorates the 10th anniversary of the initial Durban conference that saw the United States walk out in protest over texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state.
The initial conference, which ended days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, produced the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.
The 62-page document raises 122 "general issues," among them "concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation." It "recognizes the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the right to an independent state."
But most offensive to Canada and several other countries were speeches laced with anti-Israeli rhetoric. Canada led a boycott of Durban II in Geneva last year, where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed against the Jewish state.
Labels: 9/11, Canada, Durban conference, Durban III, moral conscience, New York City, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:59 AM
1 comments
The best speech of the day on Monday was not delivered at the Jewish Federations General Assembly in New Orleans. It was delivered in Ottawa, Ontario by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Parliament Hill to a gathering of international parliamentarians and experts attending a conference on combating anti-Semitism.Two weeks ago I visited Ukraine for the first time. At the killing grounds of Babyn Yar, I knew I was standing in a place where evil – evil at its most cruel, obscene, and grotesque – had been unleashed. But while evil of this magnitude may be unfathomable, it is nonetheless a fact.Now, let's go to the videotape.
It is a fact of history. And it is a fact of our nature – that humans can choose to be inhuman. This is the paradox of freedom. That awesome power, that grave responsibility – to choose between good and evil.
Let us not forget that even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust, men were free to choose good. And some did. That is the eternal witness of the Righteous Among the Nations.
And let us not forget that even now, there are those who would choose evil, and would launch another Holocaust, if left unchecked. That is the challenge before us today.
In response to this resurgence of moral ambivalence on these issues, we must speak clearly.
Remembering the Holocaust is not merely an act of historical recognition. It must also be an understanding and an undertaking. An understanding that the same threats exist today. And an undertaking of a solemn responsibility to fight those threats.
Jews today in many parts of the world and many different settings are increasingly subjected to vandalism, threats, slurs, and just plain, old-fashioned lies.
Let me draw your attention to some particularly disturbing trends.
Anti-Semitism has gained a place at our universities, where at times it is not the mob who are removed, but the Jewish students under attack. And, under the shadow of a hateful ideology with global ambitions, one which targets the Jewish homeland as a scapegoat, Jews are savagely attacked around the world – such as, most appallingly, in Mumbai in 2008. [How's that for a swipe at Obama who skipped Chabad House? CiJ].
We have seen all this before. And we have no excuse to be complacent. In fact we have a duty to take action. And for all of us, that starts at home.
In Canada, we have taken a number of steps to assess and combat anti-Semitism in our own country. But of course we must also combat anti-Semitism beyond our borders, - an evolving, global phenomenon. And we must recognize, that while its substance is as crude as ever, its method is now more sophisticated.
Harnessing disparate anti-Semitic, anti-American and anti-Western ideologies, it targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so.
We must be relentless in exposing this new anti-Semitism for what it is. Of course, like any country, Israel may be subjected to fair criticism. And like any free country, Israel subjects itself to such criticism – healthy, necessary, democratic debate.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Canada, Israel, Stephen Harper
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:55 AM
2 comments
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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