Eternal (for now) Support

"Canada's governmental and public support for Israel has been unwavering and encouraging throughout our history. I have no doubt that this important visit is a celebration of fraternity for the two countries, and I believe that it will further strengthen the ties between them."
Israeli Knesset Speaker, Yuli Edelstein

"Most people elsewhere in the world don't pay any attention to what Canada does or says, on Israel or anything else. This will get international attention, and a lot of people will politically wake up all over the place, from Morocco to Pakistan. We know that he's been by far the most pro-Israel Canadian prime minister ever, but the rest of the world doesn't. It will put it on the map, and he's going to own it from now on."
Henry Srebrnik, professor political science, University of Prince Edward Island

Israel President Shimon Peres talks with Canadian Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper before a meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Monday May 7, 2012. Harper will make history in Israel next week when he becomes the first Canadian leader to address the Israeli legislature. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

 

What Professor Srebrnik is referring to is the travel to Israel by Prime Minister Stephen Harper next week, his first trip to the country. Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, spoke of Mr. Harper as a "brave and true friend of Israel." That much is more than evident; this is the first Canadian administration that has made no bones about its support for the security, defence and well-being of Israel.

Both Mr. Harper's public utterances and that of Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird have been well publicized in favour of Israel. Both have made statements at the United Nations and about the United Nations and its associated agencies with their anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic agendas.

Israel has been the odd man out at the United Nations since its birth in 1948, authorized by the Security Council at the time, political cliques, very powerful ones clustered about Muslim and Arab nations and the power of their oil money and their numbers have made Israel a target time and again to be cited for human rights abuses, accusations levelled by the world's worst human rights abusers.

Prime Minister Harper stated unequivocally on more than one occasion that Canada, under his leadership, would no longer "go along to get along". A pledge that cost Canada a seat on the revolving Security Council, for its intransigence on the "Israel" file. Israeli President Chaim Herzog back in June 1989, made a state visit to Canada and was invited by the government of Brian Mulroney to address a joint session of the House of Commons and the Senate, another first.

When Joe Clark was briefly Prime Minister of Canada as the youngest prime minister ever, he tried to make good on an election promise, to move the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in recognition of Israel's wish to declare Jerusalem unequivocally the country's indivisible capital. A move that sought to bypass international strictures against giving official recognition to Jerusalem as the Israeli capital; the ancient city's status declared by the international community to be in contention.

A month ago, Prime Minister Harper spoke of Israel as "the light of freedom and democracy in what is otherwise a region of darkness", pledging Canada's eternal friendship. That eternal friendship, to the degree to which Mr. Harper has taken it to, will certainly last as long as his administration does. Before the country returns, as it may, to Liberal stewardship, at which time the friendship may remain, but the intensity of it will be much diminished.

Returning Canada back to the dreary, uncommitted status quo under the Liberals, of cautious support and fence-sitting characterized by an unwillingness to offend the Middle East's other countries' governments which have never made much of a secret of their hostility to the existence of a Jewish state in their midst.