Insulting the Peace Process

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's trip to the Middle East, the first of his administration where the Prime Minister himself was involved taking him to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan on a political-diplomatic and humanitarian mission has garnered more than its share of criticism from the opposition parties in Canada and from the press. But that's more or less par for the course for this Conservative-led government, which sees itself criticized whatever it does.

Left-leaning academics (are there any other types?), former members of the diplomatic corps, journalists and opposition critics all decry the lack of balance, of moderation, in this prime minister's administration, amply demonstrated by its unwavering support for the State of Israel. Canada no longer engages in its traditional display of fence-sitting in the United Nations, choosing instead to support a small Jewish nation ostracized by non-aligned and Muslim bloc countries powerful enough to marginalize its presence at the world body.

When the UN's Human Rights group whose members are mostly comprised of some of the world's most troubling human rights abusers single out Israel time and time again for infractions of human rights ascribed to Israel, Canada stands foursquare in defence of Israel, charging its detractors for the charlatan-accusers that they are. UNESCO is another UN body riddled with the presence of those congenitally averse to giving Israel its full heritage due, and there too Canada stands tall in support of Israel.

Previous Canadian governments have seen fit to support Israel, but in a much more low-key manner, preferring to demur, to refrain from voting, or timidly suggesting that they weren't quite on board with hypocritical denunciations against Israel. During the Prime Minister's trip this week, critics have written and spoken of the unseemly warmth with which Stephen Harper has embraced Israel, its existence, its values and its liberal-democratic presence in a region burdened by tyrants and autocrats.

Back in Canada, the commentary was a total collective moan over the government's total capitulation in praise of a country less than perfect in its politics and its social attitude toward non-Jews within its borders living as full-fledged citizens with all the rights and privileges pertaining to that status, including that of sitting in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, as elected members, there to advance the fortunes of those who elected them.

Canada had the privilege of its taxpayers paying the Bloc Quebecois as the official opposition when it achieved that majority status through a federal vote in Quebec. Effectively fostering and encouraging and enabling an avowed separatist party insistent on its right to secede from Canada with all entitlements intact, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. That's repugnant enough. Imagine a country whose taxes support MKs who actively agitate for the violent dissolution of the state they represent?

But who bridle at the very suggestion that the geography within state boundaries that they represent might be carved out and handed to the Palestinian Authority for inclusion in their nascent state in exchange for a similar carving-out of land currently possessed by the PA in the West Bank upon which Israeli citizens have built settlements. And the Palestinian Israelis insistent they have no wish to become citizens of a Palestinian state, preferring to remain with their Israeli passports, thank you very much.

Into this unholy mess of violence incited by one leader against the population represented as the responsibility of another leader, both of whom are purported to be invested in negotiations to lead to the eventuality of two states leading side by side. And one country being forced to expend huge amounts of its capital on weapons and security, while the other is mostly supported through international subscription in charity to the world's longest standing refugee group.

Canada's long, lost reputation as "honest broker", laments the press, is over. We have become unabashed cheerleaders for one side over the other, refusing to criticize, intent on proving our 'best friends' credentials. Earlier governments, other prime ministers under both leading political parties saw Canada's best interests to be found in moderation, championing neither one nor the other. And so, it is a dreadful pity that this man, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has sullied Canada's reputation on the international scene.

He has done that by forthright admissions of admiration for a nation that has been forced since its advent as a sovereign nation to defend itself against the combined military attacks of its neighbours. And against the guerrilla warfare of a terrorist type seeking to obliterate the lives of as many Israeli citizens, regardless of age and civilian status as possible, in a demonstration of sheer unadulterated hatred. And he has had the unmitigated gall to assess critically the affairs of other Middle East countries which have dissolved into vitriolic, violent convulsions, courtesy of Islamic fundamentalism.

Which makes it all the more interest, in mourning the passage of time and the fact that Canada has besmirched its previous reputation because it no longer sees any function in "going along to get along", to read a bitter observation from a source reflecting the values of the Middle East, parsing the visit of a previous Canadian prime minister, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien:

Prime Minister Jean Chretien Sides with Israel

Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s 12-day visit to Israel, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia was a major media event in April 2000. “Chretien Planning to Tread Carefully on Mideast Trip,” proclaimed a headline in the Globe and Mail the week before his departure, quoting government officials. But it seems that no one briefed the prime minister on what was supposed to be his strategy. Instead the first-ever trip to Israel by a Canadian prime minister revealed clearly how successfully the Zionist lobby has exerted its influence on him.
How else can one explain Chretien’s rewriting of Canadian foreign policy on some controversial issues on his own, to the embarrassment of officials in Ottawa?
The story began with the prime minister’s arrival in Jerusalem. He visited the western (Israeli) part of the city but not (Palestinian) East Jerusalem. Understandably, Palestinian officials were upset that Chretien found the time to meet Israel’s president, prime minister and Supreme Court president, and Jerusalem’s mayor, without finding any time for Palestinian officials.
“It is an insult for the peace process,” said Faisal Husseini, the former Palestinian negotiator who now functions unofficially as the leading Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem. “The role of other states will be hurt in the peace process if they do not adopt a balanced policy between East and West Jerusalem,” he told the Canadian Press. “Yes, this can hurt us. Yes, this can offend us.”
In fact, the issue of Jerusalem transcends the Palestinians. By favoring the Israeli position Chretien ignored no fewer than 11 Security Council resolutions, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the long-standing Canadian reputation for neutrality on this issue. He also ignored the closely held religious attachment to the city of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. They do not contest the Palestinian Authority’s right to negotiate on all issues involving not only the Palestinians, but on the question of Jerusalem the entire global Muslim population claims a stake.
Chretien also threw in his two cent’s worth on the tense situation between Israel and Syria by siding with Israel on its claim over the Sea of Galilee. He said that Israel has the right to keep the entire area captured from Syria in the 1967 war. Interestingly, nobody even asked his opinion on this issue—one upon which Canada had never taken a position until his remarks.
Another big victory—however short-lived—for Tel Aviv came in Chretien’s rumored offer to accept 15,000 Palestinian refugees. The alleged offer, leaked by Ehud Barak’s officials to the Israeli press, caused a storm not only among Palestinians, but back home in Canada. A stunned immigration minister denied any such plans. Later, Chretien also denied any such commitment.
Such an offer would play right into Israel’s hopes of washing its hands of the refugee problem without letting Palestinians return to their homeland. In moving away from Canada’s long history of neutrality, Chretien had no similar concession for the Palestinians, although many in the media and the Zionist lobby sought to depict his concession that the Palestinians have the right to declare independence unilaterally if the peace process falls through as a major shift. In fact, however, Chretien already had articulated this position when Yasser Arafat was contemplating the declaration of statehood on May 4, 1999 and traveled the world to gauge international reaction.