Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is accompanied on his current trip to Israel, Palestine and Jordan by key advisers such as Employment Minister Jason Kenney whom some see as the likely next leader of the Conservative party, if not prime minister, and by the memories of Harper’s late father, Joseph Harper.
Joseph Harper embraced the Presbyterian church and was shocked by the Christians’ treatment of Jews, especially the barbaric Holocaust. His teachings of compassion touched young Stephen and made him a fervent advocate of the Jewish people’s right to live in security, peace and dignity in Israel.
This goal is supported by Canadians, many of whom feel guilty about their racist and bigoted past - their severe discrimination against Aboriginals, non-whites and Jews. Even in 1939, Canada, the United States and Cuba turned back 937 German Jews who fled Nazi persecution on the ship St. Louis. The ship had to return to Europe when Canada, the US and Cuba said “no” to them. The UK took 288 passengers, France 224, Belgium 214 and the Netherlands 181. The rest returned to Germany where about a quarter of them perished in concentration camps.
Though everyone condemns the Holocaust, even now Jews, particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe, seek asylum in Canada and other countries to escape persecution. Many Christians remember also that Christian warriors ruthlessly slaughtered Jews, along with Muslims, on conquering Spain and Jerusalem.
But the Canadian government does not merely support Israel’s right to exist. It is silent on Israel’s violations of United Nations resolutions, building of illegal settlements and an illegal wall on other people’s land, unending occupation of Palestinian lands, ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, setting up hundreds of checkpoints to control the movement of Palestinians in their own land and manufacturing atomic weapons and refusal to seek a just peace.
This silence implies approval of Israeli policies. As Murtaza Hussain wrote in the Toronto Globe and Mail: “Mr. Harper has been a more steadfast friend to the Israeli right-wing than to the country itself. By supporting Israel’s self-defeating colonization of the Palestinian territories, Canada is leading that country deeper into a morass of international isolation and destroying the possibility of a two-state solution that would allow it a Jewish demographic majority. While Mr. Harper may be a “rock star” in Israel today as described by Linda Frum, his apologetics for such policies may soon be looked upon as merely enabling national self-destruction rather than as a reflection of firm and honest friendship.”
These violations of human rights have shocked Christian churches, conscientious Jews and youth in Canada and the United States. But Canadian leaders keep presenting a distorted picture.
Said Liberal party foreign affairs critic Marc Garneau: “If you’re going to be helpful to your friends you’ve got to be able to talk to them honestly. Not only to tell them that you support them very strongly but you also have to be able to make some constructive suggestions on occasion. Otherwise, we’re just a cheering section.”
New Democratic party foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar stated that Harper has compromised Canada’s ability to be seen as a “bridge-builder” between Israelis and Palestinians. “They set up a false choice and put it out there that if you’re not with us, you’re against us. And if you’re not with the government sworn in in Israel, then you’re against the people of Israel. Which is nonsense.”
Peter Jones, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa and visiting fellow at Stanford University, said Harper’s foreign policy is “about his party’s short-term, narrowly defined domestic political interests. It is about negative campaigning and the politics of fear and division. .. The only good thing one can say … is that the Conservatives have managed to make Canada so irrelevant to the key issues on the world stage that we can do little damage by taking these positions - except to ourselves.”
Supporting Canadian foreign policy, Derek H. Burney, a former Canadian ambassador, and Fen Osler Hampson, a professor at Carleton University, lauded Foreign Minister John Baird for being “front and center in denouncing forced marriages of underaged girls.” He said: “Canada is not in a position to guarantee security to anyone in the Middle East. We have focused instead on smart diplomacy with humanitarian assistance and a consistent defense of values we cherish. That is the reality of our diplomacy in the region.”
In 2012 Canada found itself, along with eight countries, opposing 138 states that voted in favor of granting Palestine a “non-member observer status” at the United Nations. Canada finds itself out of step with the rest of the world. Its policies suggest that it believes that Palestinians should do nothing peacefully, or through violence, to reclaim their freedom. They must apparently learn to enjoy oppression, displacement, economic deprivation and occupation otherwise they will incur Canada’s wrath.
This is weird advice. No wonder Canada is rapidly losing credibility, respect and admiration as a country that promotes justice, peace, freedom and democracy for all people. It used to do so. No longer, alas.
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.
