World

Canada: A Loss of Balance on Israel

by moonwolf | May 22, 2008 at 12:19 pm | 360 views | 2 comments | 2 recommendations

OPINION: Canadians like to consider our foreign policy stance on all issues to be one of moderation and even handedness. We like to believe our government holds to principles of fairness, integrity and honest peaceful negotiation in geopolitics. However, 60 years after Canada assisted in the birth of Israel based on the professed plan to partition the region and create two equal states one comprised of Arabs and one of Jews, we see our national morality and beliefs casually thrown out by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Tories. The conditions agreed upon six decades ago to gain our support have not been met and instead we have is a whole population of Arab prisoners who as yet have no homeland, no freedom, and no say in their own future. Instead of quietly but firmly pressuring the Israeli's and the world community to live up to their agreements and obligations Harper has very openly thrown his unconditional support behind the Israeli Government in the illegal ethnic cleansing taking place in Palestine.

Canada has a long history of supporting Israel. But the nature of that support, particularly under the Harper government, is almost unrecognizable from its earlier form.

Shocked by the horrors of the Holocaust, Canada played an important role in United Nations decisions that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. But what Canada supported was a package deal in which Palestine would be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.

Whatever the flaws of that model, one thing is clear. No Canadian official ever advocated what has become the reality today: that a Jewish state would be created, while the much larger Arab population in Palestine would be left stateless six decades later, and in fact living under Israeli military occupation.

That Canadian attempt at even-handedness has utterly disappeared under Stephen Harper, who lavishly celebrated Israel's 60th anniversary with promises of Canada's "unshakeable" support, while utterly ignoring the fact that this is also an anniversary – although a very different one – for the Palestinians.

Israel's founding 60 years ago last week is also the 60th anniversary of what Palestinians call the naqba, or catastrophe, when some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled in the face of violence by militants determined to establish a Jewish state. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, speaking recently in Toronto, described this as "ethnic cleansing."