Canada's hard-learned lesson

Analysis: Ottawa's principled stand refreshingly courageous amidst a global campaign to delegitimize Israel but can they take on the UN?

By P C MERKLEY
Canada PM Harper (photo credit: AP)
Canada PM Harper
(photo credit: AP)
Canada has distinguished itself in recent years as a firm supporter of Israel under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who reaffirmed last month that he is prepared to suffer any resulting political backlash.
Harper’s stand for Israel became a topic of hot national debate in mid- October, after member states of the UN General Assembly humiliated Canada by refusing to support its bid for one of the two “Western” places among the rotating seats on the Security Council – a place which Canada had been awarded on six previous occasions since 1948. The seat went instead to Portugal, a firm supporter of the EU’s “even-handed” views on the Middle East, and a state beholden to the European Community for its recent rescue from massive budgetary deficit.
Canada was defeated on the ballot in the General Assembly despite having received written promises of support from 135 countries. A senior Islamic official explained to The Ottawa Citizen that the 57- member Islamic Conference “had felt snubbed after Canada did not follow Portugal’s example by addressing the increasingly influential bloc as a group.”
Immediately following the UN rebuff, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon conceded it was political payback, but assured, “We will not back down from our principles, and we will continue to pursue them on the international stage. Some would even say that, because of our attachment to these values, we lost a seat on the council. If that’s the case, so be it.”
Among the experts summoned by Canadian television networks to explain this awkward event was a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, Paul Heinbecker, who now heads up a think-tank on foreign policy. Heinbecker has denounced the Harper government for every Middle East policy decision, beginning with its first – that of non-recognition of a Hamas government in the Palestine Authority in March 2006.
Interviewed by CTV News, Heinbecker claimed Canada had been denied her place at the table because the Harper government is “selling policies that the international community is not sympathetic to… [among which are] policies that are frankly and strongly in support of the government of Israel. And again, whatever you think of the merits of the policy... they’re not vote-getters. There are 57 votes in the Arab and Islamic community.”
On the same day, Michael Ignatieff, leader of the opposition Liberal party in Parliament, bemoaned the decline of Canada’s prestige, telling the press that with this outcome the Harper government “had paid the price” for shifting Canada’s foreign policy away from long-established traditions – among which was the pursuit of balanced policy toward Israel and the Palestinians.
The groups in Canada who usually speak for Arab and Muslim interests viewed the UN episode in the same light. In advance of the vote, Khaled Moummar, leader of the Canadian Arab Federation, told The National Post his constituency “feared that if Canada gains a seat in the UN Security Council, it may be used against Arabs and Muslims around the world.”
B’nai Brith Canada’s Executive Vice-President Frank Dimant responded that, “despite purporting to be advocates of Canadian values, the Canadian Arab Federation actively lobbied against their own country, thereby trying to shame and divide Canada.”
CANADIAN JOURNALISTS and academics are in lockstep agreement that the Harper government’s resistance to the “enlightened” international consensus regarding Israel is due to its captivity by Christian Zionism. The Conservative Party, they say, represents the small towns and countryside, where (for lack of more exciting things to do) church is attended more regularly than in better-lit places; they speak knowingly of these legions as “the Christian Right.”

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This is the theme of a recent best-selling book, The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada (Random House, 2010). Author Marci McDonald explains that the Conservative government’s policy toward Israel is driven by a subterranean force – the “Dispensationalist” enthusiasm of many key figures in the Harper government.
McDonald explains: “Harper has backed Israel with such fervor that veteran scholars and diplomats rank it as the most dramatic shift in the history of postwar Canadian foreign policy.” She agrees with Heinbecker that this is an altogether evil development, one that leaves Canada standing alone against the conscience of mankind as expressed in UN resolutions.
Furthermore, she says, Harper is “openly ignoring [both] the counsel of his Foreign Affairs Department and the political fallout on his relationship with this country’s mushrooming Muslim population.”
Among “the alien and alarming influences” which McDonald fears are “gaining traction in Harper’s government” is “American-style” End Times speculation, which takes expression, she avers, in “the product of partnership between Canadian evangelicals and conservative Jews forged nearly a decade ago with Middle East foreign policy in mind.” McDonald’s conspiratorial theory has been embraced by many journalists.
Harper is the first Protestant prime minister in about a half a century – if one overlooks the few weeks of Kim Campbell’s tenure in 1993. Furthermore, Harper represents a corner of the country (Alberta) with an exceptionally large representation of Evangelicals and Pentecostals.
There is a deep political logic at work as the Conservative Harper government, since entering office in 2006, pursues a policy much friendlier toward Israel than that of any Liberal government of the past. The largest factor in this equation, however, is the simple fact that most Canadian Members of Parliament are now disposed to give Israel the benefit of the doubt in times of crisis. Behind that looming fact is an even larger one: as polling brings out consistently, most Canadian voters prefer Israel’s cause.
DESPITE THE disparagements of the press and liberal scholars, Israel’s many friends in Canada were reassured when Harper told a global conference on anti- Semitism held in Ottawa in November that while Israel is receptive to fair criticism, Canada is morally obligated to stand up for its ally when it comes under biased attack from others.
“Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because history shows us – and the ideology of the anti-Israel mob tells us all too well – that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are in the longer term a threat to all of us,” Harper stated.
“And I know, by the way, because I have the bruises to show for it, that whether it is at the UN or any other international forum, the easiest thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israel rhetoric, to pretend it is just about being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of honest broker.
“There are, after all, a lot more votes – a lot more – in being anti- Israeli. But as long as I am prime minister... Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost.”
With the global campaign to delegitimize Israel gaining ground, the Harper government’s principled stand is refreshingly courageous. But then again, as one of Clement Attlee’s ministers once said: ‘The only thing worse than saying my country right or wrong is to say the United Nations right or wrong.’ Having principles is simply a virtue, and as such has its own rewards. •
Merkley is a noted author and Professor Emeritus in History at Carleton University, Ottawa. He is presently working on a new book about Canadian Conservatives and Israel.


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