Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in Israel today on a long-awaited visit to the Holy Land. He and the Canadian government have long been one of the staunchest supporters of Israel in the world, a major change from Canada's stance under the Left wing liberals.
PM Harper first announced the visit at a Jewish National Fund dinner in December, calling Israel “a light of freedom and democracy in what is otherwise a region of darkness” and pledged that the Jewish state “will always have Canada as a friend.”
That will almost certainly be true under Canada's conservative government. PM Harper's press release issued by his office about the trip referred to Israel as the “Jewish State of Israel”, and when a Muslim Brotherhood front, The National Council of Canadian Muslims angrily objected to the inclusion of Toronto Rabbi Daniel Korobkin as part of the Canadian delegation merely because he had spoken at the same event with Pam Geller and Islamic scholar Robert Spencer, Jason MacDonald, the prime minister’s communications director, told them essentially to take a long walk on a short pier:
“We will not take seriously criticism from an organization with documented ties to a terrorist organization such as Hamas,” MacDonald said. “The delegation accompanying the prime minister to the Middle East includes a range of stakeholders from various business, religious and community organizations.”
Rabbi Korobkin, by the way, is the senior rabbi at Beth Avraham Yoseph Congregation, the largest Orthodox congregation in Canada, and is a former regional vice-president of the Rabbinical Council of America.
When PM Harper addressed the Israeli Knesset, his message was crystal clear...that Canada supports Israel because it is both morally and strategically right, denounced 'antri-Zionism' and said that ‘Through fire and water, Canada will stand with you.’
He praised both the Canada-Israel free trade agreement and Canada's security cooperation with Israel.
The full text of his speech can be found here. It is worth reading.
Part of this comes from PM Harper's solid Christian faith, and part of it simply from what he refers to as a Canadian tradition, "to do something for no reason other than it is right even when no immediate reward for, or threat to, ourselves is evident."
And on top of that, he remains balanced, committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, but as he put it, “I believe, we share with Israel a sincere hope that the Palestinian people and their leaders… will choose a viable, democratic, Palestinian state, committed to living peacefully alongside the Jewish state of Israel.
“As you, Prime Minister [Netanyahu], have said, when Palestinians make peace with Israel, Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations — it will be the first.
“Sadly, we have yet to reach that point.
“But, when that day comes, and come it must, I can tell you that Israel may be the first to welcome a sovereign Palestinian state, but Canada will be right behind you."
PM Harper received a standing ovation from Israeli PM Netanyahu and the entire Knesset..except for the Arab members, who briefly heckled the speech and then walked out.
In visiting Ramallah and speaking with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, he likewise urged him to make peace with what he called 'the Jewish State of Israel', something Abbas has said repeatedly he will never do. Therein, of course, lies the problem.
But there's no doubt that the relationship between Israel and Canada is strong and will become st4ronger, to the benefit of both nations.
2 comments:
I wish the United States was more like Canada. Canada has excellent relations with just about every nation of importance, it's economy is robust and vibrant, it's much more secure than the United States, and it's citizens are wealthier and enjoy a vastly superior standard of living relative to Americans.
If Americans and our leaders are are smart, we can learn a great deal from Canada. First in the area of national security. Canada enjoys excellent relations with virtually all nations of importance, it spends only a fraction of the money the Us spends on it's military, and it does not generally deploy large numbers of troops away from home we they can be of the best utility to Canada, and it does not waste resources on fruitless nation building efforts.
The fact that Canada spends much less on money on defense than the US, does not have troops stationed all around the world as the US does, enjoys better relations with other nations than America does, and is more secure than America tells us something VERY important. It tells us that US military/foreign relations strategies being employed by the are a giant cluster fu*k mess.
We should strive to be more like Canada in this regard. A great place to start would be to redeploy our forces to the US and off the US coasts where they are better able to defend America. This would make our nation more secure and should, in time, improve our relations with other nations.
On top of this, Canadians are generally wealthier and enjoy a higher standard of living than Americans do. We should strive to emulate Canada in the economic arena as well. Probably a great place to start would be for us streamline our regulatory environment eliminating unnecessary and duplicated regulations. Also, the cuts in money needed for national defense once the troops and military assets are redeployed to sensible positions should help greatly as this money can be used for vastly needed upgrades to our infrastructure.
When someone is doing something better than you are, the best thing to do is to try and study what they are doing and try to emulate as much as can reasonably emulated of what they are doing. Canada and The United States are NOT the same country and each country has it's own unique culture. As such, it's not going to be realistic for us to expect to be able to do every thing exactly like Canada does but a great place for us to start would be by studying Canada. Since Canada is currently performing better than America in virtually every area, it seems reasonable for us to study them. We'd stand to learn a great deal!!
this PM harper fella must really be looking for an NSA wire tap or and IRS audit.......
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