Posted on 08/06/2006 8:09:54 AM PDT by Heartofsong83
Our governments have usually tried to be fair, says Linda McQuaig
Aug. 6, 2006. 01:00 AM
It's unlikely anyone would ever confuse Stephen Harper with the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Still, it's interesting to note the very different ways the two Canadian prime ministers responded to Israeli invasions of Lebanon.
When Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, Trudeau was one of the first Western leaders to condemn the assault and call for Israel's withdrawal.
Harper, however, has been supportive of the current Israeli invasion, which has killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians, about one-third of them children. Even as Israel's devastating attacks on Lebanon escalated last week, Harper refused to support international calls — led by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan — for an immediate ceasefire.
Instead, Harper remained in lockstep with George W. Bush, who has given Israel the green light to use its military superiority to inflict maximum damage on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, regardless of civilian casualties. Bush hasn't even spoken to the Israeli prime minister since the invasion began, Condoleezza Rice revealed last week. Why would he bother? Bush is satisfied with the progress of the war.
Harper's willingness to join Bush in condoning this brutal war, even with thousands of Canadians at risk in Lebanon, is a radical departure from established Canadian policy on the Middle East — a departure that fewer than one-third of Canadians support, a CTV poll last week showed.
Ottawa has always tilted toward Israel, tending to support Israel in UN votes. But Ottawa has also at least attempted to be even-handed in the conflict. To this end it has, particularly in recent decades, defended the rights of Palestinians and supported their right to an autonomous Palestinian state.
Canada has thus refused to accept Israel's permanent control over the Palestinian land it has occupied since 1967, or to accept the legitimacy of the settlements Israel has built on this land, which house some 400,000 Israeli settlers.
The respected former Canadian Conservative leader Robert Stanfield, appointed by Joe Clark's Conservative government to review Canada's stand, recommended in a 1980 report that Canada be scrupulously even-handed. Stanfield maintained that the Palestinian issue lay at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Stanfield was dead-on. His ability to see the Palestinian issue as the root of the decades-old conflict is in sharp contrast to George W. Bush who insists, absurdly, that Hezbollah is the root cause.
Hezbollah didn't even exist before 1982! It was the 1982 Israeli invasion and subsequent 18-year occupation of Lebanon that sparked the emergence of Hezbollah from among the Lebanese Shiite population as a resistance movement fighting Israeli occupation.
Although there's been relative peace on the border since Israel withdrew in 2000, there have been minor cross-border attacks from both sides, usually on military targets. UN reports indicate Israeli border violations have been 10 times more frequent.
If only Stephen Harper would take his inspiration from even-handed Canadian leaders, like the late Robert Stanfield, rather than from gun-toting American ones, like George Bush.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca
The only reality that they are slowly coming to understand, is that they are out of power. They play their cards carefully though, just waiting for Prime Minister Harper to make a real error.
Anything they can do to try to tie in Harper with the tragedies of war, they will do. Reality though, is that America, come Horror, hell or high water is comitted to defeat terrorism.
Another reality is that irrespective of whether Harper supports Bush, the war goes on anyway.
On a lighter note, the photogenic McQuaid- she has THAT going for her, resurrects Robert Stansfield. Stansfield tried for the leadership of Canada once as a Conservative. Poor Bob took a pass back at a Football game- a sort of ceremonial opener. He fumbled. The photographs were gleefully published by the liberal press. Such a bemused look on the poor man's face. Bye bye election hopes.
As if that disqualified him from running the country.
Stanfield never became PM because he was indistinguishable from Trudeau. That is why he is "respected" by leftists.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
BAsically this is what I took from this article.
It's not nice to kill people unless they are Jews.
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