David Asper - Needless to say, election campaigns are often characterized by inflated rhetoric, un-keep-able promises and personal attacks. How one interprets this dynamic is pretty much always determined by perspective. If it comes from your side then it’s OK, and if it doesn’t then it’s not. What one partisan sees as a personal attack might be viewed by others as a legitimate questioning of the credibility of the individual in question because credibility is a live issue when we’re choosing a governing party.
This past federal election was no different and one aspect of particular interest was the approach taken by the Liberals to once again try to falsify and demonize the record of Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative government on issues relating to Israel. This is especially important given recent events in which President Obama declared as U.S. policy a framework that is as pollyannish and dangerous as it is unworkable.
So offensive was the Liberal campaign tactic that I chose to reach out to correct the record by sending a letter to constituents in the riding where I was working for the local Conservative candidate.
My motivation was the repeated mantra of the Liberals that the Prime Minister was being duplicitous. In a pamphlet distributed at a candidates’ forum sponsored by B’nai Brith, the Liberals said the following: “When we hear Prime Minister Harper, he says the right words. But when his government is voting in the UN and the Canadian Jewish community is not listening, the record is otherwise.”
The document went on to list a number of UN Resolutions that Canada had either opposed or abstained from voting on. It compared Canada’s vote to the U.S. and illustrated that the Canadian votes on the subject resolutions were all contrary to the U.S. The pamphlet went on to conclude that the US votes were pro-Israel and Canada’s were not.
On its face, this had an unintended effect for me. While the Liberals have consistently tried to drape themselves in nationalism and tell voters that Conservatives were toadies for evil U.S. everything, the UN voting record shows clearly that Canada has been incredibly independently-minded. Our government voted on a principled basis and not as a proxy for the U.S. or anyone else. The chart used in the campaign therefore was completely self-defeating of the Liberal’s nationalistic propagandizing and showed as a matter of fact that our government has no trouble at all in advancing and promoting its own positions against what the Americans are doing.
As to the substance of the resolutions that Canada opposed or abstained from, one only has to look at the full content of them to understand the merit of Canada’s position. I invite you to do so at the United Nations website. Please take the time to inform yourself because it’s a very good way to understand the level of deceit in the Liberal campaign attack. Moreover, these resolutions laid the groundwork for the speech given by the U.S. President last week in which he pronounced the U.S. policy going forward. They can all be found in the website section devoted to the General Assembly resolutions for the 2010 session. The Liberal pamphlet made reference to 11 specific resolutions: 16, 17, 88, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106 and 202. (Their official designation is 65/16 and so on).
Let’s take Resolution 16, entitled ‘Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine’ as an example and consider its contents.
There are a total of 37 paragraphs in the preamble and 26 paragraphs to the Resolution itself.
It is an amalgam of the usual grievances against Israel as an Occupying Power. The UN apparently still doesn’t like the security fence even though it’s success in reducing terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians has been well documented. Nor does the UN seem particularly interested in Israel’s right to defend itself generally because the language of the Resolution reverts to the usual ‘give back the land’ mantra. Predictably it decries Israel’s alleged avoidance of International law in spite of the fact that Israel grants to both Arab Israelis and inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza more civil rights than does the Palestinian Authority or any other Middle East government.
In short, it’s just another in the litany of UN Resolutions that would have Israel fold its tent.
Canada’s vote against it was not a vote against Israel as the Liberal campaign material would have you believe. Rather, our vote was a clear demonstration that Canada will not become part of the gang-up that’s being orchestrated in which the national security of Israel becomes compromised in favour of enemies who remain sworn to destroy it.
People may have differing views about these issues and that of course is fair game. Such diversity is in many ways no different than the political spectrum within Israel itself, and it’s important that the dialogue be vibrant and open. It was in this vein that I chose to speak up, and will continue to do so, about what I considered to be a very serious falsification by the Liberals of the position taken by Canada toward Israel. It wasn’t merely election rhetoric. It was a series of bald-faced lies.
If the Liberal party chooses to reinvent itself then hopefully it will find clarity on its position regarding Israel and foreign policy generally. Until then, the record of the Conservative government on this issue is factually unshakable and it was repeated in the aftermath of President Obama’s attempt to formulate a plan for peace which parrots the demands of the Palestinian Authority and would severely dilute the legitimate interests of Israel.
The truth is out there. All you have to do is look.
National Post