The right to be an ass

Editorial

It is one of the vagaries of the newspaper business that we are challenged with filling the pages even in times when few newsworthy events happen. Then there are weeks like this one.

Following the federal election on Jan. 23, Canadians prepared to watch the new Conservative government of Stephen Harper begin its attempt to balance its precarious minority and to find policies of compromise that they could get passed through the House of Commons. But compromise was not to be the order of the week; the Conservatives opting instead to use what little political capital they had to construct a cabinet that baffled most observers.

The term "honeymoon" is often employed in the context of a new government, but the shock of Harper's cabinet choices ensured that the consummation of the marriage between Canadian voters and the Conservative party would be deferred indefinitely. At the very moment of his swearing in, Harper recanted two significant moral and policy positions that Canadians had assumed were sacred planks of Harper's campaign platform: opposition to arbitrary floor-crossing and reform of the Senate.

The new Conservative government succeeded in getting representation from Vancouver even though Vancouver voters rejected the Conservative party. David Emerson, the once and again federal cabinet heavyweight from Vancouver-Kingsway, was elected last month as a Liberal – with support from the Liberal Jewish Political Action Committee – and no sooner were the votes counted than he joined the Conservative caucus in exchange for a cabinet position. Across the country, in Quebec, where Harper miraculously took 10 seats in the federal election, he nonetheless opted to appoint a crony to the Senate and elevate him to cabinet, betraying an oft-repeated distaste for the use of the Upper Chamber as a redoubt for unelected and/or unelectable party hacks.

Elsewhere at Rideau Hall, the hope that a Conservative party government would be a stronger voice in support of Israeli security and for democracy and peace in the Middle East suffered a blow when Stockwell Day, the longtime Conservative foreign affairs critic and unrepentant Zionist, was denied the prestigious role of foreign affairs minister. That plum went to Harper's rival Peter MacKay, whose views on Israel are far less clear.

One of the first challenges facing the foreign minister will be Canada's reaction to the new Hamas government in the Palestinian Authority. How to deal with a duly elected terrorist regime is unmapped territory in diplomatic circles. Russia and France are quite prepared to deal with Hamas, despite the blood on the hands of the terrorists-cum-government. Harper has said his government will not deal with Hamas if the group does not renounce violence, but the proof will be in Ottawa's decisions about funding for and co-operation with the Palestinian Authority on a range of ongoing projects, as well as Canada's votes at the United Nations. How Canada approaches the new Palestinian government will be a clear determinant of whether the new government takes a courageous stand against militant anti-Zionism or whether it becomes bogged down in diplomatic justifications for violence.

Anti-Israel rogues are a problem closer to home, as well, with the annual hatefest at the University of Toronto, dubbed "Israel Apartheid Week," occurring this week. We tend to lean, as does the administration of the university, toward the right of students to make asses of themselves and a mockery of historical and contemporary reality in the name of free expression. Nevertheless, the apartheid libel, still being purveyed domestically and internationally in contravention of decency and intellectual honesty, is such a perversion of free expression that it deserves condemnation from all right-minded Canadians.

Meanwhile, organizers of Vancouver's upcoming World Peace Forum insist they are on target to execute a successful event, despite evidence that planning is far behind schedule. A parallel event involving mayors of cities with common support for a peace plank had to be cancelled after planning apparently went nowhere. While organizers of the World Peace Forum insist the vilification of Israel and/or Jews is not an intended outcome of the event, it is incumbent on them to have contingencies in place for just such a scenario.

The best intentions of organizers is not an adequate bulwark against the infiltration of ill-intentioned radicals like the demagogues who annually launch the Israel Apartheid Week in Toronto and dozens of other intellectually specious events like it worldwide.

It's clear we still need to stand on guard, for the protection of both Canada and Israel.

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