Visitors make the new

Editorial

Visitors, visitors. It seems there are high-level trips making news all over the place.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he would make his first official trip to Israel next year, visiting Jordan and the West Bank, as well. For those who have watched the past seven years of his emphatic support for the state of Israel, it may come as a surprise to learn that he has not made his way to Israel during his tenure. Noting the critical commentary when U.S. President Barack Obama “finally” made it to Israel this year – four years into his time as president – the reaction to Harper’s announcement – seven years into his position – was solidly positive. (Among Zionists, that is. There were protesters outside Toronto’s Jewish National Fund Negev

Dinner, where Harper made the announcement and sang a few tunes, who believe Harper is altogether too tight with Israel.) In addition, a new Israeli tourist attraction will be named after the Canadian PM: The Stephen J. Harper Hula Valley Bird Sanctuary Visitor and Education Centre, and Harper expressed gratitude at the dinner Sunday for the “gift.”

Indeed, if it can be considered a gift, the bird sanctuary seems a pleasant one, considering some of the other gifts between high-level figures recently. When Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with Pope Francis a few days ago, their exchange looked like some sort of passive-aggressive Secret Santa. Netanyahu presented the Pope with a book written by Netanyahu’s late father, the historian Benzion Netanyahu, about the Inquisition, among the most extraordinarily brutal periods in Jewish history, in this case at the hands of the Catholic Church. Interesting reading, no doubt, but an odd hostess gift to present to the head of world Catholicism. In return, Francis’ gift to the prime minister seemed hardly less laden with historical weight. Francis gave Netanyahu a bronze plaque of St. Paul, the apostle who is more closely associated than anyone with the growth of the early church and the conversion of Jews (and others) to Christianity in the first century of the Common Era. Kind of a weird gift also.

And, finally, on the topic of visits in the news, a tempest among Montreal Jews and others is taking place over the scheduled to visit to Montreal next week of a former Hungarian extremist as a guest of Chabad of Westmount.

Csanad Szegedi is a member of the European parliament and a longtime leading figure in the radical nationalist Jobbik party, which is accused of being a neo-Nazi and antisemitic organization. In 2012, after Szegedi allegedly used bribery to try to cover up revelations that he has Jewish roots, he abandoned Jobbik and has been exploring his new identity as a Jew.

If Szegedi has genuinely altered his ways, abandoning the xenophobia, incitement and hatred that exemplifies Jobbik and the fascist paramilitary Hungarian Guard that Szegedi belonged to before entering politics, then he should be welcomed into Canada and given a fair hearing. If he has something to offer about how hate-filled bigots can do a 180 and become humanitarians, then the visit would certainly be of value.

However, we have seen similar cases in recent years that do not reflect this cheery ideal. Mosab Yousef, the self-styled “Son of Hamas,” has developed a seemingly lucrative speechmaking and book-writing career out of his break from his famous terrorist father, Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef. The younger Yousef worked with the Israeli security agency Shin Bet for a time, but now resides in California and is a convert to Christianity. In fact, while he explicitly promotes an agenda of peace, Yousef’s attitude toward his former religion is fanatical and hateful, calling it a “religion of war.”

Like Mosab Yousef, Walid Shoebat also spoke to Vancouver-area audiences several years ago, though in Shoebat’s case it was by video after being denied entry into this country. Shoebat’s story is strikingly similar to Yousef’s. Shoebat claims to be a former PLO “terrorist turned peacemaker.” Like Yousef, one of the catalysts for his turnaround was his conversion to Christianity and a parallel rejection of Islam.

In some cases, it seems, extremists abandon one form of ideology for another. This creates obvious rifts with their former allies, but it also invariably raises challenges among their new supposed friends. It might be pleasant to look at the redemptive power of people like Yousef, Shoebat and Szegedi as an example of the human potential to change for the better. But if they have simply displaced one form of hatred with another, it should hardly assuage Jews that we have dependable new friends.

Szegedi may be well intentioned in his rejection of Jobbik and his new curiosity about Judaism. But what does he think now about the other objects of abhorrence his old party trumpets? Have his attitudes similarly changed about Roma, homosexuals and ethnic non-Hungarians that have been scapegoats for his now-abandoned party? Szegedi is still an active politician, remaining a member of the Euro parliament.

It is almost impossible to determine an individual’s motivations and prejudices. The best hope we have to make such a determination is by listening to them – and asking them a lot of questions – which is what Montreal’s Jewish community should do when Szegedi speaks there on Dec. 9.

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