Mideast learning curve

Editorial

The Canadian government this week resumed support of the Palestinian government. With an $8 million commitment through CIDA – the Canadian International Development Agency – Canada has picked up where it (and most of the world community) left off when the terrorist group Hamas won legislative elections early last year.

Peter MacKay, Canada's foreign minister, said the government of Canada "welcomes the leadership of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad in establishing a government that Canada and the rest of the international community can work with.... In light of the new Palestinian government's commitment to nonviolence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, and in recognition of the opportunity for a renewal of peace efforts, Canada will provide assistance to the new Palestinian government."

The Canadian funds will support security and democratic, social and economic development. The Canadian government's statement on the issue declared: "Canada will work closely with Prime Minister Fayyad, his government, Quartet members and our regional and international partners to ensure that our contribution has both an immediate and sustained impact."

We might rest more assured under the current Canadian government than we did under the last that the impact – immediate, sustained or otherwise – will be a positive one. Funds that Canada has given in the past have unwittingly supported some terrible things, including hate-filled textbooks used to inculcate Jew-hatred in young Palestinians.

This is the first tentative step of our government to recognize and, as per a consensus among progressive nations, to support the administration of Mahmoud Abbas and his relatively moderate Fatah movement. Nobody misunderstands that this is a direct slap in the face of the Hamas terrorists who control Gaza. At the same time, $8 million is not going to go a long way in our contemporary world. But Canada does have much to offer Palestinian civil society. If we believed it would make a difference, Canada should devote as much energy and resources as possible to assisting the Palestinian Authority in founding a society based on rule of law and supporting the development of civil infrastructure. This, of course, is what was supposed to be taking place with the billions of dollars that flowed into Palestine after 1993, and we know what happened to that money, so caution on the part of the Canadian government is prudent. If it becomes clear that the administration of Abbas is truly committed to civil development and mutual co-existence with Israel, as Canadians, we should do all we can to support it.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated development, Canada also has something we can teach the Israelis.

Israel is about to go through what will no doubt be a wrenching debate over civil marriage – much like our country has gone through in recent years. But the Israeli debate is not (so far, at least) about equal marriage for same-gender couples. It is about the very existence of civil marriage in a society where only religious marriages are now permitted.

At present, marriage in Israel is governed by religious authorities, who have a different standard of determining Jewishness than the country itself. To be considered a Jew under the national Law of Return, one need only have had one Jewish grandparent. For obvious historical reasons, the Law of Return was intended to cast as wide a net as our enemies might. But the religious authorities that administer Israeli marriages (as well as births and deaths) require Jews to produce a Jewish mother or conversion under strict Orthodox standards. The ludicrous reality is that Israelis who want to marry someone deemed non-Jewish under this strict interpretation, including Reform or Conservative Jews, or who simply want to marry in a non-religious ceremony, must leave the country, returning with a foreign marriage credential that is, incredibly, recognized by the state of Israel.

The creation of a civil marriage system in Israel would right an old wrong. When the state was created, there were firewalls created between religion and the instruments of state, but marriage has remained an awkward issue.

The latest proposal to right this marriage wrong is being condemned by some non-Orthodox Jews because it affects only those couples in which both are considered not Jewish under the rabbinical guidelines. It still leaves hundreds of thousands of mostly Russian immigrants outside the parameters. It also increases, rather than decreases, the power of the Orthodox to determine who is a Jew, critics say.

There will be a debate in Israel and, as usual, it will spill over to the Diaspora. When it gets here, Canadians should proudly present our resolution to the Israeli people: let the right of marriage be determined by the state, and religious authorities can marry, or not marry, whomever they choose.

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