What standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel really means
Robert Peffers
It doesn’t mean sending erroneous, inflammatory and divisive flyers
into Jewish neighbourhoods as a partisan wedge. Stephen Harper should
be ashamed to have his image on these Conservative brochures. It
tarnishes the office of the Prime Minister.
Nor does it mean hurling drive-by accusations of anti-Semitism, as one
senior Conservative spokesperson did Wednesday on national television.
It’s beyond the pale to falsely charge political opponents of anti-
Semitism as a tactic for vote-getting. The Liberal targeted by that
attack, former Mississauga-Erindale MP and current Liberal candidate
Omar Alghabra, has dedicated himself to fighting all forms of racism,
including anti-Semitism. His commitment to the cause of peace in the
Middle East is deep and ongoing.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel certainly doesn’t mean
resorting to lies to smear your political opponents. Liberal MP Irwin
Cotler, who is himself Jewish, put it best when he stood up on a point
of privilege in the House of Commons to denounce the flyers being sent
to voters his riding.
What standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel does mean is changing
Canadian law to ensure Hezbollah and Hamas were designated as
terrorist organizations, as the Liberal government did in 2002.
What it does mean is condemning anti-Semitism vociferously as the
former Liberal government did at the Durban I conference, and staying
on at the conference to witness the atrocious statements made there at
the request of the Israeli government.
What it means is standing by Israel, as the Liberal Party has, since
1948.