[R-G] Canada is Israel. Literally

[Anthony Fenton]

Canada is Israel. Literally

by Yves Engler

The Harper government publicly supported Israel's brutal assault on  
Gaza and voted alone at the UN Human Rights Committee in defense of  
Israel's actions three weeks ago. Now Canada has taken over Israeli  
diplomacy. Literally.

In solidarity with Gaza, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador at the  
start of the bombardment and then broke off all diplomatic relations  
two weeks later. Israel needn’t worry since Ottawa plans to help out.  
Last Thursday the Jerusalem Post reported that "Israel's interests in  
Caracas will now be represented by the Canadian Embassy." This means  
Canada is officially Israel, at least in Venezuela.

Prior to the recent bombing in Gaza, the Harper government made it  
abundantly clear that it would support Israel no matter what that  
country did. They publicly endorsed Israel's 2006 attack on Lebanon,  
voted against a whole host of UN resolutions supporting Palestinian  
rights and in January 2008 refused to criticize illegal Israeli  
settlement construction at Harhoma near Jerusalem (even Washington  
publicly criticized these settlements). Canada was also the first  
country (after Israel) to cut off financial aid to the elected Hamas  
government and Ottawa has provided millions of dollars as well as  
personnel to create a US trained Palestinian police force to act as a  
counterweight to the Hamas government and to oversee Israel’s  
occupation.

Harper’s support for Israel is extreme, but despite what many well- 
meaning commentators claim it is not a break from Canada's role as an  
"honest broker" in the Arab Israeli conflict. There is a long history  
of Canadian support for Zionism, a European settler ideology that has  
violently dispossessed Palestinians for more than six decades.

Israel was only the fourth country that Ottawa signed a free trade  
agreement with. Begun January 1997, the Canada-Israel Free Trade  
Agreement includes the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of where  
Israel’s custom laws are applied.

Echoing Prime Minister Harper’s comment on Lebanon two decades later,  
when the first Intifada (uprising) broke out in 1987 then PM Brian  
Mulroney told the CBC that Israel’s brutal suppression of rock  
throwing Palestinian youth was handling the situation with  
"restraint." When questioned by a CBC reporter about the similarity  
between the plight of Palestinians and Blacks in South Africa,  
Mulroney replied that any comparison between Israel and South Africa  
was "false and odious and should never be mentioned in the same breath."

Two decades earlier, in the lead-up to Israel’s 1967 invasion of  
Egypt, Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s Liberals, along with Denmark,  
sponsored an emergency Security Council meeting to call attention to  
Egypt’s blockade of Israeli shipping. Ottawa also supported a British  
and American proposal to establish a maritime force to protect Israeli  
shipping through the strait of Tiran on the gulf of Aqaba. These moves  
helped create a sense of crisis used by Israel to justify invading  
Egypt.

During the 1947 UN negotiations over the British mandate of historic  
Palestine, Canada played an important role in creating Israel. Lester  
Pearson (then under-secretary of state for External Affairs) who  
chaired two different UN committees dealing with the mandate and  
Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand, a member of the United Nations  
Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), played central roles in the  
negotiations that led to partition. In State in the Making David  
Horowitz (the first governor of the Bank of Israel and First Director  
General of Israel’s ministry of finance) writes: "It may be said that  
Canada more than any other country played a decisive part in all  
stages of the UNO [United Nations Organization] discussions of  
Palestine."

The UN's 1948 partition plan gave the new Jewish state the majority of  
Palestine despite the Jewish population owning only 5.8% of the land  
and representing less than a third of the population. Rand’s assistant  
on UNSCOP, Leon Mayrand, provides a window into the dominant mindset  
at External Affairs. "The Arabs were bound to be vocal opponents of  
partition but they should not be taken too seriously. The great  
majority were not yet committed nationalists and the Arab chiefs could  
be appeased through financial concessions, especially if these  
accompanied a clearly declared will to impose a settlement whatever  
the means necessary." A dissident within External Affairs, the  
department’s only Middle East expert, Elizabeth MacCallum, claimed  
Ottawa supported partition, "because we didn’t give two hoots for  
democracy."

Above all else support for partition was driven by a geostrategic  
worldview. An internal report circulated at External Affairs  
explained: "The plan of partition gives to the western powers the  
opportunity to establish an independent, progressive Jewish state in  
the Eastern Mediterranean with close economic and cultural ties with  
the West generally and in particular with the United States." The  
Ottawa mandarins largely supported Israel as a possible western  
outpost in the heart of the (oil-producing) Middle East.

The idea for a Middle Eastern Jewish homeland to serve Western  
imperial interests has a long history in Canada. Since at least the  
1870s Christian Zionists called for their biblical prophesies to be  
fulfilled under British auspices. By November 1915, Solicitor General  
(and then Prime Minister) Arthur Meighen publicly proclaimed, "I think  
I can speak for those of the Christian faith when I express the wish  
that God speed the day when the land of your [Jewish] forefathers  
shall be yours again. This task I hope will be performed by that  
champion of liberty the world over -- the British Empire." Two decades  
later Prime Minister RB Bennett began a national radio broadcast of  
the United Palestine Appeal with a speech about how the Balfour  
declaration and British control over Palestine was a step towards  
Biblical prophecies. "Scriptural prophecy is being fulfilled," he  
noted. "The restoration of Zion has begun."

Jewish Zionism flourished in a political climate nurtured by Christian  
Zionism and British imperialism. A number of books about Canada's  
Jewish community discuss how this country’s Jewish elite was more  
active in the Zionist movement prior to Israel’s founding than their  
US counterparts. Prominent early Canadian "Jewish leaders like  
Clarence Sola and Rabbi Ashinsky", notes Taking Root, "saw the  
[Zionist] movement as potentially an integral part of British  
imperialism." In Canada, a dominion of the British Empire, it was  
beneficial to one's standing among the elite to support Zionism.

The political motivation for supporting Israel has not changed  
significantly over the years. The government in Ottawa today receives  
limited electoral support from the Jewish community, but is close to a  
right wing Christian Zionist movement. Most importantly, the Harper  
government strongly supports Western (US-led) imperialism in the  
Middle East. This is why Canada has taken over Israeli diplomacy in  
Venezuela.

Yves Engler is the author of the forthcoming The Black Book of  
Canadian Foreign Policy and other books. If you would like to help  
organize a talk  as part of a book tour in May Please e-mail: yvesengler at hotmail.com