Stockwell Day says that Israel Must Withdraw From the West Bank and Gaza

I've been putting together my notes and things on the situation with Israel and how this government has determined that any criticism of Israel can be deemed to be anti-Semitism, and I was surprised to find a great deal of discussion about this topic before they came to power.

Recorded in Hansard in 2002, then Alliance Party member Stockwell Day had this to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The Canadian Alliance position on this matter has always been consistent and has always been clear. The Palestinian people have a right to their homeland in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to the creation of a democratic Palestinian state. The only solution will be a two state solution which involves an exchange of land for peace.

In the short term our government should be advocating that Israel must withdraw as quickly as possible from area A to rekindle the peace process and then in the longer term Israel must withdraw from the vast majority of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to secure internationally recognized lines.

And yet they clearly no longer think that. And why? Because of the Religious Right who believe that all Jews must go to Israel before Christian fundamentalists can feel the rapture.

Obviously Day's views had already changed because I'm also going to post an article about Stephen Harper when he was choosing his first cabinet. Everyone assumed that Day would be named Foreign Affairs minister since he had been the critic for Alliance, but Harper claimed that Day was too pro-Israel and that his government preferred an even handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He soon learned that his views were not appreciated and what we ended up with was this.


















Considering recent developments Canadians have got to start paying attention. Do we allow Stephen Harper to continue allowing the Religious Right to dictate our foreign policy, or demand that he denounce Israeli aggression?

I think the nonsense has gone on long enough.

As Murray Dobbin states:

It raises the question: do Israelis ever imagine a future where their criminal behaviour will not go unpunished? Do they imagine a time when the US will not be there to bankroll their exceptionalism? Do they even know that their racist oppression of Palestinians has all but destroyed their soul?

The same question could be asked of Canadian Jews who have eagerly embraced the total support for Israel expressed by Stephen Harper. It is precisely this kind of uncritical support that creates the monstrously deformed society that pro-Israeli groups in Canada defend. Maybe they should repeat a simple slogan: Friends don’t let friends murder people.

The following video clearly shows criminal activity, sanctioned by our government who are too afraid to face the wrath of the Religious Right.

The ship was delivering humanitarian aid for heaven sake!