Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Liberals Criticize Harper

Several Liberals have come out to criticize Harper's blanket support of Israel. Bill Graham argues that our credibility as arbitrator is on the line. Bob Rae has chastized Harper's immediate reaction to the crisis. Former cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy gets it right:
Axworthy, now president of the University of Winnipeg, argued that Harper is abandoning the traditional Canadian role of honest broker in the Middle East.

"He's almost at the forefront of a very small group of nations who say whatever Israel does is right. ... We're becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution."

I watched a political roundtable on the weekend, wherein Craig Oliver made that point that Canada is held in relatively high regard throughout the middle east. This respect is a by-product of Canada's historic role as a peacekeeper. Canadian foreign policy generally articulates a "nuance" which attempts to speak in balanced rhetoric. Harper's blanket support of Israel, which has also manifested itself at the United Nations, risks our credibility with Arab nations. Given the fact that you can't get a piece of paper between our view and the Americans, Canada effectively loses any perception that it is an independent thinking nation. It is imperative that our policies are balanced, Harper fails to see the big picture.

Update
I just saw some more comments from Graham that are bang on:
Graham said Canada's past practice has been to take a more nuanced approach to such complex situations, allowing it to be an intermediary capable of diffusing international incidents.

"Mr. Harper is proud of the fact he wasn't nuanced about this," Graham said. "Nuance has kept us in a position where we could help. Lose the nuance and you lose you capacity to act and help others. If you abuse that position, we lose our position to work with moderates."

Graham said Canada has a reputation of being able to work with embattled forces and bring them together to achieve peaceful results.

At times combatants haven't agreed with Canada's positions but results have been achieved nonetheless, he said.

"In the long term, we were a credible force that was able to bring the sides together and make a contribution toward peace," Graham said.

"We shouldn't take a position at this time that will make it impossible for Canada to take that role in the future."

Today's word "nuance".

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Speaking of nuance, I've noticed two different words being used to describe the event that seems to have started all this.

Namely: Two Israeli soldiers were "kidnapped" VS. Two Israeli soldiers were "captured".

The difference is important. "Kidnapped" implies that the victim of said kidnapping is exactly that, a victim. While "captured" implies a military altercation of some sort.

The way I see it, an IDF military unit was ambushed by a Hezbollah military unit and the result is that 2 IDF soldiers were "captured".

Now, the coverage I've seen so far on tv, the coverage most canadians will see and remember, has used the word "kidnapped". Canwest-Global controls 70%+ of the news market I live in so that is no surprise.

But, most disturbing to me, was to hear Peter Mackay using the "kidnapped" expression yesterday on CBC Newsworld. He was talking to Peter Mansbridge and, to his credit, Mansbridge was using "captured" in his replies to Mackay. Mansbridge should have asked him if he thought the hundreds of lebanese in Israeli jails had also been "kidnapped" and what Mackay's position was about that.

Hearing Mackay so blatantly misrepresenting what actually happened made me cringe.

Good post and great blog :)

Steve V said...

p

Good point. I have also noticed the term "hostage takers" used in some press pieces.

I actually did a quite scan, and noticed that "kidnapped" was used quite often to describe what happened.

Saskboy said...

Canada's position has been set for some time. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and is on the lists as such here, is it not?

Mark Dowling said...

There is no such thing as a Hezbollah military unit, unless Hezbollah is now considered part of the Lebanese Army and thus Lebanon is actually liable as a State to the self-defence portion of the UN charter against Lebanon.

If Hezbollah are merely a non-State group engaged in attacks across the Lebanese border, the actions taken have the precedent of UN Security Council Resolution 1386 in relation to Al-Qaeda being active within Afghanistan.

Your choice.

Steve V said...

mark

I don't understand what you are saying in relation to the post?

Mark Dowling said...

that the term "hezbollah military unit" is an oxymoron. Military units are, to use the term of the US Supreme Court in Hamdan v Rumsfeld "regularly constituted". They operate according to military law and are accountable to their State.

As we currently understand it, Hezbollah is *not* part of the Leb Army but operates from Leb territory. This was the situation in Afstan when UNSCR 1368 under Chapter VII was passed in respect of Al Qaeda.

However, if Hezbollah *was* part of the Leb Army, then Lebanon itself would be committing undeclared acts of war against Israel, and Israel's self-defence rights would be preserved under Article 51.

The moral of the story is: if you have groups such as Hezbollah operating in your territory, you need to actually attempt to root them out if you don't want to be responsible for their action - toleration is no longer acceptable as of Dec 2001.

Anonymous said...

So Mark

What you're saying is that the next time the IRA blows something up in the UK, the RAF can bomb the shit out of Dublin?

Mark Dowling said...

Nope - the Irish government never had Sinn Fein-IRA members in Cabinet (as Lebanon does) and deployed police and army right up to the border (as Lebanon has not). For a Garda Superintendent to suspect you of IRA membership was grounds for conviction. Ireland still has the no-jury Special Criminal Court for terrorism but now it's used for organised crime too.

They fulfilled their obligations to make actual efforts to root out rather than accommodate paramilitaries as Lebanon has not and the Taliban did not.

How do I know? Two of my uncles served in the 80s, one police, one army.

Thanks for playing though.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work. thnx!
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