Tribal Thinking versus the Rule of Law

It is distressing to learn the Government of Israel has ordered the destruction of the homes of three Palestinians charged with the drive-by killing of an Israeli couple. The demolition was approved by the Israeli Supreme Court.

This, over the objections of Israeli human rights groups.  A spokesperson said, "The notion that it's acceptable to punish people for other people's actions is an affront to the law."

The homes are on Israeli-occupied Palestinian land bordering the Jordan River and the Dead Sea commonly known as the West Bank.

Distressing because the demolitions left the perpetrators' families homeless. The sin of one merits the punishment of the innocent many, or so primitive thinking would have it.

To punish someone not involved in wrong-doing evidences a tribal mentality, one not in accord with the Rule of Law to which the  Israeli government claims allegiance.

Canada first. No one in second place.

My parents came to Canada during the 1920s.  They were poor, no formal education, spoke no English, were Catholic and settled in rabidly Protestant Toronto. They became Canadian citizens as soon as law allowed. In their long lives, they never spoke of the glories of their Austrian homeland nor of how things were done differently and better over there. They did not bring European politics to Canada.

Little wonder I have no patience for partisan and nationalist arguments among later immigrants. Disputes in foreign lands must be left there.

Little wonder my patience ran out in 2010. The then Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty met with the Indian transport minister to discuss trade. Because of a grievance back in India, a group of Sikhs protested. "Unless they make amends quickly, the Liberals will definitely lose this community's votes," said Harbans Jandali, president of the Ontario Sikh  and Gurdwara Council.

I sent a letter to the Toronto Star arguing that foreign problems are better left off-shore and that Canadian politicians should not be held hostage to behaviour on the other side of the world. I sent a similar letter to Mr. Jandali. The newspaper did not publish, nor did Mr. Jandali reply.

This came to mind when I read a report in the Star of August 13, 2015 headlined, "Canadian Jews in Israel could help Harper."

My email to the Star, also unpublished:

It's disappointing if people holding Canadian citizenship but living permanently in foreign countries vote in Canadian elections in a way to further the interests of those countries in preference to those of Canada.

In the forthcoming election, some such Canadians living in Israel will vote for Stephen Harper because of his stand on Middle East affairs.

Disappointing because my vote on Canadian issues will be cancelled by a single-issue voter concerned more with off-shore matters than with our economy, health care, Aboriginal rights, research funding, the environment and so on.

A new embassy in Israel

Israel is the sole nation whose purported capital city, Jerusalem, no government in the world recognizes as such. In April 1979, Opposition Leader Joe Clark announced before the Canada-Israel Committee in Toronto that, should he become Prime Minister, Canada would move its embassy to Jerusalem.

"Next year in Jerusalem," he said, "is a Jewish prayer which we intend to make a Canadian reality." In June of the same year, newly-elected Prime Minister Clark affirmed his election promise. Eighteen days later, he said the decision would be deferred "until the status of Jerusalem is clarified within a comprehensive agreement between Israel and her Arab neighbours." That has yet to happen.

This month, Stephen Harper announced the construction of a new Israeli embassy in Tel Aviv. Not even our Israel-obsessed Prime Minister dares risk the opposition that greeted Clark's error.

On occasion, reality does have its effect.

Why are we killing?

A letter published in The National Post March 28, 2015:

Re: A Mission Worth Extending, editorial, March 25.

Your editorial presents reasons why the mission in Iraq should not be extended. It points out that during the past six months, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham has become even more barbaric. 

In other words, the bombing has done little good. Yet you endorse Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s solution to throw more gasoline on the fire. Despite increased barbarism, you deem the “mission can be judged a success.” You state unless we continue bombing, the bad situation would “spread over much of the Middle East.” Canada’s job is not to defend Israel or any other country in the region. 

You state “the threat is real.” Not to Canada. You state “the international community had to act.” What good did it do in Afghanistan? 

Western nations should stop meddling in Arab wars. It matters little whether the world buys oil from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or ISIS.

Israel and Canada

It is to wonder who advises Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. A recent report in the New York Times and a column in the Toronto Star by Rabbi Dow Marmur dealt in painful detail with the looming conflict in Israel between ultra-Orthodox Chabad Jews and the rest of the nation. During my last visit to Israel, our guide spoke of civil war.

"The co-existence between the two is breaking down," said the president of the Israeli Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem research organization. "It is an extreme danger."

This week, like a blind elephant, Baird tromped into this simmering dispute, trumpeting Canada's friendship with Israel. According to reports, his visit was Chabad oriented.

The Star reported, "[M]any in the secular to mildly religious crowds who met with Mr. Baird were distinctly uncomfortable at the notion of a Chabad rabbi in their midst." Baird had actually brought the rabbi with him from Ottawa where, as Chabad public affairs director, he spends much time on Parliament Hill.

While maintaining friendship, Canada must remain aloof from internal Israeli matters. The aborted visit of Charles de Gaulle during our Centennial should have taught our politicians that lesson.