Canada's much-vaunted "neutrality"

[gerryhatrick]

Being neutral does not mean not taking a stand, it means not just throwing unconditional support behind Israel.

The Harper lovers are of course painting neutral to mean we sit back and say and do nothing. So they create a false argument: do what Harper has done, or do nothing. That's not it.

The complaint most Canadians have over this is that Harper has basically given Israel carte blanche to do anything. Therefore, he is 100% behind Israel. That is not being a friend to Israel, because friends need to be able to speak hard truths to you. Harper should be pointing out human suffering in Lebanon and the tragedy of the oil spill. Why does he not? Because he is 100% behind everything Israel has done and will do.

We cannot be an "honest broker" now. You ask what is an "honest broker"? It is being perceived as speaking in the interest of truth and fairness. We've lost that.

The false argument is this is a choice between Israel and terrorism. Israel and hezbollah.

That is the partisan lie, not the truth.

[scribblet]

Harper is welcome to his position. It's just that it helps no one.

Criticising Israel helps no one either. Israel will do what it thinks it needs to do. And it's not like we have any influence with anyone over there.

I don't think taking either side or neither side is going to make any difference. However, I think we ought to align ourselves firmly with Israel simply because this is the right thing to do. It might cost some Arab votes, but so what?

Absolutely agree, imagine if we had remained neutral during WW 11. Imagine if the liberals or others had complained about U.S. 'disproportionate response' to Pearl Harbour - imagine....I can't ! Imagine if no one backed Israel and all supported terrorism, imagine what our world would look like if Hezbolla and Hamas have their way. We would all be Islamic or die, women would be second class citizens etc. etc.

[Argus]

Being neutral does not mean not taking a stand, it means not just throwing unconditional support behind Israel.

So some of that support should go to Hezbollah, right?

The complaint most Canadians have over this is that Harper has basically given Israel carte blanche to do anything. Therefore, he is 100% behind Israel. That is not being a friend to Israel, because friends need to be able to speak hard truths to you. Harper should be pointing out human suffering in Lebanon and the tragedy of the oil spill. Why does he not?

The collosal gall of you lefties to think that from decades of safety thousands of miles away, never having faced danger, wrapped in your noble, self-righeous, anti-militaristic attitude, you can try and offer advice to Israel about what it should do. That you can "point out" to Israel, the "human suffering", as if they're not right there seeing it and feeling it. As if they haven't been surrounded by these people for a generation and had to fight them off while still reassuring timid, whiny hypocrite countries like Canada that they're not being too rough with the poor little Arabs.

We cannot be an "honest broker" now.

We have never been an honest broker, any more than Burkino Faso is an honest broker. We are nobodies. No one cares what we think over there. We are uninvolved fence sitters who have consistently refused to take a stand except to play up to Canadian immigrant groups by supporting most of the one-sided anti-israeli resolutions the UN spews out every year.

You ask what is an "honest broker"?

An invention you lefties came up with to try to pretend your fence-sitting and refusal to take a stand is somehow noble and righteous and much admired throughout the world.

It is being perceived as speaking in the interest of truth and fairness. We've lost that.

We never had that. We act, internationally, in whatever is percieved as being in the best political interests of the party in power, or of our corporations. Thus we suck up to China and Indonesia and shrug off their brutal human rights records, thus we refused to condemn the Tamil Tigers and declare them a terrorist group thus we we vote in favour of anti-Israeli resolutions - or abstain. We are not known as a nation of principals. We are known as self-serving hypocrites who like to preach to everyone else about how wonderful and noble we are.

That is the only reputation we risk losing.

[fellowtraveller]

The collosal gall of you lefties to think that from decades of safety thousands of miles away, never having faced danger, wrapped in your noble, self-righeous, anti-militaristic attitude, you can try and offer advice to Israel about what it should do. That you can "point out" to Israel, the "human suffering", as if they're not right there seeing it and feeling it. As if they haven't been surrounded by these people for a generation and had to fight them off while still reassuring timid, whiny hypocrite countries like Canada that they're not being too rough with the poor little Arabs.

Word.

[jdobbin]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/14082006/2/nati...ws-mideast.html

Polling firms criticise one another over polling data on Harper and the Middle East.