"Tory flyers targeting Jewish votes raise hackles" - Globe

N.Beltov wrote:

But, perhaps, the Liberal leader can show us some clever ideological backflips.

Difficult to accomplish without a spine.  Mr. Feckless himself, from 1:23.

From the people that brought you "Paul Martin Supports Child Pornography"....opening soon at a theatre near you "Irwin Cotler is an Anti-Semite"

Stockholm wrote:

 "Irwin Cotler is an Anti-Semite"

Actually, Irwin Cotler's own wife tore up her Liberal membership card over concerns about the Liberal Party. Bob Rae's was smeared during the last leadership because his wife is Jewish. There's a reason many life long Jewish Liberals like my parents are moving over the Conservative camp.

I see the Liberals and Conservatives mentioned in this forum. Where do the NDP stand? 

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

Antonia Zerbesias of the Toronto Star DID question Cotler's loyalty to Canada because one of his daughters served in the Israeli army...after living there for many years, being a citizen and having been born to an Israeli mother.

I really wish all the bullshit questioning of people's motives could disappear from these debates.

I think this is a misrepresentation of Antonia's argument. (I know; you're shocked. Consider this your Captain Renault moment of the day.)

I can't speak for Antonia and I don't have her text in front of me, but for many of us, the family relationship was irrelevant to the genuine problem with Cotler's remarks. Cotler is a former minister of the Crown. He was praising a Canadian citizen for joining the armed forces of a foreign country.

No, that is not illegal, neither the joining nor the praising -- or at least in theory it's not illegal, although I suspect the ground could begin to shift a little depending on which foreign nation's armed forces a young Canadian decided to join.

However, it's a bit unsettling to some of us to see the bar set that low for Canadian public servants. Gee: isn't Cotler wonderful? He isn't breaking the law!

Is recruiting for foreign armies something we really want to see past and possibly future ministers of the Crown doing?

I agree that it is inappropriate to question Cotler's "loyalty" based on one of his children being a foreign national and livging in another country. I'm sure he is not the only MP with close family members who may serve in the armed forces of another country. Let's not go down that road - unless we want to rehash whether or not Stephane Dion is loyal to Canada when he has a French passport.

The only way I see this being an issue at all would be if Cotler were ever appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs or Minister of Defence and then you might be able to argue that this creates a possible conflict of interest.

Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

skdadl wrote:

 He was praising a Canadian citizen for joining the armed forces of a foreign country.

 

 

The exact quote (it was from Twitter) is as follows: "MP Irwin Cotler's children join IDF. http://bit.ly/1Ttsq0 Which country are you loyal to, sir?"

And she was not joining a the armed forces of a "foreign country". Cotler is married to an Israeli, one of his daughters was born there, both of them live there and have for some time and are citizens of israel. I certainly don't agree with Cotler on everything but a guy who has served as an MP for many years and been a staunch federalist in Quebec seems pretty "loyal" to Canada to me.

Rule 1 about Twitter: If someone includes a link in the tweet, then the content of that link is part of the tweet, eh? That link is to a video, I believe, that is Cotler being disturbing all on his own, in the terms I wrote out above.

Yeah, a lot of Canadians have dual citizenship, although most don't. Every once in a while, that looks like something of a problem to democracy here, but as long as no one pushes it too far, other Canadians have mainly not pushed back. I repeat: there is nothing illegal about urging young people to join the armed forces of a foreign nation, but there is something troubling about the possibility that that could become a policy endorsed at ministerial level, since the priority for ministers of the Crown is supposed to be Canadians, all Canadians, all the time, and it is not in the interest of all Canadians to be defending the armed forces of a foreign country.

The flyers are divisive, nasty propaganda that should not be allowed in house holders.  When are our politicians going to try to reign in this misuse of tax dollars?  The Cons are the worst for their messages but I think we should just get rid of the whole concept of the parties getting to send out these 10%er's.  You have something to say to your own constituents then that is one thing but these attack ads targeting swing ridings are outrageous.  From the link above here is what they bring to the political discourse.

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Star Spangled Canadian wrote:

Stockholm wrote:

 "Irwin Cotler is an Anti-Semite"

Actually, Irwin Cotler's own wife tore up her Liberal membership card over concerns about the Liberal Party. Bob Rae's was smeared during the last leadership because his wife is Jewish. There's a reason many life long Jewish Liberals like my parents are moving over the Conservative camp.

The large majority of Jewish voters are still Liberal.  And Irwin Cotler was pretty angry with the Conservatives over this latest stunt.  He spoke about it yesterday during interviews.

And just finished raising a point of privilege in the House.

The Tories had Pipsqueak Pierre Poilievre give their response, which was basically a catalogue of quotes from various Liberals (including Ignatieff and Dion) where they expressed something other than a slavish devotion to defending Israel.

These ten-percenters disgust me. Ten-percenters and other franking privileges (paid for by you and me as taxpayers) are supposed to allow MPs to communicate with their constitutents and report on the work they are doing in Ottawa and in the riding. They are not supposed to be taxpayer-funded political propaganda to be used to slam your political opponent in the neighbouring riding. The rules should be changed to restrict franking and ten-percenters to the MPs own riding. If the parties want to distribute political propaganda, let them do it on their own dime.

What's more, these pamphlets are stupid politics. I would have thought that the most rabid Israel-defenders would have all switched to the Tories a long time ago.

And that is only 2 years away ......

Lord Palmerston wrote:

I wonder what impact this will have, now that Ignatieff is taking an identical position to Harper on Israel.  Certainly the number of Jewish voters in Canada who have Israel as their main vote determining issue represents a minority of the community, so I don't know how much further the Tories can play the "we're the only party that supports Israel" (and by definition the Jewish people) card.

I received one of these flyers yesterday. I can't see how it's part of a "10%er" since it came from John Duncan, MP- Vancouver Island North. My MP is Caroline Bennett (Liberal). It's got a tear off form to mail back to him in Ottawa. Recipients of this hate mail are asked to select which of the 4 party leaders (May, not Duceppe) "is on the right track to represent and defend the values of Canada's Jewish community". So Duncan and Harper now speak for me. Talk about appropriation. 

Anyone notice that when Harper was in India a few days ago, he made  a visit to the Jewish community centre where a number of people were murdered in the Mumbai attacks. He lit a candle. More pandering. Now they can attack the liberals for not lighting a candle and therevby desecrating their memory. 

What I don't understand is why the Tories and Liberals have gotten into this ridiculous bidding war that consists "We are 100% pro-Israel, No, WE are 1000% pro-Israel" and the Liberals have made the mistake of trying to answer a "when did you stop beating your wife?"-type question.

What would be so bad about saying, our party accepts a diversity of views on the Middle East and occassionally criticizing Israeli policies falls well within the purvey of "acceptable" political debate in Canada.

Its outrageous for the Tories to try to spread obvious falsehoods - but it should also be said that there is nothing wrong with trying to be even handed about the conflict in the Middle East

I'm not sure why the Conservatives feel that targeting the Jewish vote will win them a lot of seats.  They won Thornhill in the last election, but that is the only seat with a large Jewish population that is on the radar screen for them in the immediate future other than perhaps Winnipeg South Centre.

The other seats with large Jewish populations include:

Mount Royal

Outremont

Westmount

Pierrefonds-Dollard

Toronto Centre

St Pauls

I don't see any of those going Conservative in the next election.

Lord Palmerston wrote:

Also, Eglinton-Lawrence.  The Tories came close there last time.  Quite the contrast from St. Paul's.

Ditto York Centre.

What's interesting about them distributing this vile propaganda in St. Paul's is that Carolyn "Bennett was chair of the Canada-Israel Friendship Group from 1999 to 2003 and is a member of Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel. (Wikipedia)" Her pro-Zionist credentials are pretty impeccable. 

I wrote to John Duncan, Republican MP- Vancouver Island North to register to my protest about his distribution of anti-Palestinian literature in my riding and his attempts to speak for me and for all Jews in Canada. I wonder if he'll write back? 

Ever since some in the Toronto Jewish community began their boycott of the "anti-semitic" Toronto Star (all Jewish obituaries moved to the National Putz), I think that the conservative-leaning Jews have had the upper hand over the liberal-leaning Jews. That Peter Kent did so poorly in St. Paul's yet won in Thornhill a couple years later is not insignificant. 

There seem to be two apparent phenomena here:

a. Anti-semites using extreme criticism of Israel and Zionism as a coded way of attacking Jews as a whole (I'm sure that this does happen, but I don't know that its particularly common - and its probably mainly something you in eastern Europe where you get neo-fascists going on about "Zionists and Cosmopolitans" (sic.))

b. People who try to brand and dismiss any and all criticism of Israel as being what I describe in "a." above - even though in realit thye vast majority of criticism of Israel is just criticism of Israel - just like we can criticize the government of Myanmar and not be anti-Burmese bigots!

Ultimately, I think that the real hidden agenda is get everyone side tracked away from having any reasonable debate about the Middle East - by transforming every debate into a "when did you stop beating your wife?"-type debate about anti-semitism.

Quote:

That Peter Kent did so poorly in St. Paul's yet won in Thornhill a couple years later is not insignificant.

It isn't insignificant but the Jewish communities in St. Paul and Thornhill are quite different, and I really doubt the Conservatives get anywhere near a majority of the Jewish vote.  The Conservatives made significant gains but it's hard to believe that something like every other Jewish Liberal swung Tory between '06 and '08 because of Israel.

There are plenty of people on the other side too who try to excuse "monstrous atrocities" perpetuated by Hamas and Co. as well. But that's not the point. It accomplishes nothing to debate what came first - the chicken or the egg. In the Middle East there is plenty of blame to go around against both sides for the current situation.

We should be free to criticise Israel without being labelled anti-semitic and we should also be free to criticize Hamas and Fatah without being accused of being "Islamophobic" or whatever other word you use to describe being bigoted against Arabs regardless of their religion.

I'm not sure that anyone (Other than maybe some arms dealers) actually opposes "peace" in the Middle East. Its just that everyone has very different views as to what a peaceful settlement would look like. The Likudniks in Israel would love to have peace if it meant Israeli sovereignty over everything between the Med. and the Jordan river and all Palestinians taking the hint and moving to Jordan. Hamas would love peace if it meant that the entire population of Israel would be re-settled in other countries and a theocratic palestinian state occupied 100% of the same territory.

If there actually was a peaceful settlement in the Middle East that made everyone happy - the US would be a big winner because it would mean that a gigantic burr in the saddle that has poisoned relations between the US and most of the Arab world would be removed. Just like the UK government is quite happy that the conflict in Northern Ireland is over. Its a win win.

20 years ago people argued that the Cold War could never end because the US didn't actually want it to end. But then it ended and the Americans were quite happy to be triumphalistic about it.

I think that if by some miracle, Israel and the Palestinians negotiated a comprehensive peace treaty and Tel Aviv became a train stop on the road from Cairo to Beirut and there was a Middle East Economic Union with free trade between Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt etc... that Obama would be more than happy to be the impresario and have a ceremony in the Rose Garden and everyone would live happily ever after.

Seriously, what possible down side would there be for the US if there was peace in the Middle East?

There's no oil in Israel or Palestine