By Michael Regenstreif
Three pages of this edition of the Bulletin are devoted to coverage of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa’s Communications and Community Relations Committee’s roundtable discussions with the three major federal political parties on three major issues of concern to the Jewish community.
We were aware that, because of the timing of the election call, the short campaign and the Sukkot election date, most members of the community will have voted before having an opportunity to read this edition of the Bulletin. That’s why we announced last issue that the coverage would be posted at ottawajewishbulletin.com as soon as possible, and before voting opened in the advance polls. I hope you had a chance to read the coverage online before heading to the polls.
What Canada should do vis-à-vis the threat posed to the world, and in particular to Israel, by Iran’s quest for nuclear weapon capability, especially in light of the incitement to genocide by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was one of the major topics of discussion.
I’ll get back to the Ottawa candidates’ responses to the issue in a moment, but how meshugah is Ahmadinejad? The logic of his nuclear quest and the threats implicit in his anti-Israel incitements suggest he’d use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
Ahmadinejad wants to destroy Israel because he sees himself as the great champion of the Palestinians. The Iranian regime, as we know, sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah. The thing is, though, if, God forbid, there were a nuclear attack on Israel and Ahmadinejad was successful in killing all the Jews in the Holy Land, it would also wipe out the Israeli Arabs, the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, and those in the Hezbollah strongholds of Southern Lebanon.
That Ahmadinejad is some champion. He’ll save the Palestinians from the Israelis by wiping out the Palestinians.
But Ahmadinejad’s grandiose talk of wiping Israel off the map is probably not the most likely danger posed by a nuclear Iran. Ahmadinejad knows that an Iranian nuclear attack against Israel would be met in kind by Western nuclear powers. The more likely danger is that the Iranian regime would supply something like a dirty little nuclear bomb in a suitcase to one or more of its terrorist clients.
That kind of danger is not limited to Israel. A suitcase attack could strike anywhere and dwarf the effects of 9/11.
The candidates from all three parties spoke of the need for sanctions against the Iranian regime.
Paul Dewar, the NDP incumbent in Ottawa Centre, talked about how the sanctions needed to be real, not just “paper tiger” sanctions that target future investment in Iran while ignoring ongoing economic ties with the Iranian regime.
John Baird, the Conservative incumbent in Ottawa West-Nepean and a minister in the Harper government, talked about the need for tough sanctions but said he couldn’t commit the government to a course of action.
David Pratt, the former Liberal cabinet minister running against Baird, talked about the need to prevent a nuclear confrontation in the Middle East.
A particularly interesting moment in the meeting with the Liberal candidates came when they were asked if there were policy differences between the Liberals and Conservatives on the Iran issue. Pratt explained that, while their differences were great on domestic issues, there was less room for any differences on such international issues.
I wondered, at that moment, if Pratt was aware of the work of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, his former cabinet colleague, on the Iran dossier; that is, his efforts to convince Western governments, including Canada’s, to bring Ahmadinejad to international justice for his incitement to genocide. Cotler introduced a bill in Parliament last year calling for Ahmadinejad to be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for inciting genocide. The bill was rejected by the Conservatives.
The day before the Federation meeting with the two Liberal candidates in Ottawa, Cotler spoke at the massive anti-Ahmadinejad rally in New York and called for the Iranian president to be brought to justice.
The day after the meeting, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion spoke to a Jewish audience in Winnipeg and attacked the Conservative government for rejecting Cotler’s approach. And, in a campaign debate with a Conservative candidate in Montreal, Cotler attacked the Harper government asking, “Why are there four Canadian trade commissioners in Iran right now promoting trade with Iran?”
Clearly, there are policy differences between the Liberals and the Conservatives on the Iran issue. It would appear that the local Liberal candidates did not research that, or were not well briefed, before coming to a meeting where it was bound to be a major topic of discussion.
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