September 24, 2012: Why did Canada suddenly break diplomatic relations with Iran?

By Michael Regenstreif

As I write this column on the morning of September 14, it is exactly one week after Canada suddenly broke off diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The federal government had already quietly evacuated what was a skeletal diplomatic staff in Tehran when it ordered Iran’s diplomats in Ottawa to leave the country within five days. We hadn’t had ambassadorial level relations with Iran since 2007, and relations have been particularly strained since 2003, when Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photographer, was arrested, tortured and killed by the Iranian regime.

In Ottawa, it was big news in January 2011, when officials at Library and Archives Canada cancelled the Free Thinking Film Society’s screening of Iranium, a documentary critical of Iran’s efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb, bowing to pressure from the Iranian embassy. The federal government was quick to recognize how wrong it was to allow the Iranians to exert any such influence and the screening was rescheduled when Heritage Minister James Moore stepped in.

There was no shortage of reasons to break off relations with Iran. As Foreign Minister John Baird said in his statement, Iran is “the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today.”

As Baird went on to explain, “The Iranian regime is providing increasing military assistance to the Assad regime; it refuses to comply with UN resolutions pertaining to its nuclear program; it routinely threatens the existence of Israel and engages in racist antisemitic rhetoric and incitement to genocide; it is among the world’s worst violators of human rights; and it shelters and materially supports terrorist groups, requiring the Government of Canada to formally list Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism under the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.

“Moreover, the Iranian regime has shown blatant disregard for the Vienna Convention and its guarantee of protection for diplomatic personnel. Under the circumstances, Canada can no longer maintain a diplomatic presence in Iran.”

While the list of Baird’s reasons for cutting our last remaining diplomatic ties to Iran’s Islamist government were spot on, the question turned on the suddenness of the announcement, which came while both Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper were in Russia attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ conference.

All the reasons Baird cited would have been just as valid months ago and almost all of them years ago. Why the suddenness on September 7? With the situation vis-à-vis Iran such as it has been for such a long period of time, why didn’t we make this move before or why couldn’t it have waited another 10 days when the announcement could have been made in the House of Commons?

I would have to assume the government decided to act when it did because it was aware of an imminent threat – or the real possibility of a threat – to our diplomats.

There was some media speculation, denied by Baird, that we had advance knowledge of an impending attack on Iran by Israel. Baird said the safety of our diplomats was a primary concern.

Indeed, concern for the safety of Western diplomats in Iran has been a major consideration since the Islamist regime came to power in 1979 and Iranian students took control of the American embassy and held American diplomats hostage for more than a year. The United States has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since.

And, just 10 months ago, Great Britain closed its embassy in Tehran and expelled Iranian diplomats from London after mobs stormed and vandalized the British embassy in Tehran. Canada acted just four days before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Might we have been aware of a particular threat tied to the anniversary?

As it happened, much of the Islamic world exploded on September 11 – when the American ambassador to Libya and three members of his staff were brutally murdered – and in the few days since in riots sparked by a crude, pathetic depiction of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, posted to YouTube. The insulting video – which was actually online for more than two months before the riots broke out – was obviously meant to inflame Muslim fundamentalists.

Early media reports accepted the filmmaker’s claim that his name was Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American. It turned out that Bacile was one of many aliases of a Coptic Christian Egyptian-American with previous convictions for financial crimes. Despite that revelation, as I write, PressTV, the Iranian regime’s English-language propaganda agency, is reporting the film to be the work of “more than 100 Zionists.”

Given what has transpired in the Middle East in recent days, Canada’s decision to act on Iran when it did, seems timely.

September 10, 2012: United Church takes anti-Israel stance despite members’ opposition

By Michael Regenstreif

The General Council of the United Church of Canada (UCC) – the largest Protestant denomination in the country – met here in Ottawa three weeks ago. As noted in a brief article on page 24, the UCC decided at the conclave to boycott products from Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in eastern Jerusalem after deciding that Israeli settlements are the principal obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

The UCC also apologized to the Palestinians for having once passed a resolution asking them to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The UCC passed its anti-Israel resolutions – based on a UCC working group’s report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which placed almost all responsibility for the stalemated peace process at Israel’s feet – despite understanding the ramifications the action would have on relations with Canada’s Jewish community and, perhaps more significantly, the one-sided stance does not represent the views of the greater UCC membership.

An independent survey of United Church members – commissioned by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and Faithful Witness, a grassroots group of UCC clergy and congregants – was conducted by the Gandalf Group, a leading polling and research firm, in July. Among the survey results were that 78 per cent of UCC members felt the Church should remain neutral on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As well, only five per cent agreed with the UCC working group report’s conclusion that Israeli settlements are the principal obstacle to peace. Only seven per cent believed a boycott would advance the cause of peace and only nine per cent believed favouring one side over the other would strengthen the Church’s credibility as a voice for peace.

Clearly, the vast majority of UCC members rejected the working group’s report and recommendations. The survey results would suggest most UCC members would lend their support to those on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide who advocate and work for peace.

Unfortunately, the UCC General Council did not seem to care about how the overwhelming majority of Church members felt about the issue when it passed its resolutions. And the Council certainly did not seem to care about a rift – perhaps irreparable – it knew would be created between the United Church and the mainstream Jewish community, should it approve the working group report. Jewish organizations, including CIJA and B’nai Brith, warned of such a consequence. So, too, did a group of nine members of the Canadian Senate, all UCC members. So, too, did Faithful Witness, a group of UCC clergy and members organized by Reverend Andrew Love of Grace St. Andrew’s United Church in Arnprior.

In the wake of the anti-Israel resolutions passed by the UCC General Council, CIJA, in a memorandum to Canadian Jewish community leaders on August 23, called for a complete “moratorium on all dialogue and partnership activities between the institutions of the Canadian Jewish community and the United Church of Canada, its regional conferences, local presbyteries, and individual congregations. This moratorium specifically includes bilateral discussions involving the UCC and Jewish communal institutions, broad interfaith groups in which the United Church is one [of] several partners, and educational activities. We ask the rabbinic and lay leadership of the Canadian Jewish community to respect the highest degree of solidarity with this moratorium.”

While calling for the moratorium, CIJA also recognized and thanked those “within the UCC who worked to defeat the General Council resolutions on Israel-Palestine and who spoke out against a boycott of Israeli goods. The Centre Board will consider how and where to maintain contact with those whose principled opposition to the decision to boycott Israeli goods led them to oppose the resolutions.”

A rational analysis of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians shows it is an extremely complicated situation and the Palestinians – whose authority is divided between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas – bear much of the responsibility for the lack of progress in the peace process. While Israel constantly expresses its readiness to resume negotiations without pre-conditions, it is the Palestinians, sadly, who will not come to the table.

But Palestinian rejectionism, Hamas rockets and Iran’s nuclear threats were not part of the UCC discourse. The UCC General Council also seemed silent on the massacres that come to light almost daily in the brutal civil war in Syria or the repression of Christians in post-revolutionary Egypt. No, it was all about Israel.