If it was good enough for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to bring his election campaign to Jerusalem, why should Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not try it? The difference is that Jerusalem to the Jewish leader is Washington. With an Israeli election in three weeks, Netanyahu has pulled out all stops.
But even if he wins re-election, he has a pissed off President Obama. Lame duck or not, it really does not pay for a Jewish leader to annoy a sitting American president. Netanyahu accepted Republican House Leader John Boehner’s crassly political invitation to address Congress without doing the proper diplomatic discussion with the U.S. State Department and the President. That is very bad manners.
Not that good manners are a regular part of the right wing code of conduct. In aid of re-election, Stephen Harper brought a load of Canadian Jews to Israel in a re-enactment of the wedding reception scene from the 1969 movie version of Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus. The Israelis politely looked away and dutifully applauded whatever it was that Harper said in addressing the Knesset.
Even as late as a couple weeks ago, when then Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was in the Levant stirring the pot of hatreds. He seemed to enjoy the shoes and other objects being thrown at him by protesting Arabs. It is really too bad the Arabs do not often play baseball. It would have been nice to see a few sliders hit the mark.
Mind you, Stephen Harper does not have to go far to stir the pot of hatreds, suspicions, distrust and retribution. His current dialogue in the House of Commons is built on the few disturbed people who have reacted to the potential notoriety offered by jihad. His alarms and efforts at revenge are creating more.
And for this, he insults Canadians, ignores rights, ridicules the need for oversight and accuses his naysayers of failing Canadians in a time of fear.
But those who are really failing Canadians are the New Democrat’s Thomas Mulcair and the Liberal’s Justin Trudeau. They are letting the right wing trample rights for cheap political points. It is a time for leaders to lead or to fall by the wayside. As a famous American President once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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