Irwin Cotler Challenges ‘Even-Handedness’

Indeed, these musings — together with such morally obtuse meanderings about the “cycle of violence,” or that “it is not important who started the war” — constitute a political Pablum that comports neither with Canadian principles nor with contemporary reality. The notion of being even-handed between terrorist groups sworn to Israel’s destruction and a democratic country defending itself from armed attack is a moral absurdity, a “perversion of our traditions” as The Globe and Mail put it. In fact, the foundational principles of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East as affirmed by successive governments require us to “take sides,” to eschew even-handedness and to raise our voice as a moral interlocutor in a principled way. Admittedly, our policy has sometimes not comported with our principles, and when that happens, it is more a failure of policy than principle. But a review of the seven principles of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East, as appears below, makes it clear that the notion that this foreign policy has been — or should be — even-handed is misplaced. Indeed, the notion that Stephen Harper’s support of Israel is “one-sided” or “ideological” runs the risk of suggesting that if giving _expression to Canadian foreign policy principles means ending up siding with Israel, we should thereby jettison our principles. Who, then, is being ideological here? http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=2390

Note: http://www.israpundit.c...