Stephen Harper Stands Tall

By COLlive reporter
Photos by Knesset and PMO

With his historic speech in the Knesset plenum, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has solidified his unofficial title as the most unabashed and gutsy world leader who supports Israel.

“Through fire and water, Canada will stand with you,” the Conservative Harper told Israeli parliamentarians and guests on Monday, the first time a Canadian leader has addressed Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem.

“Your name will be kept and remembered with pride in the history of the relations between our two nations,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Harper, who came to the Holy land accompanied by 208 people, including Chabad rabbis.

“In the international community there are those who try to deny our connection to our capital, Jerusalem. In the international community there are also those who recognize the facts. But you Stephen, you have the courage to stand up for the truth and the courage to say the truth,” Netanyahu told his Canadian counterpart.

“In this age of hypocrisy that we live in, Canada is a moral compass and a beacon of good sense,” he added. “We live in an age of hypocrisy. Instead of dealing with mass slaughter, the oppression of women and of religion, there are those who point an accusing finger only at Israel, the only democracy in the area which respects human rights and promises the freedom of religion to all of its citizens.”

HARPER HECKLED BY ARABS

Speaking in both French and English, Canada’s national languages, Harper explained why his government offered unwavering support for Israel and slammed Israel’s many critics.

“Canada supports Israel fundamentally because it is right to do so,” he stated in a speech the Canadian press called wide-ranging and bluntly worded.

“Those who often begin by hating the Jews, history shows us, end up hating anyone who is not them,” he said. “Those forces, which have threatened the state of Israel every single day of its existence and which, today, as 9-11 graphically showed us, threaten us all.

“And so either we stand up for our values and our interests here in Israel and stand up for the existence of a free, democratic and distinctively Jewish state or the retreat of our values and our interests in the world will begin.”

During the speech, two Arab-Israeli Knesset members heckled Harper, asking why he wouldn’t condemn the building of Israeli settlements. In response to the brief protest, the rest of the Knesset repeatedly and enthusiastically applauded Harper, the National Post reported.

Harper said that “Canadians have even gone so far as to bleed and die to defend the freedom of others in far-off lands. To be clear, we have also periodically made terrible mistakes as in the refusal of our government in the 1930s to ease the plight of Jewish refugees.

“But, as a country, at the turning points of history, Canada has consistently chosen, often to our great cost, to stand with others who oppose injustice, and to confront the dark forces of the world,” he said, adding that “It is right to support Israel because after generations of persecution the Jewish people deserve their own homeland.”

Canada, Harper told the Knesset, will not accept the delegitimization of Israel. “Canada finds it horrible that there are those in the international community who challenge Israel’s legitimate right to exist. That with one solitary Jewish state among many others, it is all too easy to isolate Israel.”

Harper also said that he believed expression of anti-Zionism to be on par with anti-Semitism.

“Anti-Semitism still exists in its traditional form based on ignorance in some of the dark corners of the world,” he said. “In the Western world it takes on a more sophisticated form. With some intellectualized arguments on some campuses. This is the new face of anti-Semitism.”

Addressing the issue of Iran, the Canadian leader vowed that Canada’s sanctions against the Islamic Republic “will stay in place.”

ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME

Prime Minister Harper and his wife Laureen Harper were warmly welcomed to the parliament Monday evening by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu.

The Harpers were greeted on a red carpet by a group of Israeli children and were given an honorary key of the Knesset. “Now I feel I can come and go whenever I choose,” he joked.

He was also given a shirt of Israel’s lesser-known ice hockey team (although they are ranked 39th as of 2013 by the International Ice Hockey Federation.)

As COLlive.com reported, accompanying Harper on the trip are Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, International Trade Minister Ed Fast, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, business leaders and rabbis.

Leading the Chabad representation are Rabbi Berel Mockin, Director of Lubavitch Youth Organization in Montreal, Quebec, and Rabbi Zalman A. Grossbaum, Director of Chabad Lubavitch of Ontario, who join Harper each year in lighting a menorah on Chanukah.

They are joined from Ontario by Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, Rabbi Yoseph Y. Zaltzman, Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman and Rabbi Chaim Mendelsohn; Rabbi Yitzchok Wineberg – British Columbia; Rabbi Menachem M. Matusof from Alberta, Rabbi Shmuel Altein from Manitoba and Rabbi Mendel Feldman from Nova Scotia.

Also seen in the Knesset visitors gallery during the speech were Montreal jewelers and Chabad philanthropists, R’ Yitzchok and Julie Gniwisch.

VIDEO: The full speech