In his speech at the Jewish Historical Society’s Sol Kanee Distingushed Lecture on April 28, David Frum referred extensively to his exchange of letters about Israel in the National Post he had with Bob Rae, Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic, and now a potential contender to be the next leader of the Liberal party.
I was in Toronto for the last two days of the election campaign. The night before the election I was a guest at an event in a private home which Bob Rae attended and ended up sitting next to him over dinner.
I told him that his ears would be burning if he had heard that part of David Frum’s speech (which few would deny was very partisan at times) which dealt with Frum’s exchange of letters with Rae. In his speech in Winnipeg, Frum criticized Rae’s letter pretty extensively. He said that the assumption behind Rae’s letter, was that that “there exists in Canada insufficient anti-Israel comment – and that the main reason for this insufficiency is ‘intimidation’ exercised by Jewish groups.”
In response, Rae made it clear to me that he didn’t think much of what he referred to as Frum’s “terrible letter.”
The lively exchange of letters between Rae and Frum is set out at the end of my comments below—the letters make for an interesting read which I recommend (more about Frum’s talk in Winnipeg will follow in a further article).
Although many Liberal’s went down to defeat on May 3’s federal election, I had a good hunch that Rae wasn’t going to loose his. Afterall, he had to be feeling pretty confident about his prospects, if he was attending an event at a private home the evening before the election, rather than concentrating on getting his vote out.
I had a sense from being at several events in the Toronto Jewish community that the Jewish vote was shifting to the Conservatives. Several people I met spoke about Harper being a strong supporter of Israel—and I heard this from some who were first time voters.
The night before the election I wasn’t sure what would happen to MP Irwin Cotler in Montreal’ s Mount Royal riding-especially given that Bob Rae also expressed some concern to me the night before. Cotler was only one of six Quebec Liberals who managed to hold their seats. He beat Conservative challenger Saulie Zajdel, a former city councilor, an Orthodox Jew and B’nai Brith official, by less than 2,300 votes, with only a 41.4 per cent share of the vote.
Even among Torontonian Jews who voted Conservative, there were those I encountered who were hoping that Irwin Cotler, would be “spared” and remain in Parliament. Cotler, who is one of the most outstanding Parliamentarians Canada could ever have, and who has been at the forefront of the fight to hold the Iranian Regime to account and a staunch defender of Israel, is a Jewish leader of unparalleled accomplishments in my view. I, for one, believe that Cotler’s dogged persistence on the Iran issue helped ensure that Canada enacted the SEMA [ Special Economic Measures Act] which is significant in pursuing the necessary sanctions against Iran. For his work on the issue of Iran alone, Cotler ought to be in Parliament.
It is my hope that Cotler will continue to raise issues regarding Iran. One of the issues that Cotler has uncovered is that Canada now has four not three trade attaches in Iran. It is my intention to follow up and ask the Conservative government why this is the case. Readers will be updated on this.
From my perch in Toronto the night before the election, I also suspected that Ignatieff was in trouble in his own riding since my brother in Toronto lives in that riding. My brother mentioned that he had been bombarded near the end of the campaign with “personal calls” from Michael Ignatieff (which were electronic messages)—it was the fact that my brother got multiple calls that made me suspect there was a problem. It sounded like calls of desperation.
I was not surprised that Mark Adler, age 49, a new Jewish MP for the Conservatives won his race against Ken Dryden in York Centre, a riding with a large Jewish constituency. Dryden, a former cabinet minister and Liberal leadership hopeful lost to Adler by nearly 6,400 votes—a solid margin. York Centre has one of the country’s highest proportion of Jewish residents, at 24%. Adler, a businessman and founder of the Economic Club of Canada, is the first Conservative to win the riding since 1957. Driving through that area the day before the elections it was clear to me based on the signs posted on lawns that there could be an upset. Adler focused on the issue of the economy and the anxiety surrounding a Liberal-NDP coalition and Harper’s support of Israel.
I met Adler, whose father a Holocaust survivor, when he attended the B’nai Brith Canada dinner here in Winnipeg honouring Janice Filmon last November.
The third newly Jewish MP is Joe Oliver, a lawyer and investment banker who defeated the incumbent Liberal Joe Volpe in the Eglinton-Lawrence riding in Toronto, which has a 17% Jewish vote. Volpe held the seat since 1988. Last election Oliver tried to unseat Volpe and lost by only about 2000 votes. This time Oliver defeated Volpe by more than 4,000 votes.
In Winnipeg South Centre, we lose Liberal MPAnita Neville, who has served her constituency well for many years and is to be thanked for her dedicated service. Newly elected Conservative MP Joyce Bateman defeated Neville in a close race. Days before David Asper sent a letter to several thousand constituents supporting Bateman, outlining Harper's pro-Israel stances.Gary Bronstone responded to Asper's letter (I have not had a chance to read it since I was out of town). Bateman's campaign was also bolstered several days before the election by the appearance of Senator Linda Frum who campaigned with Bateman.
THE SPAT BETWEEN FRUM AND RAE
David Frum wrote an article published in the National Post suggesting that Liberals would have a policy of duplicity on Israel.
In response Bob Rae wrote this letter :
BOB RAE”S LETTER TO DAVID FRUM: FRUM WHISTLES A LOONEY TUNE
David Frum’s extended time as a speechwriter and adviser to George Bush and the Republican Party may have sharpened his attack dog skills, but in creating the “dog whistle theory” of extra terrestrial communication even he has left the world of vigorous debate for outer space.
So, he argues, when Michael Ignatieff says that losing the vote for the seat on the Security Council is a cause for concern, Mr Frum states – apparently quite seriously – that this is really a “dog whistle” to the anti-Israel forces in Canada that they should support the Liberal Party. The rest of the article in the National Post is as an extended commentary on this truly ridiculous argument.
Conservative candidates frequently repeat the mantra that “only the Conservative Party is a friend of Israel”, presumably on the premise that repeating a lie often enough will make it true.
This line of attack is used to shore up support for Conservative campaigns among Jewish voters. Foreign policy is just a football to be kicked around for partisan advantage.
Right after the Security Council vote the Conservatives made a point of saying it was entirely because of Canada’s “principled stand” in favour of Israel. This ignores Mr Harper’s refusal to engage China at all the first few years of his tenure; CIDA’s decision to downgrade its relations with Africa; the abject failure of the Harper government to take the UN seriously as an organisation until it was too late; and the ideological decision of the government to attack the decisions and efforts of previous governments.
It is pretty strange that a Prime Minister who declares his unqualified support for whatever an Israel government might decide to do has never actually visited Israel. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor who has made several visits to the country and the region, and has long been a strong friend of Israel, somehow managed to win a seat on the Security Council on the first ballot.
Israel’s interests are not well served by having Canada absent from the Security Council. Nor is Israel’s security enhanced by a Canada unable to engage effectively as an interlocutor with an Arab world in the middle of dramatic change.
The “dog whistle” argument is truly ridiculous. It means that anyone who argues for a two state solution, or who believes Canada needs to work with Palestinians and neighbouring states in making a Palestinian state viable, or who expresses regret at the mismanagement of our foreign policy is really feeding the “anti-Israel” dog.
This is really an argument about intimidation, an effort to avoid discussion and debate. The Liberal Party is proud of its support for Israel. It is also proud of its support for peace and for co-existence. Mr Frum is inventing things and hearing things that aren’t there.
DAVID FRUM’S REPLY TO BOB RAE : RAE TAKES SHABBY POSITION ON ISRAEL
When I say the letter is shabby, I don’t just mean that its tone is obnoxious and its message is dishonest (although both are true). I mean: it’s not even an ordinarily competent piece of spin-doctoring. I take for granted that Rae did not write the letter he signed. I wonder whether he even read it.
So let me speak directly here to the letter’s ghostwriter.
Mr or Ms Ghostwriter: You’re only a week away from a federal election. You are writing to a pro-Israel paper with a pro-Israel readership. Your task is to defend your party’s not-so-solid record on Israel. Obviously – obviously! – you should open with some ringing declaration of support for Israel. “Israel will have no better friend than a Liberal government under the leadership of Michael Ignatieff.”
Or something like that. Put it in your own words.
Granted, those words would not be true – but your explanation of what happened to Canada’s hopes for a seat on the UN Security Council is not true either, and that did not bother you.
But no. You did not bother to affirm friendship for Israel until the very last paragraph of your letter, and then in the most backhanded way, and then only after you have first declared in much warmer language your commitment to a “viable” Palestinian state. Wrong! Not how it’s done!
In fact, every line of the Rae letter exemplifies “how it’s not done.”
Attack Stephen Harper because his management of a coalition government has not left him time to visit Israel? Are you kidding? Every friend of Israel remembers that the important visit in Israel-Canada relations was the visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to Canada in May 2010. Two months after President Obama brutally snubbed the Israeli PM during a White House working visit, Prime Minister Harper organized a visit of warm welcome to Canada culminating in a rare invitation to the Canadian prime minister’s country house, Harrington Lake.
Mr or Ms Ghostwriter, you want to avoid placing the words “visit” “Israel” and “Stephen Harper” in the same sentence – they only remind your readers what a good friend to Israel Harper has been. And they remind readers with longer memories that Netanyahu’s visit to Canada was the first by an Israeli prime minister in 16 years: Three Israeli prime ministers in a row – from three different parties – all decided that they preferred not to repeat Yitzhak Rabin’s experience with the newly elected Jean Chretien in 1994.
But where you get truly and utterly slapdash, Mr or Ms Ghostwriter, is where you unfavorably compare Stephen Harper to Angela Merkel.
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor who has made several visits to the country and the region, and has long been a strong friend of Israel, somehow managed to win a seat on the Security Council on the first ballot.
That would be the Angela Merkel whose country sold Iran the control equipment for the centrifuges now enriching the uranium for Iran’s nuclear bomb? If that’s the Liberal Party’s idea of “strong friendship,” then the Canada-Israel relationship will be headed for a bumpy ride indeed under an Ignatieff prime ministership.
Yet the real news in the letter signed by Bob Rae is the same news that I reported from the English-language leaders’ debate: When they speak about the Middle East, the Liberals double-message: professing friendship for Israel while signaling to anti-Israel voters.
Rae’s own letter is filled with such signals. Thus Rae: “This is really an argument about intimidation, an effort to avoid discussion and debate.”
Now reverse-engineer that sentence. What is the debate that Rae thinks is being avoided by the alleged intimidation? He doesn’t say, but other people who use similar language are not so coy.
“…[A]busive reactions directed at [President Carter’s book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid], are designed to intimidate an open public discussion. - Zbigniew Brzezinski , Dec. 4, 2006.
“Jewish groups intimidate critics of Israel.” – Desmond Tutu, Aug. 28, 2009.
“[Jewish Voices for Peace] encourage[s] discussion both within our own community and outside of it of the growing BDS [boycott Israel, divest from Israel, sanction Israel] movement. JVP defends activists’ right to use the full range of BDS tactics without being persecuted or demonized. – Jewish Voices for Peace June 9, 2010.
Behind Rae’s words is a telling assumption: that there exists in Canada insufficient anti-Israel comment – and that the main reason for this insufficiency is “intimidation” exercised by Jewish groups.
Personally, as somebody who often finds himself on the minority side of various arguments, I find this kind of whining unbecoming. You want to say something? Quit complaining about how intimidated you are: just man up, and say it. Nobody will put you in prison.
But if you don’t quite have the nerve to say it, don’t think you can mumble to one side of the argument without being heard by the other.
Friends of Israel hear you, Bob Rae. They understand you. And as I said before: They are warned.
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