War in Gaza top local issue with constituents, Canadian MPs say

As fighting resumed in Gaza late last week after peace talks in Egypt failed, Canadian MPs from all parties are hearing from constituents about the conflict, with veteran Liberal MP John McCallum calling the feedback in his riding the most “hatred and intolerance” he’s witnessed in his political life. Mr. McCallum (Markham-Unionville, Ont.) was one of six Parliamentarians who went to Israel last month on a Canadian Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs-sponsored trip that the organization billed as a “solidarity mission.” Fellow Liberals Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul’s, Ont.) and Alberta Senator Grant Mitchell also took part, along with Conservative MPs Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, Sask.), Ted Opitz (Etobicoke Centre, Ont.), and David Sweet (Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, Ont.). Mr. McCallum said he, Ms. Bennett, and Mr. Hoback stayed on after the planned 48-hour trip to visit Palestinian representatives in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Some of the response Mr. McCallum has been getting from constituents in his riding has to do with the trip, he said, and he visited Ramallah partly because of that response but also to get a more “balanced view” of the conflict. Like other MPs The Hill Times contacted last week, Mr. McCallum said the issue has been top of mind for constituents communicating with his office who are “venting in a major way.” “There are many on the Palestinian side and many on the Jewish side, but many come from people who are neither Jews nor Muslims,” he said of the feedback in a telephone interview in his riding north of Toronto. “There’s a hatred or an intolerance exhibited toward Jews, and toward Palestinians and Hamas, and so I think, in my time in politics, I’ve never seen such an eruption of strong views.” When asked for examples of the feedback he’s receiving, Mr. McCallum said, “Some of them are not fit to be reprinted.” The month-long fighting in Gaza has impacted all federal political parties, leading to demonstrations of support for and protest against the federal government’s support of Israel in Ottawa, and various other actions at constituency offices throughout the country, particularly those of NDP MPs. The Green Party also lost its president over the conflict. Fighting resumed in Gaza Aug. 8 after a 72-hour truce when Palestinian militants fired rockets into southern Israel and Israel responded by targeting “terror sites” in the Gaza Strip, according to media reports. The truce came into effect last week after almost a month of fighting that killed more than 1,800 Palestinians, many of them civilians, as well as 64 Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians. Indirect peace talks were taking place in Cairo with Hamas demanding an end to the blockade on Gaza and an opening of the borders. Israel wants Gaza demilitarized. Back in Canada, MPs are receiving a mix of feedback about the government’s position as well as their own party’s. Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.) have unequivocally supported Israel and blamed Hamas’s refusal to stop the fighting for the Palestinian deaths. The Conservatives’ unbending support for Israel has put the other parties in a difficult position, pollster Nik Nanos said. Foreign policy related to Israel “punches above its weight” in a number of ridings across the country and therefore becomes part of the political calculus, he said. “Foreign policy doesn’t win elections but foreign policy can win ridings,” he said in an interview. Chad Rogers, a Conservative strategist and partner at lobby firm Crestview Strategies in Toronto, disagreed that the Conservatives’ foreign policy would sway voters or that supporting Israel necessarily makes for sound electoral strategy. Rather, Mr. Harper’s foreign policy move to always side with democracies and pursue “moral clarity” has “changed the entire spectrum” of how Canadians talk about foreign policy, Mr. Roger said in an interview. “The Conservatives have staked out such a clear position that it has basically forced the opposition parties to signal what they think of the Harper position and their clear views on the issue also,” Mr. Nanos said. “Everyone’s in a tough spot.” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) and NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, Ont.) each said the Conservative position has stifled the political debate in Canada. “The Prime Minister appears to be saying we cannot have a debate in Canada,” Ms. May said in an interview with The Hill Times. While supporting Israel is “a given” in Canadian foreign policy, she said, Mr. Harper has placed his support with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party. Mr. Dewar called it “a ‘you’re with us or against us’ kind of debate.” “There was no opening to discuss about what Canada’s role is to help get a ceasefire, how we then move toward getting a durable peace and negotiated settlement,” he said. “It was just a rubber stamp and echo of whatever Netanyahu’s point of view was. It doesn’t allow for much dialogue, obviously, and it certainly isn’t nuanced and it’s not in keeping with our values.” Ms. May and Mr. Dewar also expressed concern about the government’s position diminishing Canada’s international standing. The Liberals have supported Israel while calling for a ceasefire. Mr. Trudeau’s July 15 statement on the crisis commended Israel for accepting the ceasefire proposal that Hamas rejected, “strongly” condemning the latter while recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself. Mr. McCallum said the Liberals’ position differs from the government’s in its emphasis on a ceasefire and “the alleviation of human suffering” but many observers have not noticed much of a distinction. The NDP has also sought to distinguish its stance from the other parties amid claims that it’s not offering a distinct alternative. Various groups have staged protests about the party’s position at constituency offices throughout the country. One at leader Tom Mulcair’s (Outremont, Que.) Montreal constituency office on Aug. 5 had protesters engaged in a “die-in,” lying on the ground covered in fake blood with the names of Palestinian children killed in the conflict written on placards, Le Devoir reported. The protesters were calling on the NDP leader to listen to his MPs and adjust the party’s position, and to pressure the Conservative government to call on Israel to halt its strikes in Gaza, the Montreal-based daily reported. Less dramatic protests have been staged at NDP offices throughout the country. About a dozen protesters took part in a “sit-in” at Mr. Dewar’s Ottawa office on July 31, calling on the NDP to take a stronger position condemning Israel’s role in the conflict. Similar actions followed last week at the constituency offices of NDP MPs Megan Leslie (Halifax, N.S.) and Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, B.C.). “There’s been a huge interest in what our party’s position is. There’s been some need to clarify,” Mr. Dewar said. The NDP has been more outspoken than the Conservatives and Liberals about civilian deaths and refrained from sending members on the CIJA trip to Israel or to a pro-Israel rally in Ottawa, as those parties did, he said. In an Aug. 1 statement, Mr. Dewar said it was “profoundly disappointing” that Hamas had violated the initial ceasefire while calling the Israeli military’s shelling of a UN shelter in Gaza “horrifying and completely unacceptable. “Canada must urge Israel to take further measures to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law,” the statement said. Mr. Dewar’s constituents have sought “clarification” from him on the NDP’s position, he said, but the “dominant response” has been from those “dismayed” at the government’s one-sided response. Conservative MP Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.)—whose Toronto-area constituents are 37 per cent Jewish and four per cent Muslim, according to the 2011 National Household Survey—said the majority of calls and emails to his office have expressed a “shared horror at the magnitude of humanitarian tragedy” while placing responsibility on Hamas for not instituting ceasefires from the beginning. Much of the support for the government’s position has come from constituents self-identifying as Jewish who have thanked him on behalf of their community, he said in an interview. He has also heard from residents who don’t identify as belonging to any particular ethnic or religious group who are concerned about the civilian deaths in Gaza and about Canada allying itself too closely with Israel. “My explanation to those folks is it’s very hard to negotiate peace and a lasting coexistence when Hamas publicly values martyrdom not only for its fighters but for its civilian population. It’s a tragedy but it’s a tragedy with a fairly obvious cause,” he said. The Green Party has also been affected by the conflict, with the resignation last week of party president Paul Estrin over a divisive, pro-Israel blog post that appeared on the party’s website. Ms. May said the party maintains a position of neutrality on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, renouncing violence but denouncing Hamas’s “illegal and provocative firing of missiles into Israel. “And we will denounce any response to that which lacks proportionality,” she said in an interview, pointing to the Israeli shelling of UN facilities that killed civilians taking shelter. Ms. May said Mr. Estrin’s blog post created “confusion at a minimum, and unhappiness” within the party. Mr. Estrin resigned rather than being forced out, she said. Ms. May said she’s hearing from constituents “outraged” that other leaders aren’t speaking out more about the violence. “Overwhelmingly right now, most of the emails I’m getting are concerned with the loss of civilian life in Gaza,” she said. mburgess@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

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War in Gaza top local issue with constituents, Canadian MPs say

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