Canadian Arabs, Muslims Threaten To Campaign Against Tories

Courtesy Of: Canada.com
Mike Blanchfield,
CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, January 25, 2007

OTTAWA - Following Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay's first Middle East tour, Canadian Arabs and Muslims are threatening to campaign against the Conservative government in the next federal election because of it what is says is a continued pro-Israeli stand.

The Canadian-Islamic Congress and the Canadian Arab Federation say MacKay's office snubbed them prior to his trip this past week to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, and he has yet to meet with them in the one year he has been in office.

''Mr. MacKay is not accessible to the Canadian Arab and Muslim community,'' said Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian-Islamic Congress. ''It's always the excuse that he's busy.''

Both groups have been trying to meet with MacKay since Prime Minister Stephen Harper positioned Canada squarely as a supporter of Israel during its one-month war with Lebanese-based Hezbollah guerrillas last summer. The groups wanted to make the case to the government that Canada was compromising its neutral standing in the region as possible peacemaker between Israel and the Palestinians.

But both Toronto-based groups say the foreign affairs minister and the prime minister's office have rebuffed them without explanation.

Now, they are fed up and are taking steps to ultimately punish the Conservatives at the polls.

They say MacKay did not do enough to see the suffering of Palestinians when he travelled to the Middle East this past week, forgoing a trip to Gaza and witnessing a short, sanitized glimpse of life inside the West Bank that relied on the Israeli government as his guide. And they dismissed his mild criticism of the Israeli security fence, which he said crossed the border into Palestinian territory.

''We also are telling people to make sure in the elections that they vote for candidates who will stand for truth and justice and that's all we can do. We try to contact other groups, churches, unions ? We have had some success,'' said Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab Federation, an umbrella group of Arab associations that boasts membership from Vancouver to Halifax.

Mouammar pointed to last summer's decision by the Toronto branch of the United Church and the Canadian Union of Public Employees to boycott Israeli products to protest its treatment of Palestinians. ''Hopefully people who have views like our prime minister will not be in the next parliament,'' he said.

Mouammar said even if MacKay had returned to Canada enlightened about the level of suffering on the ground in the Palestinian territories, it would have made no difference because he holds no sway with his boss, Harper.

''The prime minister is really running the foreign affairs,'' said Mouammar.

Mazen Chouaib, executive director of the Ottawa-based National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, said he has met with MacKay twice since last August and has seen some progress in the minister's level of understanding of Middle East issues.

''The issue here remains the prime minister's office control of foreign policy issues and how much the minister can influence change,'' he said.

Chouaib said it was too bad MacKay never made it to Gaza to see the impact of his government's decision to become the first western country to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority after the stunning victory of the Hamas terrorist organization in last year's parliamentary elections.

MacKay's trip was essentially a familiarization tour, and he emerged relatively unscathed from a region that can be a political minefield.

It began in Jordan and a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before he traveled to Israel for meetings with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Vice-Premier Shimon Peres.

Following the meetings in Israel, its foreign ministry issued a statement that praised the Harper government for having ''maintained particularly warm relations with Israel, and bilateral and diplomatic ties are currently at their peak.''

After the earlier meeting in Jordan, a spokesman for Abbas noted MacKay affirmed Canada's support for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

But for some Canadian Arab leaders, that line has a hollow ring.

''We've heard a lot of language that was positive prior to the election, prior to them becoming the government. They worked with us to help them get closer to the Arab community and Canadians of our membership? and unfortunately we did not see the positive results in that,'' said Chouaib.

''We are not going to believe only words anymore. We feel that we were betrayed by the Conservatives. Until we see a policy change, to reflect the views of a majority of Canadians for a balanced and positive approach to resolving this conflict, we will not give our thumbs up.''

Ottawa Citizen

© CanWest News Service 2007