Canadian Jewry’s support for Israel has been one of the community’s characteristic elements. During the 1947-48 War of Independence the number of Canadian Jews who volunteered to fight for the nascent Jewish State was higher on a percentage basis than the American contingent.
Leonard Slater, in his book, “The Pledge,” and David Bercusson, in his book on the “Machal” (Mitnadvei Hutz Le’Aretz – Israel’s Foreign Volunteers), confirm that the Canadian Jewish commitment to the Zionist enterprise was expressed both in terms of the Canadian participants and the clandestine shipment of arms to Israel.
Since 1948 and up to the early 1970’s Canadian Jews enjoyed a more or less uninterrupted period of support from the Canadian government. This was due in part because of the role played by two outstanding Canadians in the formative years of the United Nations.
ROLE PLAYED BY THE CANADIANS
Justice Ivan Rand was the Canadian member of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), which brought forth the 1947 partition resolution. Rand’s pro-Zionist sensitivities are said to have influenced the committee in issuing the majority decision to advocate partition.
The other great Canadian who supported Israel throughout his career was Lester Pearson. In 1956, while serving as Canada’s delegate to the UN, Pearson offered the famous resolution which helped create the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), which was interposed between Egyptian and Israeli troops. Pearson eventually won the Nobel Prize for his political work as a peacemaker.
It is instructive to note that during the ferocious debates at the UN in the wake of the Sinai campaign, Pearson was (after Abba Eban) one of the most eloquent defenders of Israel and it was he who argued against the immediate, forceful evacuation of Israeli troops from Sinai. Pearson advocated a slow withdrawal but only after the reasons which precipitated the 1956 war had been addressed by the UN.
SHIFT IN CANADA-ISRAEL ENTENTE
The halcyon days of the Canada-Israel entente, however, seem to be a thing of the past. During a recent farewell interview with the media, Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Yeshiayahu Anug, parried questions about the relationship between the two states by stressing the excellent economic and trade activities existing between the two countries. Anug was reticent to deal with the following development.
Since late 1983, both Canada’s Minister of External Affairs, Alan MacEachern, and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau have been making policy statements about Canada’s Mideast position which indicate a departure from traditional Canadian views on the subject. Both MacEachern and Trudeau chose to make their policy statements during trips to Arab countries, designed to strengthen Canadian ties with the latter.
The Prime Minister was particularly provocative during his sojourn in Arab capitals (He did not visit Israel during the Mideast trip). In public statements to the press, Trudeau insisted that Israel should with draw immediately and unilaterally from Lebanon, remove itself from Judaea and Samaria and permit the PLO to establish a state there.
An editorial writer in Vancouver’s Jewish Western Bulletin (January 12) commented: “About the only thing that the Prime Minister refrained from asking Israel to do was to surrender all its currency reserves to the PLO and name Yasir Arafat B’nai B’rith’s Man of the Year.”
The positions taken by Trudeau and his external affairs minister will not have surprised those who have been following the conduct of the Canadian government in the last half decade during which Canada’s formerly pro-Israel posture has undergone a precipitous tilt towards the Arab rejectionist states.
At the UN, Canadian representatives have on several occasions supported resolutions condemnatory of Israel. It should be noted at the same time Canada has voted against other more blatant anti-Israel resolutions, including the infamous Zionism-racism declaration.
STRIDENT OPPOSITION TO ISRAEL
That sort of even-handed approach gave way to strident opposition to Israel during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. While the American Administration was cautiously assessing all aspects of the situation, the Canadian Parliament, led by the Prime Minister, passed resolutions denouncing Israel for its incursion and demanding immediate withdrawal.
Trudeau was the first commonwealth minister to speak out against Israel. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having emerged shortly before from the Falkland’s imbroglio, was more circumspect.
INFLAMMATORY REMARKS BY ENVOY
Canadian Jews winced even more when, a short while after the Parliament’s one-sided vote, Canada’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Theodor Arcand (in a gesture unparalleled among ambassadorial personnel from democratic countries) publicly rebuked the Israelis for their “barbaric” invasion of Lebanon.
Arcand’s intervention was widely covered by the Canadian media (although largely unreported in the U.S.), especially his sanctimonious pronouncements on the way in which the “good” Israel he had always thought of, had been transformed into this new militaristic monster.
Arcand’s views could not be passed off simply as the incautious remarks of a man given to indiscretions: the Parliament in Ottawa commended Arcand on two counts: for staying behind in war-torn Beirut (when most of the other diplomats had left) and, for speaking so forthrightly about the indecency of the Israeli attack.
It is important to note that in late 1983 members of the Parliament’s liberal caucus, having been apprised of the reaction of Canada’s large Jewish liberal constituency, urged the Prime Minister to adopt a more judicious approach in foreign policy statements on the Mideast.
In early 1984, Canadians are talking about the prospects of an election. Whether the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney (who has advertised his warm feelings for Israel) will be able to return Canada to the status quo ante with regard to Israel is a moot point, assuming of course that his party defeats the liberals in the forthcoming vote.
No matter who wins the election, it is hardly likely that Canada will ever return to the kind of pro-Israel sentiment that was incarnated in the Pearson era.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
