Canadian Secretary of State John Roberts stressed today Canada’s opposition to the Arab boycott of Israel. “We are not prepared to have one country require our firms to cut off their trade with another country,” he said.
Roberts, who substituted for External Affairs Minister Donald Jamisson at a luncheon at the opening day of the Canada-Israel Committee’s sixth annual two-day conference here, said the government will prevent the Arabs from showing Canadian firms how to lead their affairs. “The government has penalized those firms who have tried to break the anti-discriminatory laws,” he noted.
MIDEAST PEACE PROSPECTS
On the prospects of peace in the Middle East, Roberts said the Canadian government believed that President Carter’s policy of opening up new avenues based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 would help bring about a climate conducive to peace. However, two Israeli professors who are teaching at Canadian universities this year, told the 500 delegates to the conference that prospects for peace in 1977 were dim.
Prof. Yoram Dinstein, professor of international law at Tel Aviv University and a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto, said chances for peace in 1977 are “nil” because the superpowers are chiefly concerned with their own interests in the Middle East. He said the U.S. support of Israel has given Washington important benefits, including its present foothold in Cairo and Damascus. Dinstein said that the Soviet Union backs the Arab countries to the hilt while the U.S. does not give Israel the same type of support.
Prof. Emanuel Sivan, a history professor at Hebrew University who is a Visiting Professor at the University of Montreal, said the reason he is pessimistic about peace chances is that the Palestinians have not yet found their representatives and there will be a long period of waiting until they do so.
Mordechai Shalev, Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, stressed the strong ties between Canada and Israel. He noted that Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and several members of his government visited Israel last year and learned about conditions there.
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