Former Premier Pierre Elliott Trudeau, leader of the opposition in the Canadian Parliament, has warned that continuing pressure by Canadian Jewish leaders over anti-boycott legislation and the transfer of Canada’s Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem could stir-anti-Semitism in this country.
He also charged that pressure by Zionists in the United States is making it difficult for President Carter to aid in the current Middle East peace negotiations and that the Israel government’s hard line on the West Bank makes a settlement of the Palestinian problem impossible and could result in a new war in the Middle East.
Trudeau expressed his views in an interview published in the Toronto Star today. “Zionists in the United States, who are more zealous than In Israel, have made it difficult for Carter to aid negotiations by telling Israel they must be more flexible or risk losing American support,” Trudeau was quoted as saying.
He said similar pressure was exerted by Canadian Jewish leaders who are only now becoming aware that by forcing the Conservative government to promise tougher anti-boycott legislation and to shift the Embassy to Jerusalem “they have opened the way to growing anti-Semitism.”
SAYS PRESSURE GROUPS HAVE HURT CANADA
“The pressure groups in Canada, responsible for convincing the Conservative Party while they were in opposition, to support boycott legislation tougher than ours (Liberal Party) and the Embassy transfer” have hurt Canada economically, Trudeau said, and thereby stirred anti-Semitic feelings. He expressed the belief that Canadian Jewish leaders are only now becoming cognizant of this fact and therefore would be urging Prime Minister Joe Clark to back away from his election campaign promises.
Clark’s government has, in fact, held these matters in abeyance pending the report of Robert Stanfield who was sent to the Middle East on a fact-finding mission for the Prime Minister.
Trudeau said he believed that Moshe Dayan’s resignation as Foreign Minister because of his policy differences with the present Israeli government “would make it easier for Canadian and U.S. Jews to relax their pressure for unconditional-support of Israel. The Dayan resignation was, in this context, very important.”
It was announced, meanwhile, that the Canada-Israel Committee will meet Nov. 7 with Flora MacDonald, the Minister of State for External Affairs, to submit a brief regarding “the profound disturbance which the meeting between Stanfield and a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official has caused to the Jewish community in Canada.” The committee will also seek a meeting with Clark to discuss the promised anti-boycott legislation.
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.
