Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper sings the meaningful
"With A Little Help From My Friends"
"With A Little Help From My Friends"
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| Canadian Prime Minister tours Jerusalem |
Video: Canada's Prime Minister Sings to Israeli Crowd - Ofer Petersburg
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper surprised the guests at a festive Jewish National Fund gala in Jerusalem Tuesday when he took off his tie and performed several sixties songs to the enthusiastic crowd.
- David Horovitz
Many members of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's delegation were "surprised" and "taken aback" that he was heckled by two Arab MKs during his address to the Knesset on Monday.
"A lot of us were a bit taken aback that members of a national parliament would heckle a visiting foreign leader," Jason Kenney, Canada's minister of employment and social development, said.
Arab MK Ahmad Tibi had earlier heckled Prime Minister Netanyahu, claiming that his colleague Abu Arar, a Bedouin MK from Ar'arat in the Negev, did not have water or electricity in his home because of Israeli discrimination.
Israel Channel 2 TV showed on Tuesday that Abu Arar lives in a three-story home with water, electricity, air-conditioning and a satellite dish, and his street is well lit.
(Times of Israel)
The remaining Knesset members then rose in a lengthy standing ovation for Harper.
(iPolitics-Canada)
- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed Israel's Knesset on Monday:
- Canada and Israel are the greatest of friends, and the most natural of allies. Our military establishments share information and technology to our mutual benefit. For example, during Canada's mission to Afghanistan, the use of Israeli-built reconnaissance equipment saved the lives of many Canadian soldiers.
- We share the understanding that it is right to support Israel because, after generations of persecution, the Jewish people deserve their own homeland and deserve to live safely and peacefully in that homeland.
- Canada supports Israel fundamentally because it is right to do so. It is a Canadian tradition to stand for what is principled and just, regardless of whether it is convenient or popular.
- Those forces which have threatened the State of Israel every single day of its existence threaten all of us. We either stand up for our values and our interests here in Israel, stand up for the existence of a free, democratic and distinctively Jewish state, or the retreat of our values and our interests in the world will begin.
- Canada finds it deplorable that some in the international community still question the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel. We refuse to single out Israel for criticism on the international stage.
- The new anti-Semitism targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel and attempts to make the old bigotry acceptable to a new generation. What else can we call criticism that selectively condemns only the Jewish state and effectively denies its right to exist, to defend itself, while systematically ignoring or excusing the violence and oppression all around it?
Video of full speech: click HERE
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3 comments:
This is, most assuredly, how an ally should treat Israel. It is nice for a Western leader to point out the hypocrisy we have been seeing all around this issue for years.
I hope you got my innuendo that the US is not coming up to the standard that Canada is setting.
Yes. However, these are very complicated issues and the U.S. has a very different role in the world than Canada. Canada is never going to work out a doable peace plan in the MidEast. I'm not sure the U.S. ever will either, but the difference is, the U.S. is in a position to do so. Also, Canada doesn't have a recent history of invading nations nor failing to meet the goals set for those invasions, thereby creating more instability and hardship for many citizens of the MidEast. I think Canada is behaving like a proper ally of Israel. I think the U.S. has generally been a good ally to Israel while needing to balance that with its role in the world stage. I think we should point out the hypocrisy more and make more demands of the Palestinians on the world stage and make it more clear what they have to do in order to get the West to push Israel for hard choices and changes. We have not done a very good job of that, but that has been the case for about 13 or so years.
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