Harper is an amazing friend of Israel’s. Canada is lucky to have him as their PM.
Via Times of Israel:
Canada supports Israel for strategic reasons but also because it is the correct thing to do, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday, delivering an overwhelmingly pro-Israel speech to the Knesset.
After generations of persecution, the Jewish people deserve their own homeland, and deserve to live safely and peacefully in that homeland,” Harper said early in his address. “Canada supports Israel because it is right to do so.”
The speech by Harper, in Israel on his first trip to the Jewish state as the Canadian prime minister, avoided any criticism of Israel or settlements, and only briefly mentioned Canada’s desire for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Warmly applauded by almost all MKs, he was heckled, when slamming critics of Israel, by two Arab MKs who then walked out of the chamber.
Harper closely toed the official Israeli government line, recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, slamming the international community for singling out the country for criticism, and calling on Palestinians to abandon terrorism.
“A Palestinian state will come, and one thing that will make it come is when the regimes that bankroll terrorism realize that the path to peace is accommodation, not violence,” he said.
Since his election in 2006, the Conservative prime minister, Canada’s first evangelical prime minister in 50 years, has been full-throated, unapologetic and seemingly indifferent to consequences in his support of Israel.
“It is a Canadian tradition to stand for what is principled and just, regardless of whether it is convenient or popular,” he said to the Israeli parliament. […]
Harper’s stirringly pro-Israel speech prompted some heckling from Israeli Arab Knesset members, at least two of whom walked out of the chamber midway through his address. The MKs, Ahmad Tibi and Taleb Abu Arar, who had heckled Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog when they spoke prior to Harper, got up and left after the Canadian prime minister castigated those who sought to brand Israel as an Apartheid state.
“Most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state,” Harper said. “Think about that. Think about the twisted logic and outright malice behind that: A state, based on freedom, democracy and the rule of law, that was founded so Jews can flourish, as Jews, and seek shelter from the shadow of the worst racist experiment in history, that is condemned, and that condemnation is masked in the language of anti-racism. It is nothing short of sickening.”
The two Arab MKs shouted that Israeli Arabs faced apartheid, citing the situation of Bedouin in the Negev, and Tibi said Harper “should be sitting there, with the Likud,” and pointed to the government benches in the chamber. The pair then got up and left.