Clark Raps Harper Government On Mideast
Saturday, February 10 2007 @ 01:25 PM MST
Contributed by: 4Canada By JANICE ARNOLD
Staff Reporter
MONTREAL - Former prime minister Joe Clark pointedly criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stance on the Israeli-Arab conflict, saying the current Conservative government has put Canada’s “balanced and careful” Middle East foreign policy in jeopardy.
In a Jan. 31 address at McGill University, Clark said Harper made a “mistake” in making withdrawal of support from the Hamas-led Palestinian government his first major foreign policy action after taking office just over a year ago.
Clark also termed “ill-judged” Harper’s strongly pro-Israel position during Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer.
Clark said he finds “troubling” the Conservative government’s “closeness to the foreign policies of the United States administration” to the exclusion of Canada’s interests in the rest of the world.
Clark was Progressive Conservative prime minister for nine months in 1979-80, and minister of external affairs under prime minister Brian Mulroney from 1984 to 1991.
Since October, he has been a professor of practice for public-private sector partnerships at McGill’s Centre for Developing Area Studies.
He said Harper is moving away from the “constructive role” Canada has developed over the past 25 years in the Middle East under successive Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments, without making clear where he is going.
Canada, he said, worked hard over the years to be a “reliable interlocutor” between Israelis and Arabs. “Not many other countries have that reputation,” he said.
The Harper government, he suggested, appears not to understand the “complexity on the ground… One of the lessons I learned was the Palestinian issue is very much symbolic for the developing world.”
Clark disputed Harper’s opinion, stated in a year-end interview, that Canada has been been “completely absent” from the Middle East in the past decade.
“Apart from being flatly false, that rebuke is even more unsettling as either a warning shot, or an unguarded statement of belief, by the prime minister who so dominates this government.”
He said Harper should acknowledge that he erred, as Clark himself had to do on “one celebrated occasion.” He was referring to the diplomatic crisis he set off just two days after being sworn in as prime minister when he announced Canada would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, fulfilling a campaign promise.
He quickly dropped the plan in the wake of outrage from the Arab and Islamic world.
Clark interprets sending Foreign Minister Peter MacKay to the Middle East last month as an attempt to “repair the damage of the hard lines” Harper took upon coming into office.
Clark’s address was a broad critique of the Harper government’s foreign policy in general. He said he hoped his remarks would spark public debate on where Harper is taking Canada in the international arena. He said others have similar concerns but are not in a position to raise them openly.
“There has not been much public debate about what motivates the changes, or what their consequences might be. Moreover, there is no evidence that they are the result of advice from the foreign ministry or other customary sources, including the platform or resolutions of Mr. Harper’s party.”
He said Harper is taking too much direction from the Bush administration and letting Canada’s relations with rest of the world deteriorate. This may be shortsighted, he said, because the United States’s reputation and authority is declining in the world, while the relative power of other countries, notably China and India, is growing.
Clark said he has no trouble with a Canadian government being close to the White House, but said that “what is troubling is focusing on one relationship so exclusively.”
http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=11142
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?story=20070209232504828
Saturday, February 10 2007 @ 01:25 PM MST
Contributed by: 4Canada By JANICE ARNOLD
Staff Reporter
MONTREAL - Former prime minister Joe Clark pointedly criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stance on the Israeli-Arab conflict, saying the current Conservative government has put Canada’s “balanced and careful” Middle East foreign policy in jeopardy.
In a Jan. 31 address at McGill University, Clark said Harper made a “mistake” in making withdrawal of support from the Hamas-led Palestinian government his first major foreign policy action after taking office just over a year ago.
Clark also termed “ill-judged” Harper’s strongly pro-Israel position during Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer.
Clark said he finds “troubling” the Conservative government’s “closeness to the foreign policies of the United States administration” to the exclusion of Canada’s interests in the rest of the world.
Clark was Progressive Conservative prime minister for nine months in 1979-80, and minister of external affairs under prime minister Brian Mulroney from 1984 to 1991.
Since October, he has been a professor of practice for public-private sector partnerships at McGill’s Centre for Developing Area Studies.
He said Harper is moving away from the “constructive role” Canada has developed over the past 25 years in the Middle East under successive Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments, without making clear where he is going.
Canada, he said, worked hard over the years to be a “reliable interlocutor” between Israelis and Arabs. “Not many other countries have that reputation,” he said.
The Harper government, he suggested, appears not to understand the “complexity on the ground… One of the lessons I learned was the Palestinian issue is very much symbolic for the developing world.”
Clark disputed Harper’s opinion, stated in a year-end interview, that Canada has been been “completely absent” from the Middle East in the past decade.
“Apart from being flatly false, that rebuke is even more unsettling as either a warning shot, or an unguarded statement of belief, by the prime minister who so dominates this government.”
He said Harper should acknowledge that he erred, as Clark himself had to do on “one celebrated occasion.” He was referring to the diplomatic crisis he set off just two days after being sworn in as prime minister when he announced Canada would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, fulfilling a campaign promise.
He quickly dropped the plan in the wake of outrage from the Arab and Islamic world.
Clark interprets sending Foreign Minister Peter MacKay to the Middle East last month as an attempt to “repair the damage of the hard lines” Harper took upon coming into office.
Clark’s address was a broad critique of the Harper government’s foreign policy in general. He said he hoped his remarks would spark public debate on where Harper is taking Canada in the international arena. He said others have similar concerns but are not in a position to raise them openly.
“There has not been much public debate about what motivates the changes, or what their consequences might be. Moreover, there is no evidence that they are the result of advice from the foreign ministry or other customary sources, including the platform or resolutions of Mr. Harper’s party.”
He said Harper is taking too much direction from the Bush administration and letting Canada’s relations with rest of the world deteriorate. This may be shortsighted, he said, because the United States’s reputation and authority is declining in the world, while the relative power of other countries, notably China and India, is growing.
Clark said he has no trouble with a Canadian government being close to the White House, but said that “what is troubling is focusing on one relationship so exclusively.”
http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=11142
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?story=20070209232504828
