Nice article on Chretiens visit to Israel
Chris Selley on Canadian politicians going to Israel: Our glory days as ‘honest broker’ | National Post
Stephen Harper’s visit to Israel, and his effusively pro-Israeli rhetoric there, has reinvigorated one of the standard criticisms against him — that he has forsaken Canada’s “honest broker” role in Middle Eastern affairs for a doggie bed at the foot of Benjamin Netanyahu’s favourite armchair.
Jean Chrétien, among many other critics, pops up every now and again with such complaints. “I’m travelling the world. The image of Canada today is not what it was,” he recently told Global News. When Justin Trudeau becomes prime minister, Mr. Trudeau predicted he would “want Canada to be what we were in the world under Pearson, under his father and under myself.”
Mr. Chrétien was basking in plaudits on Tuesday in Toronto, where scores of variously partisan worthies gathered to sing his praises on the occasion of his 80th birthday. In light of Mr. Harper’s divisive trip, it might also be a good time to reflect on Mr. Chrétien’s own visit to Israel in 2000 — back in the glory days of Canadian diplomacy.
Day One: Mr. Chrétien meets with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in West Jerusalem, but
doesn’t visit Arab East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Liberation Organization is not pleased; a spokesperson calls it “an insult to the peace process.”
Mr. Chrétien’s lighthearted response, at a news conference, is to say: “I don’t know if I am in West, South, North or East Jerusalem now.”
Day Two: With Mr. Barak jetting off to Washington to talk peace with President Clinton, Mr. Chrétien goes off-script at a joint news conference with Yasser Arafat and
says Canada might support a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians. “I believe, personally, it is better to keep it as a pressure point for the negotiations and that is the position of Canada,” he says.
Nonplussed Israeli officials respond that Mr. Chrétien is welcome to his “inaccurate” opinion, even though such an idea would jeopardize the peace process. At some point, Mr. Chrétien realizes his position is spectacularly misguided in light of Quebec’s sovereignty movement and his government’s soon-to-be-passed Clarity Act.
His communications director is eventually reduced to explaining to reporters that whatever Mr. Chrétien said, that was not what he meant.
Day Three: At a news conference in Nazareth with Shimon Peres, Mr
. Chrétien endorses Israel’s claim to the Sea of Galilee — a sticking point in peace negotiations between Israel and Syria, where Mr. Chrétien was due to travel on the same trip. His statesmanlike reasoning follows: “Apparently there was a border that was occupied a long time ago and there was war and so on.
For a Canadian, we have 30 million lakes so we don’t see it in the same perspective but I can understand the need for Israel to keep the only lake they got.”
Day Four: Reports say Mr. Chrétien, in conversation with Mr. Barak,
has offered to resettle as many as 15,000 Palestinian refugees in Canada. Jaws drop, as Canada had been officially neutral on refugee issues such as the right of return.
Liberal staffers frantically try to spin the conversation out of existence, while the PLO politely tells Mr. Chrétien where he can stick his offer
Day Five:
Having managed to anger the Palestinians somewhat more than the Israelis, Mr. Chrétien is accused by a Syrian cabinet minister and a Lebanese newspaper of — of all things — abandoning Canada’s “honest broker” tradition. Nevertheless, his visit to Damascus goes ahead as planned.