It's Not So Simple ...

 I hate seeing headlines like CBC's this morning in the wake of the US attack on Iran:  "In Wake of US Attacks, Iran Faces Pivotal Choice: Dash to Build a Weapon or Negotiate".

Very little in the world of foreign affairs can be characterized in such simplistic terms.  It's not "either/or", and in fact Iran has a number of options open to it that this ignores.  

Does Iran already have a nuclear weapon?  Officially the answer is "no", but that's inference based on the fact they have never openly tested such a device.  On paper Israel hasn't tested nuclear weapons either, but it is broadly understood to have a cache of nuclear warheads.  I don't have access to sources that could confirm or deny Iran's possession of nuclear assets.  At this stage, they could easily run a "test fire" to augment their "negotiating position, or just to make themselves less desirable as a target. 

The other aspect of Iran's nuclear capability is the ability to create so-called "dirty bombs" (basically a conventional warhead with a "surprise package" of nuclear waste wrapped around it).  Those are trivial for any country with a handful of reactors used for power generation to create, and are potentially just as deadly - especially if detonated high in the atmosphere. 

We also should not ignore the probability of Iran having covertly purchased nuclear weapons from other states.  It's quite possible that they have weapons purchased from elsewhere.  

Iran has many paths through which it could acquire nuclear weapons capability, not merely through its own program of development.  

Much has been made of "we must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons", but like North Korea, such threats do little to stop a country that is determined to develop that technology for itself. 

Is this a "negotiate or else" situation?  Not even close.  Iran has many paths forward - it may choose to "negotiate", while concurrently "sprinting to build a bomb", or it may choose to reveal weapons it has already in its hands to make its "hand" stronger at the negotiating table.  

Similarly, because there are significant religious components to this situation, we can also suspect that they may choose to go "scorched earth" and simply unleash the most destructive weapons they have on hand.  

Of course, all of this is speculative on my part - I don't have any information not in the news media, and I merely infer from what I do see.  By no means should we assume that Iran is "cowed" by recent events, nor do I see a willingness on the part of Israel's government to engage in any kind of good faith negotiations. 

Collective Punishment

So, apparently the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza had some number of its staff involved in the October 7 attack on Israel.  This has resulted in numerous countries halting funding of UNRWA.  The best estimates I can find are that somewhere in the range of a dozen employees of UNRWA are involved.  That’s 12 people - in an organization of thousands, just in Gaza.

There’s a problem here.  The problem is that this amounts to little more than collective punishment. I know that Israel takes the position that anyone near or around someone who had anything to do with the October 7 attacks must be Hamas-aligned.  

In some ways, this is a variation on the “Nazi Bar” analogy, which basically postulates that if you don’t deal immediately and aggressively with Nazis in your bar, you will end up with a Nazi bar in fairly short order.  Israel is essentially arguing that anyone within 10’ of a Hamas supporter is Hamas, and therefore UNRWA is Hamas.  

The problem with the approach being taken in Gaza, and with UNRWA is this:  It isn’t dealing with holding the offenders responsible for their actions, it is in fact holding everyone in the room responsible for their actions.  Returning to the Nazi Bar idea for a moment, it’s as if we have a single Nazi in the bar, so we blow the whole bar up immediately without regard for the other patrons in the bar.  Is the couple sitting at a table having a quiet conversation a pair of Nazis?  No - we have a patron in the bar that is a Nazi, and by blowing up the whole establishment, we are engaging in collective punishment.  

In fact, Israel’s whole approach to the current situation in Gaza demonstrates a collective punishment approach.  They have systematically levelled infrastructure in Gaza regardless of whether it is explicitly Hamas militant or civilian housing.  In essence, Israel has said “we’re going to carpet bomb Gaza into the Stone Age”, and clearly has no interest in distinguishing between Hamas militants and civilian residents.  Sadly, this approach will do little except harden people against each other further, lending further internal justification to the hard line approach taken on both sides of this conflict.  

Let’s say the current focus on UNRWA ends up dismantling the organization for a moment.  What does that accomplish besides making life that much worse for the Palestinian people already marginalized and abused under Israel’s bombardment of Gaza?  Does it solve anything at all?

Now, before anybody starts “yabutting” at me about what Hamas did on October 7, 2023 as justification, let me be abundantly clear here:  What Hamas did on that day was wrong for many of the same reasons that what Israel’s government is doing in Gaza is wrong.  When it comes to this conflict, we can trace it back centuries, and longer - and I assure you that neither side has a lock on “right”.  The simple fact of the matter is that collective punishment for any wrong is never successful.

Losing International Support

International support is an interesting phenomenon.  Generally speaking, for most of my life, Israel has had pretty much unconditional support from all the “western powers”.  It hasn’t been subjected to significant criticism no matter what it has done.

However, its incursion into Gaza seems to be drawing a different response.  Instead of unconditional support, many countries are starting to pull away as the war progresses.  Where one can point to Hamas’ actions on October 7, 2023 as a clear trigger point for the current conflict, the Israeli response has flipped things around in the public eye, and Israel is being seen as the aggressor.  

Certainly, Israel has the advantage of military superiority compared to Hamas. But it isn’t “military superiority” that tilts the scales of public opinion. If that was the case, then one would think that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would generate a very different reception.  

In this case, I think that two major factors have resulted in the Israeli actions in Gaza being seen as heavy handed.  First is the revelation of Netanyahu’s cynical game of “feeding” Hamas for political gain. There is no question that this has sounded a sour note on the world stage. 

The second is the revelation of Israeli policy documents actively exploring the idea of pushing the people of Gaza into Egypt.  This, combined with the shape of Israel’s ground level approach of pushing Gazans towards the Egyptian border, smacks of “ethnic cleansing”, and that is not something that many people have an appetite for any more. 

Israel’s action in Gaza, and at the ground level, the individual actions of their troops, speak more of collective punishment, rather than a mission focused on rooting out Hamas.  Israel’s much vaunted intelligence networks should have long ago told them who the leaders of Hamas in Gaza are.  A few units of specialized forces could easily have rolled in and gone after them; if the bulk of Hamas’ arms caches and operations centres are buried in the network of tunnels below Gaza, why didn’t Israel tackle that first instead of engaging in what amounts to “carpet bombing”?  

The answer is fairly obvious.  Israel’s current political leadership isn’t actually interested in ferreting out Hamas.  In fact, Netanyahu’s policies over the last 15 years make that abundantly clear - Hamas has been politically useful to him while his government engages in kicking the Palestinians out of West Bank by installing “settlements”.  No, this war is being conducted in a manner that is politically advantageous for Netanyahu, with no regard for anything else.

The issue that this will create is, of course, that Israel stands to isolate itself on the world stage, and perhaps more dangerously for all, it stands to destroy whatever normalization of relations with its neighbours that it has established.  A situation which only benefits Russia and Iran.  

October 7, 2023 is perhaps better understood not as the “act of a terrorist organization” (it was), but as the failure of cynical politics.  Israel allowed itself to walk away from the truly hard work of negotiating a real, and lasting solution with the Palestinian people.  Instead, a cynical politician made fomenting division among the Palestinians his policy.

The situation now is set back to well before the Oslo Accords were written.  A “muscular and violent” Israel might be a good look within Israel, but its neighbours will once again be looking at the 1967 situation and be worrying about a return to that conflict.  On the world stage, is there anybody who can credibly be the “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinian people?  

The potential backlash towards Israel if it continues on the path it has placed itself on could make the situation in 1967 and prior look positively peaceful.  While Lebanon and Syria are both on their heels right now, struggling with their own internal conflicts, make no mistake about how quickly an external threat can unify and focus a government.  Iran, North Korea, and China would all be quite happy to take money from other states (e.g. Saudi Arabia) to arm up forces in neighbours to Israel.  The resulting conflagration could tear the region asunder for decades to come, and as well armed as Israel is, it’s simply not that big. 

No, Ms. Kheiriddin, You’re Quite Wrong

Over at Conservative propaganda rag “National Post”, we have Tasha Kheiriddin trying to turn the lack of attention on the civil war going on in Sudan into “why criticizing Israel’s actions is antisemitic”.  

First, I invite Ms. Kheiriddin to inspect the news - particularly North American sources, and consider how much coverage the Sudan war is getting.  If it wasn’t for BBC’s World Service, I wouldn’t even be aware of it, coverage here has been so sparse, but then again, there are numerous armed conflicts going on in various parts of Africa.  

But, Ms. Kheiriddin seems to think that we can’t “walk and chew bubble gum” at the same time.  Apparently, unless we’re condemning the horrors happening in Sudan just as loudly as what we see happening in Gaza, we must be criticizing Israel because it’s a Jewish state.  

This is utterly incorrect.  Most “left-leaning” people I see online are responding to what we are seeing Israel doing in Gaza because it is being covered in real-time in front of them, every time they look at the news.  What do they see in this coverage? Civilians being forcibly displaced by a vastly larger military force, homes and livelihoods being bombed out of existence from the air, and Israeli politicians making statements like “clearing out Gaza is the solution” - which sounds like something between ethnic cleansing (see Rwanda), and Hitler’s “final solution” (yeah, I said it - sue me - we’ll come back to this point in a minute).

You will find that most “leftists” who are criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza are doing so through the lens of “the State is not its people”.  In other words, Israel’s politicians and political government are accountable for their actions quite apart from the people.  Just as Hamas is an organization and exists as a separate entity from the civilians of Gaza, the STATE of Israel is not “the Jewish People” per se.  That distinction is important, because it separates the civilians from the belligerents in conflict. 

Is it “anti-Semitic” to criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza?  If the narrative was being framed in terms of ethnic and religious identity, perhaps it would be.  However, most writers I see, myself included are talking about the actions of the state and its politicians.  For example, does the fact of Netanyahu being Jewish exempt him from criticism for engaging in a cynical political game of condemning Hamas on one hand, while feeding it on the other?  I would argue that has nothing whatsoever to do with his being Jewish, and just makes him one more cynical politician willing to play any game as long as it gains him political advantage at the polls. 

More to the point, the construct of antiSemitism is built around the idea that discrimination based on someone being Jewish is wrong.  It is not a blanket exemption that anything done by someone who is Jewish from criticism of any sort.  Even if we broadly agree that Israel is a “Jewish State”, that is no blanket exemption from criticism when that state chooses to act in ways that are unacceptable.

This is no different than the clear statement that Hamas isn’t beyond reproach simply because it is Palestinian (I think the world has been clear about that).

Now, I’m going to come back to my earlier statement about ethnic cleansing in Gaza.  I was not joking when I said it echoed the language of Hitler’s “Final Solution”.  Consider the following from a former Israeli defence minister: 

Combined with Israeli government documents that have been published in numerous other places, it’s pretty hard to ignore the eliminationist tone of these statements.  It’s just as difficult to ignore the similarities to Hitler’s “Final Solution”, especially when the tactics of the IDF have clearly been designed to push the 2.5 million inhabitants of Gaza towards the border with Israel.  

Is it “antiSemitic” to say this?  I suppose that those who connect their identities to the very idea of the state of Israel might argue that it is.  I draw a different line, because the State can never be held up as exempt from the norms of international law and convention.  A state that engages in collective punishment, or ethnic cleansing, must be held accountable, regardless of matters of faith, ethnicity, or even long standing historical horrors like the holocaust.

Ms. Kheiriddin is engaging in the most scandalous of rhetorical tactics - she is using unrelated events to deflect criticism away from the situation in Gaza, and to then insulate the State of Israel from criticism by labelling its critics as antiSemitic.  The intellectual dishonesty of that sleight of hand is beyond stunning. 

How Did You Think Gazans Would Respond?

The dispute between Israel and the Palestinian people has been in and out of the news cycle my entire life. For years, the narrative in the news has been very much around “terrorism”, with the Palestinians being broadly characterized as the perpetrators of terrorism.

There is no question that in terms of military capability, Israel is the 500lb gorilla here.  They have one of the most impressive militaries on the planet, and for good reasons. The creation of Israel out of the end of the European colonial empires wasn’t exactly greeted with good wishes by its neighbours.

However, people seem genuinely shocked when Israel puts on display what is clearly the contents of a weapons cache.  Let’s talk about how Israel has treated Gaza, and Palestinians since Netanyahu came onto the political scene (which, mysteriously, isn’t far off when Hamas took political control of Gaza).

How War In Gaza Should Change The Rules Of War

Current international law on war is largely derived from the fallout of WWII.  It’s seen a little bit of trimming around the edges, but for the most part it is the child of WWII.  That it has lasted over 70 years with only minimal change is in some respects creditable.  Israel’s actions in Gaza should result in massive changes to it.

Let me explain.  Gaza presents unique challenges to the conduct of war.  We have a region that is half the size of a major North American city - Calgary, AB - with a population that is at least double that of Calgary.  To say it is densely built is an understatement. That necessarily means that just about any major action in Gaza is going to result in massive civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. 

Where this represents a serious challenge for current laws is that current international law doesn’t really deal with the kind of messy, asymmetric situation we have in Gaza, where the belligerents in Gaza are embedded deeply with the civilian population, and actual military assets are commingled with civilian infrastructure.  

This necessarily means that heavy-handed strategies like “carpet bombing” are simply invalid - the odds of massive damage that unreasonably harms civilians is far too high.  To this point, Israel has simply bombed the hell out of locations and then turned around and claimed “but Hamas was there”.  That seems to be something of a truism - in the 15 years since Hamas took control of the Gaza, they no doubt have built an enormous infrastructure for their military ambitions and have embedded it in the densely built up urban areas for both military and political reasons.

Here is where Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ runs up against the rights of the civilian population of Gaza.  Israel cannot justifiably claim “Hamas” and exempt itself from the impact on Gaza’s civilians.  Regardless of where the conflict is taking place, we have to recognize that the belligerents are fundamental military and governmental constructs, not civilian.  Recognizing the nature of political and governmental power, we cannot claim that the civilians are directly responsible for the actions of their governments.  

This raises the first point of rights in tension - in asymmetric warfare like we see in Gaza, where do the rights of the civilian population take precedence?  Intuitively, it seems a little too simplistic to have one side simply claim “bad guys here”, and bomb it into oblivion from the air.  Yet, at the same time, we also know that “street by street” fighting is just as messy and even more brutal.  

Is Israel’s “evacuate this region” approach adequate?  Or is it simply another military tactic that puts a veneer of respectability on an otherwise heavy-handed approach to the conflict?  Demanding people evacuate makes the assumption that people are in fact able to do so.  Factors ranging from poverty to illness, age, and disability can make such orders utterly impractical for some.

Allegedly, Hamas has built a huge network of tunnels underneath Gaza.  I don’t doubt that is the case, in fact the attacks on October 7 made it quite clear that is the case.  Does that give Israel the blanket right to start dropping “bunker buster” bombs on Gaza?  Or would the level of destruction that would wreak on densely populated regions render that unacceptable?  Israel’s argument is that Hamas is using the civilian population of Gaza as “human shields”.  I’m not sure that the complication that presents for military action erases the rights of those civilians.

WWII era doctrines tend to focus on destroying an enemy’s ability to arm, supply, and defend itself.  For the most part industrial and military infrastructure was separate from civilian.  In Gaza, all three are commingled, and that changes the dynamics of warfare.  My personal feeling is that if Israel wants to destroy all of the underground infrastructure, they need to resurrect the pre-aerial era roles of sappers who specialize in underground warfare.  Hamas has a tunnel network that needs to be rendered unusable?  Cool - get in there and do that.  You can make tunnel systems unusable with minimal damage to civilian infrastructure - but if you think street by street combat is ugly business, a network of tunnels is going to make that look like a walk in the park for the troops. 

Lastly, when we examine the actions of the belligerents, we cannot simply examine a singular event.  There are often years, if not decades, of grievances on both sides.  Proponents of Israel’s approach in this conflict point to decades of actions on the part of Hamas - and Hamas has a very ugly history that it is very valid to criticize.  One can also understand that the Palestinian governments are also operating in an environment that has to respond to the pressures that Israeli policy creates.  

Unfortunately, Israel’s history here is arguably no better.  Increasingly heavy-handed approaches to events have effectively walled Gaza off, and severely limited the ability of Gaza to develop itself economically.  Other aspects of Israeli policy have isolated Palestinian peoples from each other, as well as promoted division.  It’s no secret that Netanyahu has been quite happy to “feed Hamas” because it keeps the Palestinian peoples divided, and enables him to argue that there is nobody to “talk peace” with.  

This is not a simple conflict, but in its wake, the assessment of the actions of the belligerents needs to be assessed through a new lens, one that sees the right to self defence not merely as a “right in the moment”, but as a right that exists in tension with other rights, and exists in the full context of events leading up to open conflict.  We cannot simply look at October 7 and make a declaration, we must examine the full picture.

Unfortunately, such an examination will invalidate a lot of people’s presuppositions about the actions taken, regardless of their sympathies. 

About That Hospital in Gaza

There’s been a lot of discussion back and forth about the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza.  Hamas claims it was an Israeli bomb or missile attack, Israel claims it’s the result of a failed rocket launched from within Gaza. 

I have thoughts about this.  Certainly, I agree that the site does not look like a typical high explosive device went off.  That is a point that leans away from the standard bombs that Israel has been using.  

The Israeli claim is that the rocket failed, sprayed fuel around which subsequently caught fire after something at or near ground level exploded.  The part about this that doesn’t add up entirely for me with this is twofold: 

1). The alleged rocket appears to have failed at a fairly high altitude, and if it exploded, there should be evidence of  both fuel and rocket debris in the vicinity.  That hasn’t been identified yet. 

2). IF the rocket’s fuel canisters had managed to fall to the ground, and exploded there, that might explain the smaller crater at the site, but where’s the bits of the canister?  

3). The cars - the cars really bother me here.  The pictures I’ve seen show cars that clearly were subjected to intense heat - not the kind of heat that you see when a car catches fire and causes the one adjacent to burn as well.  Assuming that the Gaza rockets use something like Hydrogen Peroxide as a fuel (it’s relatively easily made, and burns plenty hot), I’m not sure that a fuel load would result in a strong enough fire to do what has been observed.  

*For clarity - I am not an explosives or rocket expert, so I will concede that it seems possible that it could have been a failed rocket.

My concern with the failed rocket scenario is it seems just a little too pat, and too specific.  It’s the kind of specificity that I would expect with an actual forensic report of the site itself, and yet Israel trotted it out within hours. 

It also seems that the world is ignoring another line of explanation:  The use of a Thermobaric Weapon.  Those devices are designed to produce exactly the kind of effect that we see at the hospital, and they’re intended to explode above ground level as a rule.  According to Wikipedia (perhaps not the most reliable source), Israel is rumoured to have had these weapons since about 1990, and they could easily have bought them from the US as well.  

Dropping a moderate sized thermobaric weapon in the courtyard of the hospital would produce a considerable amount of damage, and more specifically could explain the damage to the cars, which were clearly subjected to an intense blast of fire.  Further, thermobaric munitions can be delivered in a variety of ways, ranging from aircraft to traditional ground based artillery.  

Even here, we need to go through the site and find any pieces of whatever container held the explosive.  That requires a far more detailed forensic analysis than is likely possible in the heat of active warfare, but it seems necessary.  Both parties in this conflict have too many reasons to assign blame to the other side to be credible. 

[Update Oct 22, 2023]:  Independent reviews by people with more knowledge than I do are lining up on the “errant rocket” hypothesis.  Although I remain somewhat skeptical of that explanation, I have no compelling evidence to the contrary. 

Harper The Fascist Part MMXVIII

Remember in 2013, I wrote a rather lengthy post explaining the parallels between the Harper Government and fascism?

Yeah, that.

In the last week or so, the Harper Government has passed Bill C-51, which more or less turns the entire RCMP-CSIS-CSEC establishment into the PMO's private police force.  It grants the state extraordinary powers of surveillance, arrest and detention with virtually no oversight except for that of the Minister responsible for national security.  There is so much wrong with Bill C-51 and the structures it creates that I could rant about it all day.  If Harper creating a politically controlled police force doesn't terrify you, I don't know what will.

But it gets better.  Our strutting little "Dear Leader" is now threatening to go after Canadians who criticize Israel under the rubric of "hate crimes":

The government's intention was made clear in a response to inquiries from CBC News about statements by federal ministers of a "zero tolerance" approach to groups participating in a loose coalition called Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS), which was begun in 2006 at the request of Palestinian non-governmental organizations. 

Asked to explain what zero tolerance means, and what is being done to enforce it, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney replied, four days later, with a detailed list of Canada's updated hate laws, noting that Canada has one of the most comprehensive sets of such laws "anywhere in the world."

Just think about this for a moment.  Harper is essentially saying that Canadians who are vocally critical of Israel's behaviour towards its Palestinian neighbours are committing a "hate crime".   If this doesn't strike you as creating a class of political dissident similar to what China, the Soviet Union and other totalitarian states have done, you're missing the boat.

We aren't talking about criticizing the Jewish peoples here, we are talking about criticizing the State of Israel, which is a political entity on the world stage.  Criticizing its actions as a nation and a political entity is not spreading lies and calumny about a particular people, and in no reasonable world would it be treated as a "hate crime" in even the most generous sense of the term.

Harper and his gang want to walk in lock-step with Netanyahu.  Fine.  As the Prime Minister of Canada, that is his call to make.  As citizens of this country, we all share the right to disagree with that, and to take steps to voice that disagreement.  Attempting to characterize opposition as "hate crime" is yet another attempt by the Harper Government to silence its opponents.

He has already turned the CRA on environmental groups that represent an obstacle to his "big oil" agenda, now he is looking to turn the police on to any who criticize his government's foreign policy.

I will go a step further and predict that the Harper Government is going to use the tools of Bill C-51 to gather evidence without warrant, and to move any trials associated with this behind closed doors under the guise of "national security concerns".

... and just to finish up today, I will point out to the "Conservatization" of the branding of our government - in the form of allowing the London High Commission to issue blue-and-gold business cards to Embassy staff.  Canada's colours are not blue-and-gold.  There are guidelines for this long established.  What is this other than the government screwing around with the image of Canada where it thinks it can get away with it.  Yet another piece of a government dancing around the realm of fascism by attempting to brand the government in line with the political party currently in power.  

It's About Recognizing The Realities

Over at Huffington Post, one of their columnists, JJ McCullough, is pontificating on Harper's trip to Israel.  In the comments, we find HP blogger Mitch Wolfe making the following daft statement:

This article is an excellent summary of Harper's pro Israeli policies. It also provides an excellent summary of the so-called pundits' views of Harper's pro Israeli position. The pundits, the Laurentian Consensus, Tony Burman of the Star and Simpson of the Globe, all fail to deal with Hamas, " the camel in the room". This is a terrorist organization that rules by violence and intimidation. There is no democracy, freedom or rule of law in Gaza. Hamas tortures and discriminates against those who do not adhere to strict Sharia/Islamic principles, which include non Muslims, women and gays of course. Hamas has become a mortal enemy of Abbas and the PLO on the west bank. Hamas still vows to destroy Israel as a Jewish state. But these ridiculous pundits want Harper to treat this disgusting group in a more even-handed and nuanced manner. No wonder these newspapers have sunk so low in public esteem and are bleeding red ink from dropping circulation.

I'll come back to McCullough's column in a moment.  Mr. Wolfe's statement is so ridiculous that it needs to be addressed before I tear apart McCullough's analysis.

Nobody I have read has ever spoken favourably of Hamas, Hezbollah or any other terrorist organization.  There is, however, something that needs to be paid careful attention.  Organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah are not just "terrorists" - in several countries they have become the agents delivering the social programs that alleviate the grinding poverty that so many people in the middle east find themselves living with.  In many respects, these organizations are the government more so than the actual governments in some areas.  In short, more so than the official governments, they actually have an enormous amount of practical political power which should not be ignored.

Further, the dispute between Israel and its Arab neighbours goes back not decades but centuries.  The grievances are entwined in the cultural fabric of the region on both sides.  We would be foolish indeed to believe that there is a "right side" and a "wrong side" in this dispute.  The issue is that Harper is taking sides in this dispute - unequivocally.

Returning to McCullough's column, let's take a look at a few things:

There are a lot of nasty tropes floating out there about the cryptic man running our country, and most of them are junk. The idea that he's ushered in a dramatic hike in military spending, for instance. Or massive cuts in scientific research. Or notions he's been pursuing a dogmatic anti-pot crusade, or has presided over a dramatic spike in greenhouse gas emissions, or is a fundamentalist Christian reactionary with a secret plan to destroy gay marriage.The no less oft-repeated claim that Stephen Harper is the most aggressively pro-Israel leader in the world, however  -- that one's on considerably firmer ground.

Let's see, on that military spending thing, under Harper military spending has increased to near WW II levels.  The amount he cut last year is a drop in the bucket compared to what he has poured into the military since 2006.

Harper's war on science ... well that's not exactly something I can ignore either.  This Prime Minister has done more to gut this nation's ability to make evidence-based policy decisions than any predecessor.  The fact that organizations like DFO have taken the brunt of these cuts merely speaks to Harper's dismissive hatred for anything that might substantiate climate change, or identify the damage that corporate businesses are doing to the environment.  So, while McCullough would like us all to believe that Harper's War on Science is just the imaginings of the "anti-Harper" CBC, there is so much evidence of this war starting in 2006 and continuing to present day (accelerating since 2011), that it cannot be simply dismissed as a "shibboleth".

As for Harper's environmental record, well, let's just say it's somewhat less than exemplary.  The man has axed a huge amount of research activity into matters of the environment, and during his tenure Oil Sands development in Alberta has increased in pace, in spite of concerns about managing the waste products of strip mining and "upgrading" the bitumen.

As for Harper on Gay Marriage - or other LGBT rights, his track record speaks for itself.  During the pre-legalization debate he and his party were vehemently opposed.  His caucus' voting on the Transgender rights legislation that has been before the House several times speaks volumes as well.  Harper isn't himself a "died in the wool reactionary" - he's smart enough to know that being overtly hostile himself has a political price that he is unwilling to pay.  He allows his backbench to keep throwing bits of red meat to the slavering base in the form of spurious motions and private member's bills.  He allows them to go on with them until such times as there would be a political price to pay for it.

Do I believe that Harper is hostile to Gay Marriage, LGBT rights in general, and women's rights (especially health issues like abortion)?  There is plenty of evidence that he and his government are - starting in 2006 when they came to power.  If the political price for reversing the Gay Marriage and abortion issues wasn't fatally high, I'm pretty certain that Harper would go after it.

McCullough seems to be willing to ignore or forget the evidence that is Harper's background and legacy.  The "tropes" about Harper exist not just because people don't like him, but because his actions past and present support those tropes.

The question is whether Harper has it in him to criticize his hosts after charming his way into their parlour. John Ivision at the Post thinks it's just as likely Harps will double-down on sucking up, and offer Netanyahu the sweetest diplomatic plum of all  --  a hint that Canada is interested in being the first country to formally recognize the plight of "the estimated 850,000 Jews displaced from states in the Middle East and North Africa" following Israel's war of independence. John says such an unprecedentedly fawning gesture  --  one that dramatically ratchets up the moral equivalency arms race between Israelis and Palestinians  -- could make the Israeli leader positively "delirious." 

I suspect he wouldn't be the only one.

Why yes, because nothing does your country more good than taking a polarizing position on a conflict that has been ongoing for centuries.   The consequences for Canada in this regard are enormous.  Harper thinks that he is bringing a "mature and decisive" approach to these issues.  What he is really doing is weakening Canada's voice on the world stage.

Israel is a nation located in lands that are believed to be sacred by Judaism, Islam and Christianity.  There cannot be a greater recipe for conflict to begin with.  Several centuries of conflict in the region has rendered the context in which Israel exists far too murky to justify taking a polarizing position as Harper is doing.

Now, the real question is what is Harper's motivation behind his stance on Israel?  There seems to be little sense to it.  Was this trip staged as a distraction to take attention away from the corruption and maliciousness being carried out at home?  Or is there something in Harper's unstated beliefs that supports his approach to Israel?  It's hard to say, but in any respect Harper is doing Canada no favours.

Harper Is A Boy In Short Pants On Foreign Policy

When it comes to matters of Foreign Policy, Harper is neither subtle or particularly smart.  As with all things in Harper's world, it's all about partisan position and absolutes.

Yesterday's announcement of Vivian Bercovici's appointment as Canada's new ambassador to Israel fits that pattern exactly.

Ms. Bercovici is one of those who is completely uncritical of the regime in Israel, and about as nuanced as Harper himself in her musings on the subject.

In a Jan. 28, 2013, column in the Toronto Star, Bercovici praises Netanyahu and criticizes Palestinian leaders. 

"Many western governments, judging from their comments, hold onto a misguided fantasy of the Middle East: that the persistent obstacle to peace is Israel, not the intransigence of Palestinian leaders," she wrote. 

She called Netanyahu a "respected leader" who has "enhanced national security, immeasurably."Of the Palestinian leadership, she said it calls for "the destruction of Israel — disseminated openly in political forums, the tightly controlled media and taught freely in schools and universities."

Okay, fine.  Ms. Bercovici is entitled to her opinions on Israel, as we all are.  However, Foreign Policy isn't about opinions - whether hers or Harper's.

It's not as if the Harper Government is terribly nuanced on the Foreign Affairs portfolio.  Harper has all but declared that Israel can do no wrong, and the only objective for Foreign Affairs is to make economic gains, so appointing someone of Ms. Bercovici's stripe to play ambassador to Israel is no big surprise.

However, this is an incredibly short-sighted move on Harper's part.  It effectively guarantees that Canada has absolutely no voice outside of Israel in the Middle East.  While we might have some influence within Israel, Ms. Bercovici's appointment will be looked upon by all of the Arab nations and their allies as a signal that Canada is distinctly uninterested in their story.  That lack of interest will be reciprocated.

But, the implications of this decision are even more far reaching than Mr. Harper seems to have envisioned.  Whatever the reasons Harper's unquestioning support of Israel, he fails to understand how this move will impact his other objectives.  If commerce is his Foreign Affairs "raison d'être" overall, he has forgotten something very important.  By alienating the Arab world, he has cut Canada off from a very large market space.  Further, he has also alienated a number of other large economies which are traditionally much better connected with the Middle East than our own - Russia and China come to mind here as central to the discussion - and neither of those nations has exactly the warmest of relations with Israel.

What the Harper Government continues to overlook is that even more so than domestic politics, Foreign Affairs is a delicate process of walking a series of very fine lines.  Only in the most extreme of circumstances do you take such absolute lines as we see the Harper Government taking on Israel.

Ms. Bercovici is partially correct when she criticizes the Palestinian authority for their intransigence in peace talks, but only partially.  One can hardly ignore Israel's disregard of the pre-1967 borders, building an apartheid-inspired wall around the Palestinian lands and creation of settlements on lands which the Palestinians lay claim to.

The web of disputes in the Middle East are centuries old, and the redrawing of borders which took place in the wake of WW I did not help matters at all.  Rightly, the Arab nations are skeptical of Western powers and their intentions in the region.  A series of resource wars, and clumsily executed colonial era edicts have created a situation where the entire region is a political minefield which must be negotiated very carefully.

Harper's approach to the region has been like a small boy - he runs into the middle of the minefield, quite unaware of the dangers which he is exposing himself to.

More On Israel's Invasion of the Gaza

Apparently, in the minds of the right-wing-o-sphere, the right to defend yourself is unbounded where Israel is concerned. These people sit around scratching their heads, wondering why Israel is on the receiving end of such harsh criticism.

Well, bombing schools is a pretty good start for an offensive that is "not targeting civilians".

Of course, we can't ignore the fact that Israel keeps the Gaza - and other Palestinian lands - under lock-and-key. Borders are closed, the regions are fenced in and so on - effectively making the Palestinian territories open air prisons. You think that might just breed a little animosity both within the territories, as well as outside?

Now, Israel's all outraged over the fact that the denizens of the Gaza (and other territories, no doubt) are building tunnels to subvert the blockades - and are busily trying to destroy those too.

This will accomplish nothing. Israel will bomb the area back into the stone age, and the Palestinians will continue to smuggle in bombs, rocket making materials and so on. The violence will continue because both sides are party to the cycle they have created.

Sadly, Canada's current government seems to be blind to this reality, blaming Hamas for bombs that Israel dropped. (It strikes me that this is a little like blaming the wife when her husband beats her within an inch of her life)

When the Israelis and the Palestinians come to the negotiating table as equals, then and only then, will there be any meaningful progress. That means significant political change has to take place on both sides. Just as Hamas (or whoever the group du jour is) needs to replace bombs and rockets with diplomacy, Israel needs to do the same.

Peace will never be achieved as long as the language is that of occupier/occupied, and the instruments of communication are bombs.

Thoughts On Israel Bombing The Gaza Strip (again!)

I really don't know what the solution is in that part of the world, but I do know that bombing each other isn't working.

It strikes me that Israel's response to the rockets being lobbed out of the Gaza is (once again) completely out of proportion to the damage the rockets seem to be doing. Okay, I understand that there is a very human, visceral need to step on those that are causing the problem, but for crying out loud people, it hasn't worked once in the fifty odd years that Israel has been a nation on the world's maps - what makes anyone think it will make a difference this time?

Unfortunately, I think that Israel finds itself in a 'got the tiger by the tail' scenario. They have tried to isolate the Palestinians from each other, and from the greater bulk of Israel with a combination of walls, and checkpoints. On both sides, the isolation breeds both alienation and resentment.

It will take a meeting of the minds between two serious statesmen to broker a meaningful peace in that region - if such a thing is possible at all.

Bush The Peace Broker

So, I see the oh-so-insightful "Dubya" has decided to set foot in the Middle East to promote his ideas as to how to achieve peace in the region.

Off the top, he's made two mistakes that are apt to be fatal to any hopes of making real progress before the end of 2008.

First is starting his Middle East visit in Israel. While I'm sure the Israeli government loves it, with the United States still prosecuting war in Iraq, Afghanistan and threatening same to Iran, one might imagine that the Arab states that are so crucial to any peace agreement in the region might look upon this as a signal of Bush's intentions.

The second comes out of a speech he gave in Israel:

“Our two nations both faced great challenges when they were founded,” Bush said in remarks at Ben Gurion International Airport. “And our two nations have both relied on the same principles to help us succeed. We built strong democracies to protect the freedoms given to us by an almighty God ... and we built an enduring alliance to confront terrorists and tyrants.”

Religion and faith are very important in that part of the world - but they are also extremely polarizing topics. It is unwise indeed to walk into the region as an obvious outsider and then start making grandiose pronouncements about supposedly shared aspects of faith with any one party.

There is no party in the Arab-Israeli dispute that is either blameless or noble in their conduct.

The Palestinians have responded to Israel with riots, suicide bombers and random rocket attacks from within their "territories". Hardly a happy moment for the Israelis.

On the other hand, trying to "wall in" the Palestinians and use highly restrictive border zones with them is divisive and many liken the situation on the West Bank to a seige of days past - not exactly a situation which is going to make the Palestinians and their Arab allies happy either.

Waltzing into the region and starting off by not only flaunting the close relationship with the White House that Israel enjoys, but also a faith tradition that is seen by many in the Arab world as being at odds with their values puts Bush into a position of having little or no real credibility with the key power brokers outside of Israel.

Having Israel "on side" is unquestionably important, but failing to have the various power brokers on the other side of the discussion feeling that you respect them as well puts Bush into a position of having no practical ability to effect change or even the most basic of consensus.

Let's See How Far This Goes

It seems that Jordan is asking Prime Minister Harper to listen to the Arab side of the story in the Arab-Israeli dispute that has bubbled about the Middle East for so long.

Bassem Awadallah, the director of the King's office, said King Abdullah hopes to persuade Mr. Harper to not only get “more engaged” in the Middle East peace process, but to take a more balanced position than the staunchly pro-Israeli tack he has adopted so far.

“We'd like Mr. Harper to listen to the other side of the story,” Mr. Awadallah said, adding that Canada's increasingly close relationship with Israel provides it with an opportunity to “leverage” those ties into pressure on the Jewish state to end its 40-year-old occupation of the West Bank. “Friends of Israel can encourage it to do the right thing more than countries that are not friends with Israel.”

This ought to be amusing. As Canadians have had the opportunity to experience, Harper's a little weak in the listening area. Remember, this is the PM whose comment about Israel's temper tantrum invasion of Lebanon last year was that Israel was "acting in a measured fashion". (I'd love to see what this man's idea of a ruler is)

However, Harper's part of the "Israel can do no wrong" crowd. He doesn't dare make such criticisms of Israel - it'll disrupt Bush Jr's fantasies about "The Apocalypse" happening in the Middle East, followed by "The Rapture" - and pissing off his masters in Washington isn't on PMSH's list of things he wants to do.

However, it will be interesting to see how the "Foreign Affairs Lite" time of Harper and Mackay handle the coming visit with Jordan's King coming to Canada for a visit.

Personally, I think Harper should listen very carefully to what Jordan's King has to say - he might be something of an autocrat himself (Kings often are...), but he sounds a lot more tuned into reality than our current government:

In an exclusive interview at his royal complex in the Jordanian capital, the King said Western leaders need to understand that the Palestinian issue is the root of many of the crises plaguing the Middle East – linked to problems as seemingly diverse as the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq, the recent violence in Lebanon and Iran's rise as a regional power – and they should use their influence to solve it in a balanced way.

My guess is that Harper's going to do nothing, and Jordan's visit will be like a hand in a bucket of water - remove it and you'd never know the hand was ever there.