Friday, September 29, 2006
Harper takes principled stand at "La Francophonie" Summit
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, representing Canada at a summit of the Francophonie held in Bucharest, Romania, rejected a one-sided resolution on the Israel-Hizbullah conflict today. The Francophonie is France's imitiation of the Commonwealth whose exact pratical impact on world politics is unclear to me. Egypt, a member of the Francophonie (the Baltic states and Macedonia are also part of the club!), introduced a last-minute resolution at the summit that would have recognized only Lebanese victims of the war. Harper wisely vetoed the resolution.
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I have to commend Harper for risking his own approval ratings in Canada. I bet past Canuck governments would have just let it slide, and found some way of justifying the earlier version of the resolution. Harper is giving Canada credibility in the region. All the Quebecois whiners are probably going to complain about the damage done to Canada's position as an "honest broker." Nonsense. By refusing to join in the usual Israel-bashing at stupid international forums like the Francophonie, Harper is showing that Canada has a consistent foreign policy and that it prefers to play with the big boys rather than waste time on rhetorical grandstanding.
Is the full resolution available online?
I apologise because this doesn't really relate to Harper other than that Vice Magazine was started in Montreal Canada when we were going to school there. It's certainly not journalism by any stretch, and the writers tend to be as "shocking" and "un-PC" as they can possibly be, but still this little photo piece made me think of my Israeli friends because it depicts a very human interaction between children in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
http://www.viceland.com/int/v13n9/htdocs/working.php?country=us
Haha!! I think it's hilarious, even though I'm sure a lot of people will complain. Thanks, Derek!
hey derek,
I checked out VICE. It could have been funnier, I have to say.... the whole thing about the Muslims not being able to play video games, etc. was way over done. But I'm still impressed that VICE did it. A lot of areas in Jaffa, btw, are really shitty and the Arab population there is a lot less educated and less wealthy than Arabs in Haifa and in many villages in the Galillee.
I was pretty amazed by this. As a former speechwriter for the Israeli Government, and now a journalist here in Canada, I was asked to comment on it by the local TV outlet. I tried to frame my comments in a way that would applaud Harper but still please a Canadian audience - not all of who are particularly happy with this move. Interesting development.
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