Madam Speaker, on March 6 I attended a major speech given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Canada-Israel committee which elicited an extremely negative reaction for suggesting that civilian casualties regardless of their cause were equally reprehensible. In other words, making no distinction between civilians tragically killed as bystanders in the course of defensive military operations and civilians deliberately targeted and killed in terrorist attacks.
Understandably, members of the Canadian Jewish community, people who know personally many of those innocent Israeli civilians under daily threat from suicide bombers, snipers and rocket attacks, were extremely upset by these remarks. Only a few days later there was a vivid illustration of the folly of the minister's remarks. On the evening of March 9, as Israelis came out onto the streets after the Sabbath, yet another horrifying suicide attack killed 11 Israelis in a Jerusalem cafe one block from the prime minister's residence.
I rose in the House on March 11 to ask the minister whether in light of this new terrorist attack, and we have seen many more since then including a suicide bombing which took the lives of 26 Israelis as they celebrated a Passover Seder Supper, military action to root out terrorists was the moral equivalent of those terrorists killing innocent civilians?
The minister responded with indignation to this question saying that he had not suggested any moral equivalence whatsoever. Unfortunately, both as the former chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and now as minister, he has been guilty of embracing the worst kind of moral equivalency when it comes to Canada's relations with countries ranging from Iraq, Cuba, the United States and Israel.
In the days after the September 11 attacks the minister made comments endorsing the absurd root causes theory of terrorism, blaming the attack on New York City on some combination of poverty in the Arab world and U.S. foreign policy. This notion is interesting, considering that most of the September 11 hijackers came from privileged backgrounds in Saudi Arabia, a country which has been a prime beneficiary of U.S. foreign policy.
More recently we have seen the minister's moral equivalence theory crop up again in his hasty press comments from Barbados last week. The foreign affairs department had no comment when the Netanya Passover bombings occurred. However, when Israel in the wake of this terrible provocation responded by attempting to root out terrorist cells it still knew to be at large Canada quickly joined in the international condemnation.
Canada's position vis-à-vis Israel often seems to be one of «cet animal est méchant: quand on l'attaque il se défend».
The minister accused Israel of employing “disproportionate force” in its actions on the West Bank while merely calling for Arafat to condemn terrorism. Counting on Arafat to condemn terrorism makes a fundamental mistake. Yasser Arafat is not a helpless bystander who cannot control more radical elements who commit terrorism, nor is he even a silent, passive endorser of terrorism. He stands at the head of a hierarchy including his al-Aqsa brigade which organizes and plans its own terrorist acts and deliberately tolerates similar acts by others.
Canada calling Israeli actions disproportionate when we have seen the evidence over the past two weeks, invoices for suicide bombs discovered in Arafat's offices, bomb factories found in secret tunnels, terrorists on Israel's most wanted list who have been in and out of Arafat's revolving door jails captured, is another error.
The minister is once again playing the dubious game of moral equivalence. Canada is engaged in a war on terrorism in Afghanistan which we have endorsed. It is led by the United States. That has not been criticized by the government as moral equivalence.
In closing, I would like to quote Frank Dimant of B'nai Brith Canada when he said last week:
It is becoming increasingly apparent that there is a double standard in the war on terror. When Americans are attacked, Canada supports and even participates in an unremitting campaign to eradicate the terror.... When Jews are attacked, when every day brings another suicide bomber--