Cotler Discusses Principles vs. Even-handedness

By Published On: September 1, 2006

cotler.jpg
Former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler

In an interesting column in the Toronto Star, former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler discusses Canadian policy on Middle East, arguing that sticking by one’s principles will sometimes result in support for one side in a conflict:

a review of the seven principles of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East, as appears below, makes it clear that the notion that this foreign policy has been — or should be — even-handed is misplaced. Indeed, the notion that Stephen Harper’s support of Israel is “one-sided” or “ideological” runs the risk of suggesting that if giving expression to Canadian foreign policy principles means ending up siding with Israel, we should thereby jettison our principles. Who, then, is being ideological here?

Read it all here.

We expose the anti-Israel lies so you don't have to. But we can't do it without your help. Join the fight -- Donate now
CAMERA logo
Tell the World – Share Now!

More from SNAPSHOTS

  • In English, Haaretz Whitewashes Temple Mount Killings

    October 6, 2019

    Master Sgt. Kamil Shnaan, left, and Master Sgt. Haiel Sitawe, right, the police officers killed in the terror attack next to the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem on July 14, 2017. (Israel Police) In an [...]

  • Media Confounds, Calling Israel’s Voting Arab Citizens ‘Palestinian’

    September 24, 2019

    Arab woman voting in Jaffa, 2013 (Photo by Noam Moskovich/The Israel Project (Flickr) The impressive turnout on the part of Arab citizens of Israel in last week's elections -- making the Joint List of Arab [...]

  • Mahmoud Abbas’ Diatribe Threatening Israel Included Bogus Canaanite Claim

    September 10, 2019

    Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent anti-Israel diatribe that aired on PA TV was monitored and translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Excerpt: "I say to [Israel]: Every stone you have built on our land [...]

  • A Skewed NY Times Story on BDS, Then a Skewed Letters Section

    August 7, 2019

    After the New York Times published a skewed story about the anti-Israel BDS campaign, we detailed how the newspaper's reporters "put their fingers on the scales in support of BDS." One of the many examples [...]

  • CNN Calls House’s Unifying Anti-BDS Vote ‘Divisive’

    July 24, 2019

    Yesterday, in an overwhelming vote of bipartisan support, the House of Representatives voted 398 to 17 to adopt a resolution opposing the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) campaign. Yet, CNN's headline casts the unifying vote [...]

  • NY Times Cites Poll, Hides Palestinian Support for Violence

    July 9, 2019

    The New York Times has struggled to accurately describe polls this year. In January, editor Jonathan Weisman misrepresented Pew polling data to describe a nonexistent surge in Israeli support for the United States under President [...]

  • Not a Scoop: 448 Days Later, NY Times Reports Slur by Palestinian Leader

    June 10, 2019

    In January 2016, on the day Israel buried a pregnant woman stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel publicly criticized what he viewed as a double standard in Israelis law [...]

  • CNN’s Zakaria Indulges Palestinian Propagandist Hanan Ashrawi

    June 9, 2019

    Fareed Zakaria’s weekly Cable News Network (CNN) program (grandiosely named “Global Public Square”) June 9 broadcast included a discussion of the current U.S. Middle East peace plan with guests Hanan Ashrawi (Palestinian Authority official) and [...]

  • After Broadcasting Holocaust Denial, AJ+ Feigns Innocence

    May 31, 2019

    After Al Jazeera created and posted a video questioning "the truth of the Holocaust," officials at the Qatari media giant took a page from the New York Times' book, blaming employees who were working "without [...]

  • In Robert Bernstein Obit, AFP Inappropriately References His Judaism

    May 29, 2019

    Robert Bernstein (Courtesy the New Press) In its obituary yesterday for American publisher Robert Bernstein, Agence France Presse inserted an inappropriate reference to the Human Rights Watch founder who later turned on the organization due [...]