Ignatieff parroting Harper on Gaza

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derrick derrick's picture
Ignatieff parroting Harper on Gaza

Writing in the Toronto Star, Haroon Siddigui argues, 'Israel becoming its own worst enemy.'

He talks about the growing democratic deficit with politicians out of step with the public's response to the massacres in Gaza, singling out Ignatieff for 'parroting' Harper on this issue:

"Now Michael Ignatieff is parroting Harper. An ostensible lifelong advocate of human rights, he is defending what human rights groups are condemning as possible war crimes.

Given the disparity between the Harper-Ignatieff position and Canadian public sentiment, we face a growing democratic deficit.

Similarly, in echoing the official line on the Middle East, most mainstream media outlets – already losing customers and revenues – face greater estrangement from consumers.

The web, crackling with a range of views, is attracting increasing traffic and not just from the partisans.

It is mostly from there that one learns of prominent Canadians, while condemning both Israel and Hamas, beseeching Harper to work for a ceasefire:

Right Rev. David Giuliano, moderator of the United Church: "The current crisis in Gaza is a tragic consequence of the hatred and hostility bred by the occupation."

Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress: "We call on you to urge Israel to end its year-long blockade and reopen the border crossings so that aid can reach the people suffering from shortages of food, fuel ..."

Ken Lewenza, president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union: "The blockade over the past year, which Canada supported, has already created a humanitarian crisis. There's no justification for the collective punishment of civilians."

The Steelworker Toronto Area Council: "End the massacre of Palestinian civilians."

We have seen this movie before, several times..."


derrick derrick's picture

Two Ignatieff events in Vancouver this week were picketed by demonstrators over his support of Israel's actions in Gaza. At one of these events, a Liberal pub night, Ignatieff opened his remarks by addressing his supporters about the protest outside. It kind of sounds like Iggy himself doth protest too much...

Here's the video and the excerpt...

"I just walked through a demonstration. Outside on the street, there's a demonstration of young people, and some older people, who are very concerned about Gaza and about Palestine. I don't agree with their point of view, but we have to listen to each other, we have to treat each other with respect. Public argument matters. What these people believe, I think, is mistaken, but they have the right to be there, they have the right to be heard, they have a right to speak, their anger, their frustration, their sense of grievance, their sense that something terrible is happening and it's not being stopped -- is to be respected. I disagree with it, but we have to live with it, we've only got one country, we've only got one home..."


What do you expect from a guy who supported the Iraq war.


"An ostensible lifelong

Even the equivocating "ostensible" is too generous a qualifier for the opportunistic Ignatieff-- advocate of US military hegemony, torture, the Iraq war, and now apologist for Israel's accelerated ethnic cleansing.

anchovy breather

He's an oil sands lackey, too, by the sounds of it (just like his non-unibrowed Conservative counterpart), although it seems he likes to cloak it with pseudo-nationalism.

 “It is awe-inspiring,” he said, adding that the controversial project boasts enough oil to last the rest of this century.


That's pretty scary stuff


The current massacre being inflicted on the people of Gaza by the state of Israel is something that is right up Michael Ignatieff's alley. His whole career, aside from his none-to-enviable foray into fiction, was based on making the argument that it is okay to kill, torture, and wage war, in order to stop killing, torture, and wars. The media and the academic world got swept up in the myth that the man is in some way authentic, and accepted that he was part of a new wave of young hip edgy Canadian intellectuals like Irshad Manji - reformers who use human rights and democracy discourse to make distinctly inhumane and undemocratic arguments.

Ignatieff's epic phoniness on Israel is not surprising given the imfamous three months it took him to decide whether or not Israel committed a war crime in Qana in 2006. I recall that as being a very embarrassing, very public and very long tug-of-war to see whether or not Ignatieff could finally be won over to the side of the actual human rights groups like Amnesty that described it is a war crime, or the Israel lobby for whom Israel can do no wrong.

The issue went away when Ignatieff gave Qana the wishy washy label of "tragedy" (the kind of tragedy one loses no sleep over, apparently). This was a term deliberately used to cut his electoral losses, but he learned his lesson: best stick to the faux humanitarian shtick of his academic days, and don't fuck with the Israel lobby.

martin dufresne

The Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, National Post and St.John's Telegram all applaud the Canadian government's sole vote against an Isreaeli ceasefire last Monday. Ain't it moving...?!

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Neither moving nor inspiring as the Canadian political, economic, and cultural establishment again embraces its colonial and racist self. 


Unfortunatly it's not just "the establishment".
Canadian public opinion inevitably shifts towards endorsing ethnic cleansing as the tidal wave of distortions and disinformation by the "free press" manufactures consent. Ignorance, rather than ill will, makes genocide unwittingly the "reasonable position".

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

I agree, but the herd follows the bell.

anchovy breather

And Piggy's excuse, as a leading intellectual and human rights advocate (hardeehar) would be? (hint- there's no excuse). Piggy is pro-massacre, if it serves the purpose of  the upper crust.

Just a self-serving careerist creep in a moral vacuum. And the MSM is filled with a similar lot who have been cheerleading and fawning over him since he arrived back here with his imperial aspirations.