Canadian Loan Guarantees to Israel Will Go Ahead, External Affairs Says

By John Dirlik

The first official meeting between newly appointed External Affairs Minister Barbara McDougall and a delegation of Canadian Arabs was described as "difficult" but "useful" by Jim Kafieh, president of the Canadian Arab Federation.

Fearing a change in the direction of Canada's Middle East policy because of McDougall's well-known pro-Israel stance (see the July issue of the Washington Report), the umbrella organization representing about two dozen Arab groups across the country had sought a meeting to demand clarification of Ottawa's position. "We were concerned that there may be an erosion of the limited progress made under [former Minister of External Affairs] Joe Clark," said Kafieh.

"The United States is saying no, yet Canada says yes."

According to Kafieh, the delegation received assurances on Canada's continued commitment to the land-for-peace principle inherent in United Nations Resolution 242, but failed to convince McDougall that Canada should follow the US lead and delay a loan guarantee offer Ottawa made to Israel last April.

The $100 million line of credit package to be provided by the Export Development Corporation would allow Israel to buy building supplies from Canadian suppliers. Longstanding policy prevents Canadian aid to be used outside of Israel's 1967 borders, but Kafieh argued that the loan guarantees would only free up funds in the Israeli economy that would find their way into the occupied territories. "Any assistance Canada gives the Israeli economy only helps them violate international law, " said Kafieh, who criticized the "nonsensical timing" of Canada's offer, in light of President Bush's effort to accelerate the peace process by exactly the opposite method. "The United States, which is Israel's biggest and blindest supporter, is saying no, yet Canada says yes," said Kafieh. "We're sending the wrong message."

McDougall defended Ottawa's position, saying that the line of credit was to help Canadian companies develop export sales, and that, at any rate, Canada was a "very small player" in the Mideast process.

Meanwhile, the International Affairs Institute of B'nai B'rith Canada urged the Jewish community to flood the US ambassador to Canada with letters and telegrams expressing support for the granting of American loan guarantees to Israel. " Canadian Jewry must not sit passively on the sidelines on this critical international issue," said B'nai B'rith spokesman Frank Dimant. "Israel desperately needs this humanitarian aid, which must not be held back for political considerations."

At a memorial dinner for Revisionist founder Ze'ev Jabotinsky sponsored by the Canadian Herut organization, keynote speaker Rabbi Reuben Poupko lashed out at the Bush administration for pressuring Israel to give up the "liberated" territories. "God gave it [the land] to us," he told about 250 guests in Montreal. "Are we to give it back?" Rabbi Poupko urged all Canadian Jews to show support for Israel by visiting the Jewish state. "If you have never been to Israel, you should be so embarrassed that you should lie about it, " he told his audience.

Mubarak Awad in Toronto

Addressing one of the oldest international peace organizations in the world, Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad told delegates there was "absolutely no difference between the PLO and the Palestinian people."

Speaking in Toronto, where the Geneva based International Peace Bureau (IPB) held its annual conference, Awad told a workshop on the Middle East that "anyone who says they are against the PLO is against the Palestinian people. There is no difference between the two."

Awad, whose call for nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation got him deported from Israel during the height of the Palestinian intifada, was not optimistic about the success of the proposed peace conference. He cited as reasons not only Israeli intransigence but his view that the concept of pan-Arabic solidarity was "completely dead. " Now head of the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence, headquartered in Washington, Awad nevertheless expressed confidence that the Palestinian people would eventually triumph and have an independent state in their historic homeland. "The Palestinians are going to survive with or without a peace conference," he said. "There cannot be peace without the Palestinians and we have the key to peace. That's where Palestinian power lies. The weak also have their own power."

Rabbinical Council Calls for Pollard's Release

The Rabbinical Council of Canada's (RCC) Eastern region—composed of mainstream orthodox rabbis—passed a resolution at its Montreal meeting calling on the US administration to commute the sentence of American spy Jonathan Pollard. RCC President Rabbi Yonah Rosner said that Pollard's "motivation has always been a concern for American and Israeli interests in the Middle East."

Rosner insisted the resolution was not outside the Council's mandate since it was part of the Jewish concept of pidyan shvuim, which he described as an obligation to help the incarcerated by the "redeemed." "We're not saying the law should be overturned. Only that there has been an excess of punishment in this case," he said.

The resolution cited the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists' American section, which also described Pollard's sentence as "far harsher" than that given to others convicted of espionage crimes.'

Jewish organizations such as the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canadian Zionist Federation likewise issued statements calling for the commutation of Pollard's sentence. One letter writer to the Canadian Jewish News said the information Pollard transmitted to Israel helped save Jewish lives during the Gulf crisis, and described him as "an authentic Jewish hero.”

John Dirlik, a free-lance writer from Montreal, Quebec, writes on Canadian and Middle East affairs.

SIDEBAR

Living Under Israeli Occupation

The toll of human rights violations by Israeli forces since Dec. 9, 1987:

Deaths … 974

Injuries requiring hospitalization … 117,190*

Expulsions … 66

Administrative detentions … 15,100

Curfews(areas with 10,00 + population under 24-hour curfew)…10,572

(plus almost constant curfews over entire West Bank, and Gaza from Jan. 16-Feb. 28, 1991)

Land confiscation (areas ) … 94,982

House demolitions/sealings … 2,035

Tree uprootings… 121,861

Source: Palestine Human Rights Information Center, Jerusalem/Chicago, (312) 271-4492. Figures through September 30, 1991.

*Estimated number