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CHAPTER 1
A TANGLED TALE

Thousands of books describe various aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  Only a handful detail Canada’s ties to the dispute and most do so from a pro-Israeli perspective.¹

Harper has backed Israel with such fervour that veteran scholars and diplomats rank it as the most dramatic shift in the history of post-war Canadian foreign policy.³

The treatment of the Palestinians since 1947 is a blot upon a decent world.  Pushed out of their ancestral homes and harried and attacked in the dwellings which they temporarily acquired, they have been brutalized, denigrated, and, at best, ignored.  Why have these people been forced into a dreary diaspora in a world in which concern for human rights is supposed to be a watchword?  After seeing the tragedy of the Palestinian refugees, I was never the same again.³

A third observation based on The Ipsos Reid exit poll, is that the Conservatives did well among Jewish voters in the 2011 election but that they did poorly among Canadian Muslims.  Among Jewish voters, 52 percent voted Conservative, compared to 24 percent who voted Liberal and only 16 percent who voted NDP.  The Harper government has courted Jewish voters by offering uncritical support for Israel.⁴

CANADA PLAYED A SIGNIFICANT role through the United Nations in the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.  Lester Pearson (former Liberal Prime Minister of Canada and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1956) was front and center as a Canadian in bringing the state of Israel into being.  Needless to say, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities (both religious and secular) have been divided on how to interact with and justify or oppose the state of Israel.  There are Jewish, Christian, and Muslim hawks just as there are Jewish, Christian and Muslim doves who are part of this larger clash of civilizations that seeks to understand how to hold together the tendency to clash with the deeper desire to peacefully co-exist.

The article by Joseph Rosen, “The Israel Taboo:  Money and sex aren’t the only things Canadians don’t talk about” (The Walrus:  January/February 2014), highlighted—in a thoughtful, graphic, and succinct manner—why it is difficult (in this case, for Rosen, as a Canadian Jew) to discuss Israel in a minimally critical manner; polarization and name baiting often dominates the day.  Rosen placed the Canadian Jewish situation in a not-to-be-forgotten context and setting.

Canadian Jews, while liberal in many ways, are surprisingly right wing when it comes to Zionism.  According to a census analysis done in 2006, 25 percent of American Jews identify as Zionist, while 42 percent of Canadian Jews do.  Toronto and Montreal have some of the highest rates of visitation to Israel of any Jewish community in North America, at 75 percent.  This gives the impression of a seemingly univocal, unconditional support for the Israeli state in Canada, at least within the Jewish community.⁵

The fact that Canada played a key role in the founding of the state of Israel, and “[a]fter World War II, Montreal received the third-largest group of Holocaust survivors in the world,”⁶ means that there is a tale to be told about Canada and Zionism that has not yet been expressed.  There is, of course, the Christian Zionist tale that antedates Jewish Zionism, as well as the Jewish narrative and the Palestinian story.  There are all sorts of suggestive nuances within these groups and between them, but the complex Canadian Christian Zionist narrative is often trumped by the history of Christian Zionism from other countries.

Those who study the origins, development and contemporary expressions of Christian Zionism often track in two directions.  There are those who highlight, within Christian history, the anti-Semitic and “Teaching of Contempt” tendencies that have dogged Christianity and Christendom.  Then, there are those who track and trace the philo-Semitic, “Teaching of Esteem,” and Christian Zionist commitments in England, Germany, and the United States.  The fact that Canada is often left out of this discussion does need to be noted.  Canada has, to some degree, been shaped and influenced by both the British and American connections, and the Christian Zionist tendencies from these states have done much to determine the present Christian Zionist position in the ruling political party in Canada today.  This essay will touch on both historic Christian Zionism in Canada and the disturbing reality of Christian Zionism at the highest levels of political power and foreign policy decision-making in Canada today by the majority government of Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

The United Nations General Assembly voted on 29 November 2012 with a margin of 138 to 9 to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state.  This vote opened the door for Palestinian statehood.  It is significant to note that of the nine states that opposed the resolution, Canada and the United States were the most prominent.  In fact, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Canada, John Baird, suggested that Canada might even take retaliatory measures against the Palestinians for forcing the statehood agenda onto the global stage.  The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed that 2014 will be the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.  The United States, Canada, Australia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau were the only seven states to cast negative votes to oppose this initiative.  Rosen’s observation again on Canada and Zionism is worth heeding:  “It is hard to conceive of Jews as an oppressed minority when our prime minister fully supports Israel, has established the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, and works overtime to court the Jewish vote.”⁷

Why has the ruling Conservative Party in Canada taken such a pro-Zionist perspective, does Canada have a history of taking such a position, and what might be some of the reasons for Canadian Christian Zionism?  This book will answer some of these questions in a suggestive way.

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¹  Engler, Canada and Israel, 4
²  McDonald, Armageddon Factor, 311
³  Macquarrie, Red Tory Blues, 310f
⁴  Gruending, Pulpit and Politics, 2
⁵  Rosen, “The Israel Taboo,” http://thewalrus.ca/the-israel-taboo/
⁶  Ibid.
⁷  Ibid.