T

here are two sides to Stephen Harper.

One is manifested by the always-composed sometimes stoic expression he wears in public. The other is when that countenance gives way on a moment’s notice and he drops the formalities interrupting a speaking engagement to sit down and jam at the electric piano with his band Herringbone urging his audience to sing along with him to a popular rock tune.

Segueing speech into song is becoming a Harper trademark and one he even employed at last month’s Jewish National Fund dinner in Toronto where he announced his first-ever trip toIsrael.

But when it comes to setting the tone for Canada’s foreign policy especially toward Israel Harper doesn’t display two sides or two faces. Simply put he is Israel’s staunchest advocate in a world where support for the Jewish state is mired in the late stages of a global meltdown.

“Canada supports Israel fundamentally because it is right to do so” Harper declared in his speech to the Knesset last week. “This by the way is a very Canadian trait to do something for no reason other than it is right even when no immediate reward for or threat to ourselves is evident.”

In discussing the evident threats toIsrael’s existence Harper issued what could be interpreted as both a stark warning and a measure of encouragement to an Israeli parliament almost equally balanced between hawks and doves: “If you act to defend yourselves you will suffer widespread condemnation over and over again. But should you fail to act you alone will suffer the consequence of your inaction and that consequence will be final. It will be your destruction.”

No Pulling Punches

Harper delivered these lines with the same aplomb as he would if he were introducing a measure to reduce taxes in the Canadian parliament. He is not a fiery orator, by any means. He is measured; some would call him dry. The Knesset does not use teleprompters and Harper leafed through the pages of his prepared text, only deviating once, when he thanked Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein for presenting him with the key to the Knesset, saying it made him feel as if can come and go as he pleases. His speech before the Knesset stands in stark contrast with that of President Obama, who visited Israel ten months ago but declined to address the Knesset, choosing instead to address a handpicked audience of university students at Binyanei Ha’umah.

There is no underestimating the importance of Harper’s appearance and support for the Netanyahu government at a time when Israel is under unprecedented pressures to make risky security concessions to try to solve the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict, while Netanyahu faces his usual chorus of domestic critics who contend Israel can’t afford to say no to the United States because it has no other friend in the world.

It’s no wonder that Harper, while drawing applause from Jewish Knesset members on a number of occasions during his 30-minute speech, also drew the wrath of Arab MKs Ahmed Tibi and Talab Abu Arar, who stormed out of the plenum after breaching diplomatic protocol by interrupting and shouting at the visiting head of government.

Tibi’s outburst followed Harper saying it was disgraceful that some people openly label Israel as an apartheid state. Harper ignored the interruption, and did not look in Tibi’s direction, even when Edelstein dispatched his sergeant-at-arms to escort Tibi from the plenum. When Tibi also heckled Netanyahu, Netanyahu pointed his way, looked at Harper and said: “This is Israeli democracy in action. You wouldn’t see this in Damascus.”

Mark Adler, a Jewish member of Canada’s parliament from Toronto, who spoke with Mishpacha before Harper’s Knesset address, noted that if Harper were supportive of the Arab side, as opposed to the Jewish or Israeli side, he would gain more seats. Muslims outnumber Jews three to one in Canada.

“He takes a lot of heat, not only in Canada from the media but on the international scene,” says Adler. “A lot of world leaders have told him to pull back a bit, but he says, ‘No, I support Israel and the Jewish People and I’m going to do what I have to do.’”

Adler, whose father was a Holocaust survivor who smuggled Jews into Israel past the British blockade but never had the zechus to visit Israel himself, was part of a delegation of some 150 Canadians who joined Harper’s state visit to Israel — his first since becoming prime minister in 2006.

Harper also visited the Palestinian Authority, where he pledged an additional Can$66 million in economic support, and met in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Six federal cabinet ministers joined Harper, including Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, and his ministers for employment, industry, natural resources, development, and trade. The Canadian and Israeli governments held a joint cabinet meeting, and announced an expansion of their free trade agreements.

Harper also visited the usual diplomatic destinations, including the Kosel and Yad Vashem. He canceled a planned visit to the Temple Mount, but flew to the Hula Valley area of the Galilee to dedicate a bird sanctuary in his honor. He also received an honorary degree from Tel Aviv University.

The Harper delegation found their own activities to occupy themselves, whether visiting Kever Rochel or relaxing at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem, where they stayed. Some of the most prominent members of the delegation included congregational rabbanim, including Rabbi Yehoshua Weber of Toronto’s Clanton Park Synagogue, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, spiritual leader of Ottawa’s Congregation Machzikei Hadas, and a sizable contingent of Chabad shluchim.

Most delegates flew with the prime minister on his Airbus for the 11-hour flight from Canada’s capital Ottawa to Tel Aviv. The flight left at 7 p.m. on Motzaei Shabbos. All passengers were supposed to check in by 5 p.m., but since Shabbos didn’t end until 5:36, the prime minister’s office arranged for an early check-in on Friday for luggage and passport approvals.

Rabbi Bulka, spiritual leader of Machzikei Hadas since 1967, has known nine Canadian prime ministers (if you count Pierre Trudeau’s two nonconsecutive terms), and has developed a close relationship with Harper over the past eight years.

“I can tell you in the conversations I’ve had with him, when talking about Israel’s isolation in the world, you can see his anxiety about the situation and the problems Israel continues to face,” says Rabbi Bulka. “They bother him. These are true-blue concerns to him.”

Rabbi Chaim Mendelsohn, director of public affairs for the Canadian Federation of Chabad Lubavitch, which runs a variety of cultural and educational events on Parliament Hill, says he also saw concern on Harper’s face the day he escorted him and his wife, Laureen, on a tour of the Chabad House in Mumbai, on the first yahrtzeit of the 2008 terror attack in which Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were murdered.

“The prime minister’s security staff went in first and made us clean out most of the rubble, but when we went upstairs, you could still see their clothes hanging in the closet and cans of tuna fish in the kitchen,” says Rabbi Mendelsohn. “I saw the real impact it had on Harper. He was visibly emotional. Years later, I saw Mrs. Harper at an event and she told me this was one of the most overwhelming moments of her life.”

Father to the Thought

Harper, 54, was brought up as a Presbyterian in Toronto. His father, Joseph, lived and worked as an accountant in Toronto’s Leaside section, which in the 1950s was home to many Holocaust survivors.

“He explained to us once that his father taught him about how important it is for the Jewish People to have their own homeland in the state of Israel,” said Mark Adler.

Canadian journalist Mark Kennedy of O.Canada.com wrote that Joseph Harper was an army cadet, and while he was too young to see active service in World War II, he was a student of military history who despised totalitarianism.

“He had seen what it can produce, how Hitler’s Nazis had obliterated 6 million Jews from the face of Europe,” wrote Kennedy. “He understood why the Jews wanted a Jewish state called Israel to prosper and be safe.”

Harper’s father passed away in 2003, three years before Stephen became prime minister, but Kennedy quoted Shimon Fogel, head of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, who said he once spoke with Harper about his father.

“I think that at some point he [Harper’s father] recognized that his son was going to have the potential to make an impact, and to make a difference, and he extracted a commitment from his son that if he was ever in a position to help the Jewish People, not only should he, but that he must,” says Fogel.

Stephen Harper moved west in 1978 to attend the University of Calgary, earning a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s degree in economics, and went to work in the petroleum industry. He was elected to parliament in 1993 from Calgary West, then briefly left elected office to head the National Citizens Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for individual freedoms and accountable government.

In 2002, Harper was elected leader of the Canadian Alliance Party, which merged a year later with the Progressive Conservatives to form Canada’s current Conservative Party. In 2006, Canadians gave Harper and his party a mandate to form a Conservative government for the first time in 13 years. Harper has since been reelected twice, each time increasing the number of seats his party holds.

For Michael Kowalson of Winnipeg, a longstanding Conservative Party supporter who joined Harper on the Israel trip, Harper has brought a breath of fresh air to Canada’s foreign policy after more than decade of Liberal Party rule.

“You had Liberal MPs marching in parades with the flag of Hamas, and Liberals talking about Israeli war crimes. It’s all completely baseless nonsense, but I considered all that to be an attack on me as a Jewish Canadian,” said Kowalson. “I thank G-d every day we have Stephen Harper for a prime minister.”

Solitary Voice

As a member of the Group of Eight (G8) nations, Canada projects economic power worldwide, but under Stephen Harper’s rule, it has served as the world’s moral compass, standing up for Israel in world bodies.

According to David Weinberg of the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University, Canada was the first nation to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won seats in the 2006 elections shortly after Harper took office.

The US and European Union soon followed Canada’s lead in declaring Hamas a terror organization, banning political contact.

Most Western nations also followed Canada’s lead in boycotting the Durban II and Durban III UN conferences on racism, with Canada knowing it would turn into a party of Israel bashers.

Canada has often been the solitary voice casting no-votes against anti-Israel resolutions in the UN Human Rights Council, International Atomic Energy Agency, and the UN General Assembly.

In 2011, it was Harper’s veto at the G8 conference that stopped a resolution sought by President Obama to declare that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations be based on the pre-1967 borders. A year later, Canada was one of just nine countries to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution granting “Palestine” nonmember observer status. That move cost Canada support in its bid for a coveted seat on the UN Security Council, and led the Canadian media to sharply criticize Harper for the perceived blow to Canada’s global prestige.

Harper dominated Canada’s media coverage once again during last week’s trip to Israel, while at the same time noting the scant coverage the mainstream left-leaning Israeli media gave to it. Ha’aretz, in particular, painted Harper as an iconoclastic extremist. Arutz Sheva, which gave thorough coverage to the visit, cited Maariv’s Kalman Libeskind, who noted that Channel 2 gave just one minute of coverage, half of that to Tibi’s outburst, while Channel 10 didn’t cover the speech at all.

Back home in Canada, the Globe and Mail, often one of Harper’s sharpest media critics, was not shy about advising the prime minister to be more statesman than partisan, tread carefully when it comes to the US — especially in supporting any potential military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities — and warned against alienating President Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry at a time when Canada is trying to persuade America to approve the northern leg of its Keystone pipeline that would transport Canadian crude oil from the province of Alberta to Nebraska.

Regarding the Palestinians, the Globe and Mail asked Harper to urge the Israeli government to cease settlement building and spend enough time in the West Bank to see how difficult life is there for the Palestinians.

Official Canadian policy, as posted on the Canadian Department for Foreign Affairs and International Trade website states that “Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip)…. Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The settlements also constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.”

However, neither Harper nor his foreign minister John Baird will be heard voicing that in public, even though Prime Minister Netanyahu assured reporters at a joint news conference that Harper did raise the issue in their private talks.

“There are specific questions on which we disagree,” Harper said. “In terms of all of the issues around the peace process, I think you can find the government of Canada’s positions. They’re available publicly, but the most important thing is that it is for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate these matters and to come to resolutions that are mutually agreeable.”

Harper jousted with his domestic press, which pressed him to criticize settlements. “I am not here to single out Israel for criticism,” said Harper. “[When I visited] the Palestinian Authority, no one asked me there to single out the Palestinian Authority for any criticism in terms of governance or human rights or anything else. When I’m in Israel, I’m asked to single out Israel; when I’m in the Palestinian Authority, I’m asked to single out Israel; and in half the other places around the world you ask me to single out Israel.

“You know, we’ve got more than enough people standing up in the world ready to do that. You don’t need me for that. I’m here to talk about our shared values and interests.”

A Fundamental Ethic

Harper’s political independence is also a product of the years he spent in the West, in Canada’s oil country. He and his wife Laureen and their children, Benjamin and Rachel, still consider Calgary their home.

“Western Canada has always been more religious and conservative compared to central Canada,” says Julien Bauer, a professor of political science at the University of Quebec in Montreal. “Harper believes the leaders of public opinion want to destroy him, which is true, so he feels he has nothing to lose. Most papers in Canada, and radio and television, do favor the Liberals,” Bauer says. “But Harper himself is very much against postmodernism and moral equivalence, so in that case, supporting Israel is a basic case of right and wrong. He believes Israel is right and he says it publicly no matter what the cost.”

Electorally in Canada, being pro-Israel does not pay dividends to politicians. As a parliamentary democracy, there is no direct election for prime minister. Canada’s 355,000 Jews are 1 percent of the country’s population and there are only about six ridings, or federal election precincts, out of the 308 that send a representative to Parliament, with enough Jewish votes to tilt the balance.

Harper was first elected in 2006 without any significant Jewish support. “In the beginning, there was an idea going around that he was a hidden anti-Semite, which I thought was idiotic,” says Bauer.

A longstanding member of the Young Israel of Montreal, Bauer says he has seen the Jewish vote gravitate away from the Liberals and toward the Conservatives, much as Orthodox Jews in the US have switched allegiances from the Democrats to the Republicans.

“I’ve seen it in the shul, as well as at a shtiebel I sometimes go to,” says Bauer. “It took two elections before people started turning in favor of Harper, but I would say that 20 years ago 90 percent of the Orthodox Jews were liberal, and today it’s a maximum of 40 percent.”

Laurence Zeifman, a partner in a Toronto firm of chartered accountants, who has been active in conservative politics since the days of the Alliance Party, contends that not only has Harper’s strong pro-Israel position caused little if any backlash for Canadian Jews, but they have been a great help.

“It’s caused all Canadians to realize that Israel has a valid position in the conflict,” says Zeifman. “Unlike in Europe, where Israel’s position is never heard in the street, in Canada, Israel’s position is heard, it’s understood and it’s widely supported.”

In that respect, it could be that Harper’s strong support for Israel comes from the feeling that more of his fellow Canadians should innately back Israel’s cause in the world. He hinted to that in his Jerusalem news conference when he said that Canada, a nation jointly founded by the British and the French, has a record of trying to conciliate and make welcome people of many different languages, religions, and cultures. “And the one lesson I think we have learned is that when somebody is a minority, particularly a small minority in the world, one goes out of one’s way to embrace them, not to single them out for criticism,” Harper said. “That’s a fundamental Canadian ethic and that is why, I think, many Canadians understand the approach I’m taking.”

Philip Murphy, vice president of government affairs for MDA Information Systems, whose Ottawa-based company provides the in-service support for the Israel Aircraft drones flown on missions in Afghanistan, is not Jewish, but says the average Canadian citizen also appreciates the history of struggle of the Jewish People and values how Jews have integrated themselves into Canadian society.

“A strong Israel is a good example for the entire region in terms of democracy and human rights,” says Murphy. —

—Machla Abramovitz contributed reporting from Montreal

Unsettled Feelings on Settlements

Not all Harper supporters are sitting quietly on the sidelines over the discrepancy between Harper’s and Baird’s public statements and the foreign affairs website.

A week before Harper’s arrival, Alan Baker, Israel’s former ambassador to Canada, revealed in a Jerusalem Post op-ed piece that he and six pro-Israel Canadian attorneys had met with members of the Harper government to discuss the matter.

Canada’s National Post reported Baker and company “demanded the website be changed ‘to align it with [the pro-Israel] statements and policies publicly expressed by the Prime Minister, yourself and other government representatives.’”

The National Post article was an embarrassment to a government already reeling from criticism for having appointed Vivian Bercovici as Canada’s new ambassador to Israel. Bercovici, an attorney, is Jewish and well-known for her public criticism of Palestinian positions, and the US role in the Middle East. In an article she wrote last month for the Toronto Star, she said that “Iran is being feted and fawned over by many Western leaders, led by US President Barack Obama.”

Leo Adler, a criminal defense lawyer from Toronto, and one of the six attorneys allied with Baker, tells Mishpacha there was absolutely no intent to embarrass the Harper government, which he called “highly principled and clearly realizing the importance of Israel and the common values between Israel and Canada.”

Adler says the group’s meeting with foreign affairs officials was held before Harper even announced his visit to Israel. “It was meant to be a friendly discussion pointing out that there are aspects of the website that are different from what we know the minister and the Canadian government as a whole has been saying.”

The pro-Israel attorneys provided the government with a letter and legal opinion as to how the website can be updated, and pointed out that calling the West Bank “occupied territory” (as opposed to the term disputed territory that Israel uses) is a legal issue. Adler says he asked the officials to pass the letter to Foreign Minister Baird and they said they would, in due course, look into their legal arguments.

“I’m disappointed in how the media portrayed this because it was never meant to be anything other than legal colleagues saying this is what we believe the law to be.”

Stockwell Day, a senior strategic advisor for the Vancouver office of the legal firm McMillan LLP, and the first leader of the Canadian Alliance Party before it merged with the Conservatives, told Mishpacha that while he can no longer speak for the nation’s foreign affairs, he agrees that there is “an unbalanced view about settlements.”

“What does not get articulated is that on the other side of the ledger there are very legal and historical arguments for so-called settlements,” says Day. “People only ever hear the one side, but as far as what’s on those websites, consistency is important and the government needs to take a look at that.”

Professor Frederick Krantz, executive director of the Montreal-based Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, contends the foreign affairs ministry website is not based on political convictions, but on realpolitik, which takes into account oil interests in the Arab world. In addition, the foreign ministry employs entrenched, career bureaucrats with tenure and lifetime appointments whose positions are hard to budge.

“Until now the Harper government has been ignoring this and moved on using its own language,” says Professor Krantz. “They may now be forced to deal with this.”