POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is a dangerous, anti-democratic path to follow.
What is a "victim"?
What will be "support" of terror?
Not to say what is "terror"?
The extremism that attends every discussion of Israel and terror gives us just a hint of the ugly legal excesses to which this proposal could open us.
What I most fear is a new kind of "slap" suit to shut up those who criticize Israel's bloody excesses.
This is pretty shabby stuff for a Canadian Prime Minister to do or even offer to do on behalf of the interests of another country.
Maybe if Ignatieff comes out strongly against this, I can even manage to support him, a man whose background views are extremely negative for me.
Harper is trying to drag Canada completely into the American camp on this, ignoring Canada's traditional balanced view of the Middle East.
This may well be the most destructive act Harper has attempted.
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There is nothing rational in all the words and acts surrounding the topic of terror.
Of course, the very concept of a War on Terror is, and always was, irrational. A war against a method or belief. Absurd.
Also, quite legitimately, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.
This proposal would invite all of the irrationality that surrounds this topic to jam its way into our courts.
It's a very odd proposal for a genuine conservative too, people who generally are very careful about what goes on in courts and critical of courts stretching their authority too far.
It's completely wrong for anyone genuinely supporting human rights and democratic values.
But then we all heard Harper a couple of years ago criticizing the UN when Israel targeted and killed four brave observers in southern Lebanon, including a brave Canadian officer doing his duty.
The man is really shameless. This also reminds me of the cards that went out to Jewish Canadians for their holidays, something which of course unpleasantly implied the existence of ethnic lists in Harper's Party.
