Judi McLeod
Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who became president, has a new peanut gallery in the land of the Maple Leaf.
While Carter was criticizing the United States and Israel in an interview with the German news publication, Der Spiegel, three Canadian politicians were lobbying to have the Lebanon-based Hezbollah taken off Canada's terrorist list.
Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) Borys Wrzesnewskyj, New Democrat MP Peggy Nash and Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Moureni, who is of Lebanese descent, are now on a fact-finding mission in Lebanon.
It would aid the cause of peace if Canada dropped Hezbollah from a list of banned terrorist organizations, according to the traveling MPs who are taking the art of appeasement to new heights.
"When asked if he was in favour of Hezbollah being taken off the terror list, Etobicoke Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj said: "Yes, I would be." He likened the situation in the Middle East to Northern Ireland, where "if there wasn't the possibility for London to negotiate with the IRA, you'd still have bombings...(Matthew Fisher, CanWest News Service, Aug. 21, 2006). "Hezbollah has a political wing. They have members of parliament. They have two cabinet ministers. You want to encourage politicians in this military organization so that the centre of gravity shifts to them."
Do we?
New Democrat Peggy Nash, who represents the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park, announced that her discussions in Lebanon had led her to believe "that it is just not helpful to label them a terrorist organization".
"If the political parties in Lebanon who may disagree with Hezbollah, and be opposed to them and their philosophy, can figure a way to work with Hezbollah and try to get along internally, then perhaps we should take a cue from that."
This from the members of opposition parties who do everything possible to undermine the minority government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Wrzesnewskyj seems to have learned little from his own election campaign run in with anti-Semitism when he discovered something that one media outlet described that no candidate of any party would endorse-his picture on signs that had been deliberately defaced with "disgusting Nazi symbols".
Swastikas, devil's horns and a Hitler moustache were found on the signs.
In that case, Wrzesnewskyj complained that desecration crossed a terrible line, since the brown shirts terrorized his family during World War II.
"This is such an ugly side to politics," he lamented at the time.
How the Liberal MP can side with Hezbollah terrorists against Israel is one for the books.
Yesterday the MPs met with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper's initial stand that Israel's actions during the conflict were justified and a "measured" response.
"I disagree, because the whole world, even those who are... supporting Israel... they said this is a disproportionate action," said Siniora. "So this is not a measured response at all."
Perhaps the Canadian MPs can team up with former US President Jimmy Carter who told Der Spiegel:... "with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon."
"In a previous interview Carter had said that the world community should rally behind Israel's other enemy, the terrorist group Hamas. Carter called for - and succeeded in getting - the United States government to give money to Hamas." (CensureCarter.com, Aug. 21, 2006).
The Carter-Canadian MPgroup could call itself ‘The Appeasement Society of North
America'.
Meanwhile, the words of Hezbollah and Hamas appeasers can be as deadly as missiles.
Next, they'll be kissing both cheeks of Osama bin Laden.