Well There’s A Statement –
– that could well have been made by team Harper.
Statement by Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Official Opposition, on the situation in Israel and the Gaza Strip
I am greatly concerned by the deepening violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip and the fear and suffering on all sides that this mounting instability has caused.
The Liberal Party of Canada unequivocally condemns the rocket attacks launched by Hamas against Israeli civilians and calls for an immediate end to these attacks. We affirm Israel’s right to defend itself against such attacks, and also its right to exist in peace and security.
(more)
Isn’t it interesting that Iggy can find the outrage to (quite rightly IMO) condemn Hamas rocket attacks but can’t find it in himself, or one assumes, the party he leads, to condemn the Israeli government’s actions.
Israel has every right in the world to defend itself and has made the decision to to do so in a manner which absolutely guarantees that it will have to defend itself again, and again, and again.
If you wall people up in ghettos, deny them them things like economic opportunity, food, medicine, or even the right to leave their ghetto, what follows should not surprise you.
Hamas knows this, and they absolutely depend on it.
Israel knows it as well, and they also depend on it.
They both depend on people, on both sides of the wall, like the guy in this picture who has probably discovered that his personal well of hate is bottomless.
Remember that father in Afghanistan last July who wanted revenge for his children’s death — there’s a lot more people like that being created isn’t there?
Ignatieff knows this, but unequivocal support of Israel is a vote getter isn’t it?
So what, if you have any, are your suggestions for a solution?
Maybe the question should be: Is a fair solution that both sides can accept, possible?
Reasonable people would not want another ‘final solution’.
There is no solution that both sides will ever willingly accept as fair Canuckguy.
The possible only solution is to draw a very clear line in the sand with a nice wide DMZ on either side of it – defended by people with lots of firepower, and ammunition, and very clear orders to immediately shoot anyone who tries to kill or hinder anyone of the other side of it.
Maybe it’s because Ignatieff quite rightly knows who the aggressors are in this conflict, and that he understands that Israel is fighting a virulent form of radical Islamic terrorism? Good on the Liberals for finally leaving the far-far-left and inching back toward some form of reasonable understanding and logic.
@Raphael Alexander – Ummm… The Liberals left the ‘far-far-left’ decades ago, assuming, that is, that they ever were far-far-left.
Yes they were, under Dion. That era has now ended.
Raphael is, of course, non-partisan – which means that anything to the left of the conservative party is far, Far, FAR left.
Honestly, Raph, don’t make it so easy for us.
Hahahahahaha. Heeheeheeheee. Hohohohohoho. Hohawhohawhohaw.
Are you here all week, Raph? Should I try the veal?
(ps – don’t give up your day job)
And don’t forget to tip your waitress.
Very drole guys.
I particularly like the Joker reference to Dark Knight.
Awh… is Iggy about to discover that there may be some consequences to his pandering?
(via email)
Whoever answers his phones or screens his email might want to get lots of sleep tonight, could be a busy day tomorrow.
That withdrawing of financial support is sort of a bad thing for the LPoC just now…. not such a good way to start the year is it Iggy?
Stageleft: “a clear stand an end to the Israeli offensive and a just settlement based on international law.”
You forgot to include the cessation of those annoying rockets Hamas persists in letting let fly over the last 2 years.
Anyway, it’s all a pipe dream, peace between the Jews and the Moslems. They will still be at it 50 years from now.
As for your solution, the DMZ zone thingy, who is suppose to man that? The UN? The only possible solution is for moderate Moslems to take the grip of power from the radicals and settle with the Jews. Not going to happen in our liketime unfortunately.
Stage,
Can you honestly tell me what it is about progressives that tacitly approve of terrorist organizations like Hamas?
What would be a proportionate response from Israel?
When Palestine invents a weapon that can kill 1,000 jews, will their response be justified?
Why should the Liberal party endorse a terrorist organization that has caused pain and anguish to it’s own people?
Golly, I completely missed Stageleft’s approval of Hamas. Stage, you been holding out on me?
Balby, isn’t it just great that Raph is one of the ‘moderate’ & ‘reasonable’ ones to ‘debate’? Just great. No, really!
And such a rigourous logician, too.
Why are you attributing that quote to me?
You are right about the DMZ, none of those currently using Israel/Palestine as little proxy pieces for foreign/regional policy would be able to agree on who should man the line…. and if all the players have their way this will last a lot longer than 50 years.
@Raphael Alexander – That’s just another way of saying that if one is not backing Israel one must be supporting Hamas Raphael – intelligent folks don’t buy that line of thinking but there are a whole lot of people out there who depend on you toeing that line.
If you want to believe that there is only one aggressor and only one injured people you’re obviously got lots of company.
Stageleft, I guess I assumed wrongly that you agreed with everything in the highlighted shaded portion of what you posted “Said in January 4th, 2009 @9:49 pm”
It’s not safe to make those assumptions Canuckguy — I was essentially chortling at Iggy’s self created problems. As I said in the original post, his statement was worthy of the Conservative Party, if he’s gonna build up the Liberal base and therefor the party finances, he’s gotta word things a heck of a lot different than he did… the call to action I quoted shows that.
That aside, and to address your assumption, I would think that my earlier comments regarding a line, a DMZ, and a bunch of people and firepower for immediately shooting anyone on one side of the line who tries to kill anyone on the other should probably suffice in explaining my position on this.
IMO both sides are guilty of crimes against humanity, and war crimes, and neither can be trusted to not continue their individual acts of stupidity that end up resulting in the protraction of the conflict and the deaths of innocents on both sides.
Oh Iggy….what are we going to do with him?
I was afraid this was going to happen. I always knew Iggy was too far right for my tastes, and this only confirms it.
This will alienate alot of Liberals who want the party to actually become progressive. More Liberals will flock to the ranks of the NDP and the Greens.
I was hoping Iggy would have learned from his embarrassing defeat to Dion (even though I supported Dion, it WAS an embarrassing defeat) and shifted to the left a little (or a lot).
Things like this lead me to ask myself if I should a)leave the party or b)try to fight for the principles and convictions I hold within the party.
After all, it’s MY party too, right?
May could turn out to be interesting if Iggy doesn’t begin to backpedal I think.
Keep in mind his comments during the 2006 Lebanon/Hezbollah situation, to the effect that he wasn’t ‘losing any sleep over civilian casualties’.
I feel you Throbbin. It’s been my party since my brief look into the Natural Law party was cut short when I broke a slat on my bed trying to “levitate” in 1997. That was my first election, and I’ve been a capital “L” Liberal since.
I was in Renfrew, ON, watching the 5-party debate in a local hotel bar with several “if I don’t vote Green I’m voting NDP” folks (imported crew, clearly) and one guy kept mentioning how cat-like Dion was, in not the most complimentary way. But he was also noting how on-point he was with the issues, how in-sync their ideas were. A few of the folks seemed to really be reconsidering the Liberals. He was articulating an idea of what the party I joined was supposed to be, if not describing the one the Party had created over the last decade.
MI feels very much like the bizzaro-world Sarah Palin. Somehow the Liberals feel he’s going to win over the masses by appealing to a narrow-band of well-educated, super-informed, intellectual far-right (on the left half of scale) foreign policy academics and the groupies who love them.
yhib – I like the way you summed that up.
Some of my Progressive friends who never could have supported the Liberals before were beginning to come around with the introduction of the Green Shift and Dion’s willingness to be a Progressive Liberal. That has all gone out the window.
I’m not sure of the Liberals have ever been “Lefty” in recent memory (or if it’s just some projection of my own beliefs and values), but Dion seemed like the guy who could bring about a shift in the party. Dion genuinely seemed like the type of guy who would restore our peacekeeping tradition, our diplomatic prestige, our environmental leadership, and our penchant for social justice (again, if these things ever really existed).
Now, who knows? Iggy is fighting for the loyalty of the former P.C.’s, completely ignoring the moderate-left.
“Now, who knows? Iggy is fighting for the loyalty of the former P.C.’s, completely ignoring the moderate-left.”
I’m guessing that he’s harvesting where he can. The moderate left will remain Liberal: where else is there room for Liberal growth?
The other direction? Just plain-old vanilla “Left”. I’m willing to be a moderate-Liberal, if all takes is some further-lefties being kneaded into the mix.
Which is what I thought I saw could be happening with the group of people I watched that debate with. Artists, or at least art-producers, listening to that “sexy-cat” meow a dialect closer to theirs, and the left coming together to form a non-constitutional-crisis-inducing coalition.
Maybe it’s time for a Left Reform Party, so we’ll finally be able to see the reform we needed was not a split but a consolidation. I bet we’d win more than 2 seats, too.