Canada takes lead in boycotting Ahmadinejad

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed a largely empty chamber at the UN General Assembly last week after numerous delegates walked out during his anti-Israel and anti-West harangue.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN

The United States, Britain and other nations left as Ahmadinejad delivered yet another broadside aimed at the West, Israel and Jews. Ottawa led the way in boycotting the Iranian leader, announcing the day before that no Canadians would attend Ahmadinejad’s address.

Explaining Canada’s absence to reporters in Oakville, Ont., Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, “Ahmadinejad’s declarations [are]… just disgraceful, insulting declarations denying the Holocaust. There is no way I’m going to permit any official of the government of Canada to be present and give any legitimacy to remarks by a leader like that.

“President Ahmadinejad has said things, particularly about the State of Israel, the Jewish people, and the Holocaust, that are absolutely repugnant,” Harper said. “It is unfitting that somebody like that would be giving those kind of remarks before the United Nations General Assembly.

“Canada does not want to be equivocal at all in terms of our view on that. We find it disgraceful, unacceptable, and we’re going to be absolutely clear on that. There are other things that bother us as well beyond these repugnant comments – also, obviously, the crackdown in Iran on all kinds, any kind of legitimate dissent. The fiasco around the elections is quite disturbing. As well, the holding of a Canadian journalist – Mr. [Maziar] Bahari, I think it is – without charge continues to be unacceptable [and] we continue to demand his release,” Harper said.

“But as I say, there are times when things are being said in this world that it is important that countries that have a moral compass stand up and make their views known, and our absence there will speak volumes about how Canada feels about the declarations of President Ahmadinejad.”

Echoing those remarks, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon stated the Canadian boycott was prompted by Iran’s violation of the human rights of its own citizens and foreign nationals, the death of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, its violent response against demonstrators “following the fraudulent presidential election” in June, Ahmadinejad’s continuing denial of the Holocaust and its continuing desire to become a nuclear power.

Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff supported the speech boycott. “If we do not speak out – if we stand silent – we are allowing evil to triumph. Boycotting President Ahmadinejad’s speech is absolutely the right thing to do.”

Jewish organizations applauded the government’s decision to protest Ahmadinejad’s address. Moshe Ronen, chair of the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC), the Jewish community’s lobbying arm for Israel, said “we are very proud of the leadership our prime minister and government has shown with regard to the ugly anti-Semitism by the Iranian leadership.”

Canada, which announced a day earlier it would stay away from Ahmadinejad’s address, “was ahead of the pack,” Ronen said.

Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said, “In walking out, Canada is making a strong statement about the country’s relations with Iran. President Ahmadinejad needs to know that when he speaks, Canada doesn’t listen.”

B’nai Brith Canada commended Canada’s “principled move to take the lead and announce that our nation [would] not be present… when Ahmadinejad comes to the stage to spout his venom and anti-Semitism.

“Canadians should be thankful that we have a government that, once again, has taken the lead and acted with principle on issues related to the Middle East,” said Frank Dimant, B’nai Brith Canada’s executive vice-president.

In New York, Harper met late last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Officials with the Prime Minister’s Office said they discussed the strong ties between Canada and Israel and prospects for the peace process, Canadian Press reported.

Ahmadinejad used the UN forum to criticize Israel’s attack on Gaza and to accuse it of subjecting the Palestinians to genocide. He also accused the West of hypocrisy, saying it preached democracy but violated fundamental principles.

“How can one imagine that the inhuman policies in Palestine may continue?” he said. “How can crimes of the occupiers against defenceless women and children and destruction of their homes, farms, hospitals and schools be supported unconditionally by certain governments?”

Employing classic anti-Semitic stereotypes, Ahmadinejad said, “It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the United States, to attain its racist ambitions.”

Netanyahu, who was in New York during last week’s UN session, said he did not attend U.S. President Barack Obama’s address so “as not to sit in the same hall with the president of Iran, who has denied the murder of six million Jews and calls for the annihilation of six million more.”

Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, called Ahmadinejad’s address “a cry for truth from a Holocaust denier, a cry for democracy from a leader who shoots freedom-seeking protesters, and a cry for peace from the world’s biggest sponsor of terror, who aspires to annihilate a UN member nation.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon told Netanyahu he had condemned Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denial on three occasions and that his repeated calls to destroy Israel were unacceptable.

In Berlin, meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called Ahmadinejad “a disgrace to his country” and said his remarks were “intolerable.”

In Ottawa, Ignatieff agreed with the decision to boycott the speech, but questioned why “Harper has refused to take action in Canada to hold the Iranian regime to account.

“In the absence of Conservative leadership, the Liberal party has taken the lead in Canada and around the world to hold Iran’s leadership to account for domestic repression, nuclear proliferation and state-sanctioned incitement to genocide.”

Referring to a bill introduced by Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler – the Iran Accountability Act – and the Responsibility to Prevent petition against the Iranian leadership, both endorsed by the Liberal party, Ignatieff asked why the Tories hadn’t joined “in this condemnation… They have been silent. Where Liberals have been leading by example, Mr. Harper hasn’t been leading at all.”

Ronen, however, suggested the concurrence of the two largest parties on the speech boycott shows “there is no space between the parties on the position of Israel on important issues.”

Israel can’t be considered a “wedge issue” in Canadian politics, and he said CIC had “been able to point out to the parties facts on the ground, so the parties reached policy positions that are natural for Canada as a democratic country to support.”

Ronen said Canada should continue to exercise international leadership by pushing for economic sanctions against Iran. “Canada has a very important role to play in convincing countries that do business with Iran to up the ante in terms of what Iran’s government has to lose if it continues this mad dash to nuclear capacity.”

He called for “crippling economic sanctions to stop this madness. Because the alternative [military action] is much more dramatic, more serious, with troubling complications for everyone.”