Canada's Jews, Israel's Good Friends

Nadene Goldfoot
Canada is considered to be one of Israel's good friends,  with the government in Ottawa behind Netanyahu's Israeli government through thick and thin, like even when Obama's American administration was strained.

Israel's President Peres is flying to Canada and will speak about the Iranian issue of nuclear threat.  There are the changes in the Middle East to discuss as well, with her neighbors' rebellions in what is called the "Arab Spring" and the Muslim Brotherhood coming into power.

He'll promote the continued economic and scientific cooperation between the two countries and will be at the signing between the Royal Society of Canada and the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities in science and technology as well.

Quebec is predominantly a French-speaking province and has had several anti-Israel protests there. Most of the Jews in Quebec live in Montreal.  The Jewish population in Quebec has fallen to 93,000 from 120,000.   in a population in 2011 of 7,903,001.

I don't know where they went but I did meet some in my Ulpan in Haifa, Israel, becoming teachers of English like myself back in 1980.  It was exciting meeting English speakers there from all sorts of places like Canada, England and Australia.  There were some accents that I was hardly able to understand.

Other Jewish communities are in Ottawa and Toronto as well.  The Jewish population is only about 372,000 in Canada as of 2005; much smaller than in the USA of about 5 million.


Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec
http://www.israelnationalnews.com Peres Flies to Canada; Iran Top Issue
http://judaism.about.com/od/jewishhumor/f/jewry_canada.htm

Attacks on Israel With and Without Missiles

Nadene Goldfoot
What is an appeaser?  "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last". Winston Churchill. 

Israel doesn't have many friends, but one of the best is Canada and John Baird, Canadian Foreign Minister.  He just happens to agree with me in that delegitimization of Israel is the new anti-Semitism. 

I wrote yesterday about a new Christian organization, the Sabeel Movement,  connected to the Presbyterians who is working hard to delegitimatize Israel and refuses to see that its goals amount to anti-Semitism.  Their creed and teachings have also reached the Methodists, I'm afraid.  They both are groups that believe in the replacement theory of Christianity in that Israel is no longer important and has been replaced by them.  Not all Christians go along with this, thank goodness, and evidently Canada stands up for what is principled and just, not things that are popular, convenient and expedient.  They are not about to be appeasers.  They go along with Christians United for Israel which is led by Pastor John Hagee, for one, who is an Evangelist. There are others who love and support Israel as well. 

I'm hoping that my favorite Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu,  is not becoming an appeaser.  Newspapers are hopefully wrong in reporting that he is ready to dismantle certain towns and cities in Judea and Samaria.  I know he isn't planning on doing this with the major-large sized ones.  The area is divided into A, B, and C sections and one or parts of some may be on the dismantling list.  This tells me that the UN and possibly Obama has been putting the pressure on to do this at this time.  Why this time?  The Palestinians refuse to continue talks after the latest initial five that got nowhere.  It's Israel that has always had to make concessions and give up something.  I don't think there has ever been a time that the Palestinians have.  So again, we may have to take the first step in showing more good faith, even as the missiles whiz by in southern Israel!   I'm just hoping that if we have to give up territory it won't go the way of Gaza and become a closer base to kill Israelis. With all the fatwas from the Muslims to kills Jews, what guarantees are given to Israel for security? 

We had the very same problems with the Palestinians before 1967 when Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem were not in Israel's hands.  They simply would not agree to anything for anytime.  Statehood was not their goal; killing Israelis was more important. 

What we have learned from Gaza is that we made the peaceful move, giving up the land,  but the Palestinians allowed themselves to be ruled by terrorists worse than the first, so they went from the PLO to Hamas.  None have been interested in the people themselves; in  only becoming dictators to them and attacking Israel.  Israel giving up Gaza for peace just gave the Palestinians a huge piece not used for peace! 

The Muslim Brotherhood has taken over Egypt and in its creed are the words to destroy Israel and Jews.  With Qaradawi of Qatar as the head religious person broadcasting on al Jezeeera these same beliefs, I doubt very much if anything substantial can be decided at this time about a peaceful coexistence. 

My husband  used to belong to Kiwanis, in fact he was president of his group.  They sang, "Oh, Canada" at every meeting.  I have lots of appreciation for Canada today, more than ever. 

Resource: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=255816
http://middle-east-analysis.blogspot.com/2010/06/lets-talk-some-more-about-bds-and.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-sabeel-movement-is-harming-israel.html
https://sassywire.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/montreal-conference-combatting-the-delegitimation-of-israel/
http://www.romirowsky.com/11012/bds-movement-hidden-agenda  Excellent

http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/?p=7724   Israel and dismantling cities

November 29, 1947 Monumental Answer to Our Prayers

Nadene Goldfoot
Sixty-four years ago on this day of November 29th and also on a Tuesday, the world Zionist Organization saw the answer to their and our prayers with the United Nations recognizing our tiny state of Israel.

As what happens in many American communities on the anniversary of their birth, Israel is staging a re-enactment in Jerusalem, our capital. 

The vote in the UN gave the British Empire one year to leave the country it had occupied since 1917 when they were given the mandate.  The Ottoman Empire, who had a hold on "Palestine", had sided with the axis which means Germany in WWI and lost this holding when Germany lost the war. 

It's a happy celebration for Jews.  There will be speeches, live entertainment and street performers.  For Abbas, leader of the Palestinian authority of Judea and Samaria, his people consider this day a catastrope long with Israel's birthday of May 15th which is Israel's Independence Day.  MK Danon is trying to counter their incitement with a law proclaiming it "National Zionism Day."  That most likly will rankle them considerably.  They seem to blanch at the word, "Zionism." 

The USA had a war between Mexico and the newly formed USA, and the USA won.  We had our battlescars with the battle at the Alamo before the major war when our heros were slaughtered. The Mexican-USA War had the Battle of Chupultpec Heights in September 1847. I've never seen any of my adult Mexican language students hold a grudge or react with hatred about losing the war.  Canada didn't get to have our Pacific Northwest, either. We are terrific neighbors. We have things in common that make good neighbors. The religions involved teach the same credo.

Many of our adults do not remember a time when there hasn't been a state of Israel, being born after the fact.  There were no TV, cell phones, or decent washing machines in that day.  I was 13 years old and remember the rejoicing and elation when this happened.  It was a ness; a miracle for us.  After all, we had gone through plenty after 2,,000 years of losing our country in the first place.  Our ancestors suffered from slavery, anti-semitism, pogroms (surprise attacks of usually drunken cossaks raping and taking lives and causing destruction)  culminated with the Holocaust during this eon-like period.  If we had been able to flee to "Palestine", we might not have lost 6 million of our people. 


It's a whole different psyche involved between the Muslim Arabs and Jews in Israel.  Our history of difficulties go back to bible days and still are not resolved.  Jacob and Esau, the twins,  are but one example. Now the Muslim Brotherhood, so popular in Egypt at present, is teaching the killing  of all Jews everywhere along with the destruction of Israel.   Israeli Jews have been honed through centuries of anti-semitism to be able to withstand the challenges of living in Israel with the hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.  It's where we were meant to live in the beginning.  We're not looking forward to any death but to the continuation of our lives.  L'Chaim. 

Reference: Arutz Sheva news@israelnatonalnews.com  re-enactment on Tuesday of UN Recognition of Israel by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Nathan Fendrich, Historian, on Mexican War