Jews facing "gathering storm," Canadian MP tells Israel audience

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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  http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=a0c9c561-dfe5-4c0f-a6a4-75b5e5557834&k=12307 


  Jews facing "gathering storm," Canadian MP tells Israel audience / 
Phil Couvrette  CanWest News Service / July 10, 2007

  Jews are facing a "gathering storm" with multiple threats from Iran, 
Hezbollah, al-Qaida, Hamas and international terrorism unmatched 
since the 1930s, former justice minister Irwin Cotler told a 
Jerusalem conference on Tuesday.

  Speaking on the opening day of the Conference on the Future of the 
Jewish People, Cotler warned that "radical Islam threatens 
international peace, security and human rights" and moderate Muslims 
as well as Jews, amounting to an environment Israel hasn't seen since 
the rise of Nazi Germany.

  Cotler expressed concerns about a dangerous Mideast threat 
environment combining Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran with the election of 
Hamas in Palestinian elections and emergence of the Iran-backed 
Hezbollah in Lebanon "as a state within a state," he said in his 
keynote speech entitled The Gathering Storm.

  While many of these developments are at least a year old the events 
"have not only intensified but congealed, constituting now what may 
be called a gathering storm." He noted that when Hamas took over the 
Gaza strip and refugee camps in Lebanon that both erupted in violence 
due to the infiltration of islamic militants.

  "Since last year Iran not only continues to incite a Mideast 
Holocaust but now also denies that the European one occurred," he 
said. "There's been a quantum leap forward in Iran acquiring lethal 
atomic capabilities and increased state support for international and 
Mideast terrorism."

  Cotler also criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council for 
passing many resolutions against Israel while letting offending 
countries off the hook, constituting "a country-specific indictment."

  But Israel can count on geopolitics and allies it didn't have in the 
1930s, he stressed.

  "It is not 1938. There is a Jewish state as an antidote to Jewish 
vulnerability," he said. "There are non-Jews prepared to join 
together in common cause with the Jewish people and Israel's not 
alone." It can count on allies such as Canada and the U.S. as well as 
developing relations with emerging powers such as China and India.

  "I do believe there is a gathering storm, but there is no 
inevitability about the negatives," said the Liberal MP and 
Opposition Critic for Human Rights.

  The conference, organized by the Jewish People Policy Planning 
Institute, brings together Jewish leaders from around the world to 
discuss strategies to deal with threats and challenges facing Jewish 
people.

  Some 120 participants, including Israel's President-elect Shimon 
Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well as former U.S. envoy to 
Israel Dennis Ross, were taking part in the conference.

   Reflecting this balance of threats and opportunity, Olmert urged 
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to begin direct peace negotiations 
between the two countries on Tuesday, one day after Olmert reiterated 
Israel's determination to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

  Olmert has come under pressure to resign after a government report 
accused him of committing a series of errors in his handling of the 
war in Lebanon last summer.

  The fighting broke out on July 12, 2006 and left 1,100 Lebanese 
dead, mostly from Israeli air raids, but also killed 163 Israelis. 
Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israel before a United 
Nations-brokered ceasefire was declared on Aug. 14.

  © CanWest News Service 2007