Why do all the major Canadian political parties provide Israel with unquestioning support? Israel's occupation and colonization of Palestinian land lies at the root of the current wars in the Middle East, so you would expect any strategy for peace must involve a critical attitude towards Israel. In fact, the opposite has been the trend in Canadian Middle East foreign policy. Toronto writer and activist Daniel Freeman-Maloy recently spoke in Vancouver about Canada's support for Israel and the growth of Canada's pro-Israel lobby. Freeman-Maloy did not portray the lobby as a small clique controlling Canadian policy for the region. Instead he painted a nuanced picture that featured a convergence of historical, political, economic, and cultural forces favouring a stronger pro-Israel foreign policy. At the same time, intensive and well-funded organizing by pro-Israel Canadian elites led to a more effective lobbying effort.

The myth of an independent Canadian foreign policy

Every school kid learns of Canada's “independent” foreign policy, a putative policy of neutrality. While there has been elements of independent policy in Canada under Prime Ministers Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, and even with Jean Chretien’s recent refusal to join in the Iraq misadventure, the larger picture is one of a Canada following the lead of its two principal historical influences: first Britain and now the United States.

As part of the Dominion and unquestioning supporters of the mother country, Canada has supported the idea of Israel before it even became a state. With the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Britain announced its support for the idea of a Zionist state. Freeman-Maloy emphasized that project as part and parcel of the British history of imperialism, colonialism, and racism.

As British power waned, Canada became more and more integrated into US foreign policy. For Freeman-Maloy, Canada's support for Israel conformed to a general pattern of Canadian support for US foreign policy adventures across the globe in the 1960s, including in Indonesia and Vietnam, among others.

But it was with Israel’s 1967 war and its defeat of incipient pan-Arab nationalism, in the form of Nassar's Egypt, that the US discovered the utility of Israel as its local cop-on-the-beat in the oil-rich Middle East. Shortly after that, Canada began a series of moves that deepened economic ties with Israel.

The economics of the Canadian-Israel alliance.

By the mid-1970s, Canada and Israel had embarked on an economic alliance. In 1976, the Canada-Israel Committee was launched. Jean Chretien, then Canada's Minister for Industry, Trade, and Commerce, attended the first meeting in Jerusalem in 1977. From there the ties deepened, until Canada and Israel signed a Free Trade Pact that actually precedes NAFTA.

"So," Freeman-Maloy argues, "on the one hand, an alliance between US and Israel was deepening, and on the other, the alliance between Canada and the US [was] deepening" with the Free Trade Agreement.

In 1994, Freeman-Maloy says, the Canada-Israel Research and Development Fund was signed, through which millions of Canadian public dollars went towards funding joint Canada-Israel corporate ventures. In 1997 came the signing of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement which continues to this day. Freeman-Maloy points out that this is Canada's only free trade pact with any country in the region. Bilateral trade between the two countries is now worth over $1 billion annually.

The structure and evolution of the pro-Israel lobby in Canada

In his hour-long talk, Freeman-Maloy documented a dual process in the evolution of the pro-Israel lobby in Canada. First, there has been the increasing domination of the pro-Israel lobby in Canada by powerful corporate elites. Second, there has been the convergence of Canadian lobby groups with their powerful colleagues in the United States, especially with the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He said that by the 1970s and 1980s, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and the Canada Israel Committee (CIC) “had been brought under the effective control of the organizations that had, in terms of Canadian Jewish history, represented the interests of the urban corporate establishment of the Canadian Jewish community.”

At the same time, these organizations were linking themselves to the US in a direct way. By the 1990s, these fundraising organizations were part of a continental advocacy system organized into five regional categories: West, Southeast, Northeast, Central, and Canada, said Freeman-Maloy. In this US-dominated federation, the United Israel Appeal Federations of Canada (UIAFC) represented pro-Israel Canadians.

With the rise of the second intifada in 2000, the lobby began to worry about a convergence between anti-globalization groups, critics of Israel, and pro-Palestinian solidarity groups. With this in mind, according to Freeman-Maloy, a group of between 18 and 22 corporate tycoons formed what they called an "Israel Emergency Cabinet" to plot a response. Among the founders, writes Freeman-Maloy in his article AIPAC North, were the late Israel Asper, CEO of CanWest Global; Gerry Schwartz, co-founder of CanWest and CEO of Onex Corporation; Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo/Chapters Books; Brent Belzberg, owner of Torquest Partners; and Sylvain Abitbol, president and CEO of NHC Communications Inc.

Out of this group came the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA). Freeman-Maloy said CIJA "formally and absolutely subordinated the leadership and the policies of the CIC and the CJC to this ‘board of Canadian tycoons.’" CIJA adopted a more activist role within Canada. One of their first projects was the launching of the National Jewish Campus Life Initiative, through which money has been pumped onto Canadian campuses to promote Israel. Some of these included sending campus leaders to Israel for training, building facilities on campus, and sending in professional Israel advocacy specialists to advise and train. About 30 Hillel and allied organizations came together in 2004 to form the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students.

Out of CIJA came a political advocacy group called CIJA-PAC, taking not only its name, but much else from its larger American cousin, the AIPAC. The convergence of the Canadian with their American counterparts, while incubating over a long period of time, became deeper again in 2005. In May of 2005, CIJA-PAC attended the national AIPAC meeting in Washington DC. The conference included an event "aimed at helping Canadian and European communities develop the kind of grassroots organizational strength that AIPAC has shown over the years.” Following the conference, CIJA-PAC's leader, Josh Cooper, resigned. Months later, a new Canadian lobby group, the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC), emerged.

Freeman-Maloy stated the reason for the new group derives from Canadian political finance rules. While it is charitable to campaign for Israel in Canada, this country prohibits the use of charitable dollars to directly support political candidates. So the new group planned to involve itself directly in the political process.

Canada turns right

But the above background does not prepare us for Canada's intense embrace of Israel just as Israel launched a more aggressive policy in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon. For that, says Freeman-Maloy, we must take into consideration a number of related developments.

In November 2004, Canada shifted its voting pattern on Israel-Palestinian matters in the United Nations, to one increasingly favourable to Israel. At about that time, Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson wrote an article entitled, “In case you missed it, our Mideast policy has shifted.” In it, he spoke of this change in which the Canadian government joined the US, Israel, Australia, and a small group of other states in opposition to international consensus on Palestinian rights. Ibbitson wrote that, "Prime Minister Paul Martin has been under intense pressure to make Canada's Middle East policy more overtly pro-Israel." He attributed the change in voting patterns to two factors: first, Bush was due in Ottawa for a state visit, and second, CIJA and Gerry Schwartz, among others, had been pressuring the Martin government to increase support.

Freeman-Maloy emphasized that Canada's changing policies toward the Middle East are part of a change brought on by larger forces than a simple focus on that region. First, with Canada's refusal to stand with the US in Iraq, Canadian elites of all persuasions became increasingly anxious about Canada's position vis-a-vis its giant neighbour. Under Paul Martin and now under Steven Harper, Canadian foreign policy has moved in lockstep with the United States on a number of fronts, not just regarding Israel. Canada has accepted a policing role in the brutal overthrow of the elected government of Haiti, which the US orchestrated. As well, Canada has thrown itself into the dead-end of Afghanistan, another US-initiated project. So, Harper's support of Israel's carpet-bombing in Lebanon and its siege of Gaza is part of a larger pattern, and is not anomalous.

Second, following his election, Harper sensed an opportunity to win the massive political donations of the pro-Israel lobby from the Liberal party. Since Harper's election, Gerry Schwartz, who Freeman-Maloy calls a lifelong Liberal and a key financial backer of Paul Martin, issued a press release under the auspices of CIJA commending Prime Minister Harper. As well, Heather Reisman has announced she now considers herself a Tory.

With his reading, Freeman-Maloy is the furthest away from any sort of conspiratorial or instrumental explanation for the rise and increasing power of the Canadian pro-Israel lobby. The conjunction of a wide variety of forces came to a head. The lobby has been both the beneficiary of forces beyond its control, and a very effective organization with a singular goal. Its success is seen in the detriment of justice for, and the thwarting of aspirations of, the Palestinian peoples.