Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Paul Tuns Has a New Book Out on Justin Trudeau

It's called "The Dauphin: The Truth About Justin Trudeau" and you can read about it here.

An excerpt:

"Trudeau counts himself as a “strong supporter” of Israel but dismisses Harper’s support of Israel as a political ploy. He condemns the Harper Tories for courting Jewish votes through their close relationship with Israel. Before becoming leader, Trudeau said, "My concern is that [Harper] continues to make support for Israel a domestic, political, strategic issue,” a criticism he has repeated often since winning the party’s leadership. Trudeau counts himself as a “strong supporter” of Israel but dismisses Harper’s support of Israel as a political ploy. Trudeau has affirmed that “Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Hamas is a terrorist organization and must cease its rocket attacks immediately.” It is unclear why when Harper says the same thing it is political, but for Trudeau it is a sincere declaration of strong support for an ally. To his credit, the Dauphin has publicly disagreed with his filmmaker brother Alexandre’s anti-Israeli views – Alexandre Trudeau made an anti-Israel documentary called The Fence that skewed heavily in favour of Palestinians in their conflict with the Jewish state."

"Despite the generally positive tone toward Israel, including praise for being the only democracy in the region, Trudeau told a Radio Canada panel in February 2014 that the “friendship” does not preclude being “critical regarding the colonizations and other issues.” The term colonization, which is never explained, is problematic, raising questions about how hard a Trudeau government would press the Israelis over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Trudeau also says he supports a two-state solution with a democratic Israel and Palestine. Yet, he told an audience of two hundred at the Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue upon receiving an award from the Canadian Friends of the Meir Medical Center, that “the Liberal Party of Canada will have Israel’s back.” That came a mere week after telling a Farsi-language paper that the Tories support Israel only to court the domestic Jewish vote; Harper, he told Salam, is “very, very much focused on what is going to play well at the ballot box,”

"Few opposition leaders want to get into the nitty-gritty of foreign affairs, partly because not many voters cast ballots on international issues, but also because criticizing the government over international issues can appear unpatriotic. Trudeau’s favoured paths are attacking the prime minister for politicizing foreign issues for electoral gain and making entirely inappropriate jokes about grave matters in international affairs. Stephen Harper admitted after becoming prime minister that international issues take up an unexpectedly disproportionate amount of his attention. In other words, it is important part of the job of prime minister. When the Liberal leader ventures into talking substantively about foreign affairs he appears completely out of his depth. "