Harper went over with more than 200 guests, paid for by the government. I couldn’t believe a NPR show was making fun of Stephen Harper’s craven visit last night; then I heard the accents and understood it was this Canadian CBC show, Q, on late last night. The Canadian media commentators problematized the fact that the taxpayers paid for the 200 guests, including right wing Zionists, and that he was so over the top with a foreign leader on foreign soil to advance political goals back home. Confusing, huh?
But even worse was this moment at the Western Wall, in occupied East Jerusalem:
[Conservative Canadian MP Mark] Adler was caught on microphone asking Jeremy Hunt, one of Harper’s staffers, whether he could get a photo with Harper in front of the wall, a holy site for Jewish prayer.
“Jeremy, Jeremy,” Adler said. “Can we get in?
“No,” Hunt replied.
Adler was undeterred.
“This, it’s the re-election. This is the million-dollar shot,” Adler said.
Hunt, who is referred to as Harper’s “director of stakeholders’ relations and outreach” on the Israel delegation list, but has been Harper’s executive assistant in the past, is likely used to saying no on behalf of his boss.
“I’m sorry, listen, you and 300 other people,” Hunt said to Adler.
“If there’s one person, you know … if I could have done this it would have been done already.”
Adler then asked whether Hunt could get Harper over to shake his hand once he was done at the wall, but Hunt’s response isn’t captured on tape.
Mark Adler now says this:
Mark Adler, the Conservative MP who cited “re-election” when he pleaded for a photo with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in front of Israel’s Western Wall, says he was being tongue-in-cheek.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, one day after he was captured on tape urging Harper’s staff to get him in front of the wall with the prime minister for a photo, Adler said he was joking.
Was he joking? Listen to the video above, it seems pretty earnest to me. How important are such moments to political ambition in America? I saw Mitt Romney there, with Dan Senor. Guess it didn’t help him.
We’re seeing a strange phenomenom in the West: the right-wing is coalecing around Israel as an object to support. Typically it’s motivated by a desire to be like Israel(ethnocentric etc) but without the ability to do so, hence the focus on Islam in Europe, as it is a proxy on race. Even Norway’s(!) new PM is blatantly taking the sides of Israel. Every single country in the Anglosphere except the U.S. is now governed by a conservative PM and that has added a sense of security for Israel.
Of course, the U.S. is the only place where there is bipartisan support(enforced by money and media support). Nevertheless, Julia Gillard was pretty strongly biased to Israel. But the Anglosphere has always been more right-wing than the rest of the West; this is true in economics too where these economies have tended to have smaller governments, lower taxes and a higher degree of willingness to go to war in general.
Cannot they sue him for misappropriation of gummink funds? Or throw him (and any other rascals) out? 200 people? (Recall when N’yahu wouldn’t go to Mandela’s memorial because of the expense? He should have asked Canada * * * .)
We have some dumb pols in Ireland but none come close to this idiot Harper.
Jeez, what an embarrassment he must be to normal people.
““This, it’s the re-election. This is the million-dollar shot,” Adler said.”
ugh. If only our own groveling, fellating pols were so brazenly “honest”. One could probably photo shop thousands of them doing the same thing and be right on target.
As for Harper– he’s got no voice nor taste. Wonder how most of the good people of Canada feel about him now.
(btw– I cannot make out the “D” in Jude. Sounds as though he is wailing ‘hey Jew’)
sarah netanyahu really looks like satan.