{"id":7581,"date":"2014-09-19T00:42:13","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T07:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=7581"},"modified":"2014-09-18T16:45:10","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T23:45:10","slug":"harper-nomination-criticized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2014\/09\/19\/harper-nomination-criticized\/","title":{"rendered":"Harper nomination criticized"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion Airport with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and wife Laureen.\u00a0<\/strong>(photo by Ashernet)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A petition calling on the adjudicating committee of the Nobel Peace Prize to reject B\u2019nai Brith Canada outgoing CEO Frank Dimant\u2019s planned nomination of Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the honor says accepting the nomination \u201cwould be a disgrace and insult to [the] prestigious award.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dimant\u2019s intent to nominate Harper for the 2015 prize \u2013 to mark the prime minister\u2019s \u201cmoral leadership in the world \u2026 especially when it comes to standing up to radical Islamist terrorism\u201d \u2013 has garnered considerable backlash, including the online petition, created by Calgary resident Edward Tanas, on the website change.org. As of Sept. 15, the petition had amassed more than 29,500 signatures.<\/p>\n

The nomination idea has also drawn criticism from the Vancouver-based Canada Palestine Association (CPA), whose chairperson, Hanna Kawas, was quoted in the Vancouver Observer<\/em> Sept. 1 as saying \u201cwith nominating [Harper], you don\u2019t know whether to laugh or cry \u2026 it\u2019s outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay and the official opposition critic for ethics, also spoke out against the nomination, tweeting on Aug. 31, \u201cNominating Stephen Harper for the Nobel Peace Prize is like nominating [Sun News contributor Ezra] Levant for the Pulitzer Prize. Sorry, Steve, you\u2019re no [Lester] Pearson.\u201d<\/p>\n

He later told CJN<\/em>: \u201cMy comment was more sardonic than anything else. I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s going to pay much more attention to this nomination. The role Canada\u2019s traditionally played internationally is trying to bring parties back to the table, to de-escalate. Mr. Harper hasn\u2019t shown that \u2026 we haven\u2019t seen that kind of leadership from this leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dimant, who, in his capacity as professor of modern Israel studies at Canada Christian College, qualifies as a nominator under Nobel rules, said he viewed the nomination as an opportunity to help restore prestige to an award he believes has been diminished in stature of late.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen [former Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat received [the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994], it certainly diminished the very notion of what a peace prize is,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when [U.S. President Barack] Obama was given the prize for doing nothing except the anticipation of something, it diminished it. I felt it was time to elevate the prize again to the position it held historically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dimant further praised Harper for \u201cspeaking up for the people of Ukraine,\u201d as well as for the prime minister\u2019s vocal condemnations of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State And he gave a nod to Harper\u2019s staunch support of Israel, saying, \u201cHere is a man who truly understands what it means to fight for freedom, national liberation and to understand that people have a right to return to their homeland and live in security and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past January, Dimant and a delegation of other Jewish community leaders accompanied Harper on a trip to Israel, at which time Dimant praised Harper\u2019s \u201cunparalleled\u201d support for Israel and his \u201cprincipled stance on issues of importance to the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angus, however, said Harper\u2019s approach isn\u2019t deserving of the Nobel Prize. Issues connected to the Israel-Palestine conflict, he said, \u201care such emotionally heavy \u2026 traumatic issues for people on all sides. We want a prime minister in Canada who says, \u2018Let\u2019s find a way to move toward peace and resolution.\u2019\u201d That was the role Pearson, former Canadian prime minister and Nobel winner, played in the Suez Crisis, he continued, when, in 1956, he proposed a United Nations peacekeeping force to help ease the British and French out of Egypt, \u201cand people saw that as a role for Canada to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Tanas nor CPA could be reached for comment, despite multiple attempts to contact them.<\/p>\n

The deadline for the 2015 Nobel nominations is next February. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee website, the 2014 prize has 278 candidates, the highest number on record. The nominees include Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, Edward Snowden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The 2014 winner will be announced in early October.<\/p>\n

\u2013 For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion Airport with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and wife Laureen.\u00a0(photo by Ashernet) A petition calling on the adjudicating committee of the Nobel Peace Prize to reject B\u2019nai Brith Canada outgoing CEO Frank Dimant\u2019s planned nomination of Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the honor says accepting the nomination \u201cwould be a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1937,1938,1936,1935,269],"class_list":["post-7581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-charlie-angus","tag-edward-tanas","tag-frank-dimant","tag-nobel-peace-prize","tag-stephen-harper"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}