PM Harper Spreading Schmaltz All Over Israel

According to a report on tonight’s World at Six on CBC Radio One, Stephen Harper was at a banquet in Jerusalem tonight where he was feted by his obsequious Israeli hosts. He sang “Hey, Jude” off-key and told the hall that his mother–who isn’t Jewish, he added to a laugh–nonetheless would appreciate the honourary doctorate he was given in Israel this week. I found it all obnoxious–Harper all week has been saying only things that Israeli Likudniks want to hear, pandering to them.

I’ve seen US Jewish political pandering and I’ve rarely seen it done more unctuously than Harper is doing it on the overseas trip. It’s politically nauseating. I think he and his advisors see their way to winning the 2015 federal election as appealing to voter groups they’re appealing with the trip. Harper continues to go to school on the history of George W. Bush’s presidency, who earlier tried to merge votes of rural, conservative Christian voters with the more conservative, older Jewish voters. As a US observer of Canada, it all gives me very unpleasant flashbacks to the Bush era.