By Lloyd Mackey

THERE are occupational hazards to speaking to different audiences on both sides of a contentious issue.

Likewise, those who critique the seemingly contradictory statements coming from the same political party stand in danger of exercising selective quote-making.

That is, in effect, what was happening last week, when Liberal MP Irwin Cotler came out swinging at the Conservatives. The point of his fire was a series of anti-Semitic implications levelled against the Liberals, in 10-per-center Conservative newsletters sent into heavily-Jewish ridings.

Cotler is a highly-regarded human rights expert who, as a Jewish person, understands very well what his people have faced through the centuries. He eloquently bridled at the suggestion that he could be viewed as an anti-Semite.

The Conservative charges were in defence of the governing party's recent apparent record of being more pro-Israel than those of the late administrations of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Those charges could be seen as belated -- yet timely -- push backs to the Martin government's startling warnings about "a scary hidden agenda" and the prospect of "soldiers, with guns, in the streets", should a Conservative government be elected.

Well, the Tories have been in power for four years, now, albeit in a minority situation.

The problem, for the Liberals, is that they so positioned themselves, politically, as a party that needed to sometimes speak in favour of either the Israelis or the Palestinians. And often, there is not much room for middle ground.

The fact is that both the Conservatives and the Liberals take into account the viewpoints of the religious people in their support bases. The Liberals will hear both from devout Jews who maintain that Muslims and other antagonists want to push Israel into the sea and, on the other hand, from Arab Christians who insist that Israel systemically mistreats the Palestinian people in the Middle East.

The pro-Israel people use the scriptures depicting the Promised Land and the Matthew account of the "budding of the fig tree" to defend their position. The Palestinian supporters, with equal vigour, insist that the great biblical social justice passages call for Israel to curb their allegedly aggressive tendencies.

Some of the latter perspectives were made plain, this past summer, at the United Church General Council meetings in Kelowna. There, that denomination's leaders struggled with the actions of activists in the church who wanted Canada to boycott Israel over the long-continuing Palestinian issue. Jewish leaders attending the GC made no bones about their insistence that the United Church was behaving in an anti-Semitic fashion.

Among their supporters, the Liberals have many Christians in both camps. And the fact is that, in issues involving the Middle East, supporters for one side or another "bear the reproach" that is assigned by their theological and political opposites. It was ever thus.

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For their part, the Conservatives, while in opposition, had great difficulty getting the support of key ethnic groups, Jewish or otherwise. Such groups were continuously reminded, over the decades, that they would be wise to believe that the Liberal party was the one that really understood their aspirations.

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Were the Conservatives within their rights to suggest that a certain kind of support for the Palestinians by Liberals is tantamount to anti-Semitism?

On the face of it, the answer would seem to be that, if the shoe fits, it should be worn.

But it is also true that Irwin Cotler, as an eminent Jewish and human rights spokesperson -- and a well-regarded MP and former justice minister -- has every right to cry a personal foul. After all, he cannot be held responsible for every Liberal that speaks out of the other side of the party's collective mouth.

I continue to maintain that I am less comfortable with the combative side of our adversarial political system, than with a more collaborative and conciliatory approach.

I have been pleased, for example, with the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism, whose hearings are currently underway. Their plodding work, and their efforts to hear eminent scholars and activists on the issue, is much less dramatic than the above-mentioned dustup.

And both Cotler and fellow Jewish MP colleague, Conservative Scott Reid, are active in the work of that coalition.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

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November 26/2009