Netanyahu pleased with Freeland
FREELAND OFFERS ‘IRONCLAD’ SUPPORT FOR JEWISH STATE
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pleased Canada won’t be rushing to restore diplomatic ties with Iran as Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland affirmed Canada’s “ironclad” support for the Jewish state.
Freeland said Thursday her twohour meeting with Netanyahu a day earlier touched on a wide range of pressing global issues, including Canada’s own strained relationship with Iran, a country that Israel views as an existential threat.
The Liberal government pledged during the 2015 federal election to re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran, but Freeland made clear that isn’t going to happen unless the regime allows Maryam Mombeini, an Iranian-Canadian dual citizen, to leave the country.
The Iranian government has denied Mombeini permission to travel after her husband, an environmentalist and university professor, died in a Tehran prison while being held on espionage accusations.
“That is what we need to resolve with Iran before moving on to any other issue,” Freeland said in a conference call with reporters Thursday.
Netanyahu highlighted the Iran discussion as he welcomed Canada’s top diplomat on her first Middle East trip, which included stops in Jordan and the West Bank.
“We appreciate your support in various international forums,” Netanyahu said in remarks released by his office.
“In fact, you have said that you will not establish international relations with Iran, which ought to be self-evident for a country that openly calls for the destruction of the one and only Jewish state but you have acted on it and we appreciate that.”
Earlier Thursday, Freeland said in a major speech that Canada’s rejection of Jewish refugees before the Holocaust was shameful, but that it has since become Israel’s unwavering ally against antiSemitism — especially after the Pittsburgh synagogue murders last Saturday.
Freeland evoked the sweep of Canada’s modern history with the Jewish people during her address to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations.
Her remarks appeared aimed at some Israeli pundits who are questioning whether Canada’s support of Israel has waned under the current Liberal government following the full-throated friendship expressed by Stephen Harper’s previous Conservative administration.
She reminded her Israeli audience that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will apologize next Wednesday for Canada’s 1939 decision to reject an asylum request from more than 900 Jews aboard the MS St. Louis ocean liner.
More than 250 of them would later be murdered in Nazi Germany.
Freeland also reminded her audience that Canada was one of the first countries to recognize and support Israel’s emergence as a nation after the Second World War.