"I want to speak to you from the heart about a photo going around from last weekend. I'm so sorry for the harm it caused."

"At one of the many public events at Stampede, I was approached by the Israeli ambassador. We had a very brief and frank exchange during which a photo was taken."

"After talking to many people in the community over the last couple of days, I better understand the immense hurt this has caused a lot of folks [taking into account the famine, children's deaths, the horrors of the war in Gaza]." 

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi

 

"It always starts with anti-Israel talk and then grows into something far, far worse."

"If you want to be premier, start acting like it."

"We meet with the ambassador of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The Aga Khan comes this year You have to respect them and refrain at all costs from demonizing."

"[Nenshi's action] shows a real lack of maturity."

Rob Anderson, chief of staff, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi with Iddo Moed, Israeli Ambassador to Canada, at the Calgary Stampede. (Photo credit: Embassy of Israel photo/via Facebook)

 

The provincial NDP leader, Naheed Nenshi saw fit to publicly apologize for his photo in which he stands smiling next to Iddo Moed, the Israeli ambassador, during the Calgary Stampede festivities. In so doing, more than adequately demonstrating the lack of honour and judgemental capabilities that reside deep within the New Democratic Party and Nenshi's own sense of self-preservation within that atmosphere. 

 

For a more well-rounded perspective on democratic points of view and an obviously better understanding that the Israel Defense Forces entered Gaza following the devastatingly grotesque invasion by thousands of Palestinian terrorists -- hell-bent on slaughtering Israeli civilians, from children to entire families, the elderly and the young alike, while triumphantly videoing the mass rape and torture of Jewish girls and women -- in a reaction that any country within the international community would commit to in defense of its own, Quebec Senator Leo Housakos unequivocally stated that he stands "shoulder to shoulder" with Ambassador Moed and the people of Israel, "the only democracy in the Middle East, where freedom, human rights, and the rule of law prevail".

 

When that photo of the two men; Nenshi and Ambassador Moed went public the response from among the public element that decries Israel's very existence and considers mass rape and slaughter of Jews to be nothing less than a 'push-back' against 'occupation' reminded Nenshi of his NDP-stripe obligations where the October 7, 2023 atrocities were hailed as pay-back for Israel's very existence. That his stance, having the effect of empathizing with 'Palestinian victims' of a response to their terrorist government's declaration of war, mentioning nothing that might have caused the Israeli military's campaign to destroy Hamas, adds substantially to the current climate of faulting Jewish Canadians for Palestinian feral war-mongering, is obviously of no concern to Naheed Nenshi. 

 

At that same event, Ambassador Moed had set up brief greeting and photo ops with a number of others. Premier Danielle Smith, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, and former federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair had no problems with such standard diplomatic overtures, but then none of them are infused either, with that very special undercurrent that operates in certain circles, of opposition to the very reality of existence of the Jewish state.  

"No democratic leader should apologize for engaging with the accredited representative of a sovereign democratic nation."

"Such remarks reinforce efforts to isolate Israel, legitimize anti-Zionist exclusion, and contribute to an environment in which antisemitism increasingly flourishes."

Abraham Global Peace Initiative president Avi Abraham Benlolo 

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