|
Harper denounces anti-Semitism as 'pernicious evil'
|
 |
|
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said anti-Semitism is an evil so profound that it is ultimately a threat to all Canadians, on Thursday, while attending a ceremony to honour Jewish victims targeted during last year's terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
The ceremony, held on Parliament Hill and attended by Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney and several other MPs, was organized by Chabad Lubavitch, an international Jewish group that operates centres in more than 50 countries. Its centre in Mumbai was among the targets in the series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks throughout the city in November. The rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, were among six people killed in the building. Their two-year-old son and his nanny escaped. Harper expressed his condolences over the couple's murders calling them senseless and brutal and said they were "affronts to the values that unite all civilized people." The prime minister said that sadly, the "age-old hatred, anti-Semitism remains an ever present evil in our world today." "Anti-Semitism is a pernicious evil that must be exposed, that must be confronted, that must be repudiated, whenever and wherever it appears. Fueled by lies and paranoia we have learned from history it is an evil so profound, indeed as we saw in Mumbai, that it is ultimately a threat to us all," said Harper. "Under our government, Canada will remain an unyielding defender of Jewish religious freedom, a forceful opponent of anti-Semitism in all of its forms and a staunch supporter of a secure and democratic state of Israel," he told the applauding audience. The prime minister said the quick installment of a new rabbi at the Chabad Lubavitch centre in Mumbai sent a powerful signal that the Jewish people will "never bow to violence and hatred." "When it comes to standing against hate and intolerance, none have persevered, none have been as resolute as the Jewish people," he said. Kenney also spoke at the remembrance ceremony and described his visit to the Chabad Lubavitch centre when he was in Mumbai in January. "When I stood in the room where Rabbi Holtzberg and Rivka Holtzberg were tortured and slaughtered I thought, what is it that motivates this kind of hatred, this kind of violence," said Kenney. "In that teeming city of 20 million, (the terrorists) chose that one target to express their hatred for the Jewish people." Kenney said the Holtzbergs were representative of all the world's Jews and that's why they were targeted. "This is a lesson we must learn," said Kenney. "This is a lesson that our prime minister understands," said Kenney, who called Harper the leading political figure globally who understands and has acted upon "the reality of this new and dangerous form of anti-Semitism." |
ב"ה