Pitting ethnic groups against each other, Justin Trudeau tells Iranian-Canadians that Harper's pro-Israel stance is a vote-gaining ploy

Jonathan Halevi's blog, Alternative Anges, provides a transcript of an interview it conducted with Justin Trudeau. Perhaps Mr. Trudeau thought the interview would go no wider than that community, because in it, the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada said that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's policies on Israel are essentially a vote-gaining ploy.

According to Halevi's translation, Trudeau said, "his [Harper’s] stance in matters regarding Israel or the United Nations is highly focused on what will affect his position in the ballots."

Stephen Harper has made his reasons for his support for Israel clear and explicit, saying they were based on common values and respect for liberal democracy. If it were a purely political move, it would most likely be a counterproductive one, since there are more than three times as many Muslims in Canada, a community among whom support for Israel tends to be quite low, as there are Jews.

The trope of the Prime Minister's support for Israel being a cynical election strategy is popular among antisemites and conspiracy theorists, as is the trope that "Jews and Zionists control the government."

This is not the first controversy involving Justin Trudeau and his questionable judgement regarding middle east policy. Mr. Trudeau appointed his brother Alexandre to be his senior political adviser. However Alexandre Trudeau has partnered with Iran's state-controlled, Holocaust-denying, English-language service, PRESS TV, to produce a documentary that was effectively propaganda for Iran, whitewashing their nuclear arms development program.

For that matter, it's not the first time Justin Trudeau has tried to appeal to one group at the expense of another for political gain. He landed himself in a great deal of controversy following a French-language interview he gave in Quebec in which he blamed Canada's problems on Albertans controlling the political agenda.

There is no evidence to suggest that Justin Trudeau himself is antisemitic. But it does seem that in his political cynicism, pandering to those who are, and playing different segments of Canada's population against each other has become part of the Liberal Party leader's election playbook.

h/t Marvin W.