OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper painted his political rivals as fairweather friends of Israel and said he will stand by the Jewish state even if costs him politically.
Harper launched the latest instalment Tuesday of an ongoing charm offensive aimed at gaining the Jewish community's support for his Conservative party.
His speech to the Canadian Council for Israel did not mention any political parties by name.
But he said his party unequivocally endorsed Israel's month-long bombing campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer -- something no other party did.
"We got a pretty sharp reminder that it's one thing to offer supportive words to Israel when it's convenient,'' he said.
"And (it's) quite another to stand firm in its hour of need ... When it was not popular to do so, we stood and told the truth. Israel had a friend that mattered.
"And that, my friends, is the only thing that really counts.''
Harper was often criticized at home for describing the Israeli bombings as a "measured'' response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.
Following those kidnappings by Hezbollah militants, Israeli reprisals killed more than 1,000 people and wiped out significant swaths of Lebanon's infrastructure.
"A battle between a democratic state and the terrorist groups who seek to destroy both it and its people is not a matter of shades of gray,'' said Harper, who added that he hopes to see the birth of a democratic Palestinian state.
"It is a matter of right and wrong.''
The prime minister recently accused the rival Liberals of abandoning Israel and adopting "anti-Israel'' leanings -- a charge that infuriated his opponents.
The Liberals have traditionally counted on the overwhelming support of the Jewish community but lost two influential members over their calls for more neutrality in the Lebanese conflict.
Corporate power couple Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz -- whose long history of ties to the Liberals included acting as fundraisers and as associates to party leaders since Pierre Trudeau -- expressed their support for Harper.
Even the wife of a Liberal MP, Irwin Cotler, said she would tear up her party membership card after then-leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff called the Israeli bombing of Qana, Lebanon a war crime.
The prime minister has told Conservatives he wants his troops to replace the Liberals as Canada's so-called natural governing party and has aggressively courted several constituencies, including the Jewish vote, that has traditionally shunned the Tories.
Dion's remarks
Addressing the same audience later Tuesday evening, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion warned that the cause of Israel should never be treated as a domestic political football.
"Supporting the right of Israel to exist in a secure and peaceful Middle East is not a Liberal cause or a Conservative cause,'' Dion said in the prepared text of his remarks.
"It is not, and it must never be. It is a Canadian cause. It is the common cause of every democracy.
"That's why I am so proud to be here tonight, not just as a Liberal but as a Canadian, to toast Israel and Canada's partnership with her.''
Dion also expressed his disgust at the recent firebombing of a Jewish elementary school in his Montreal riding.
"When the United Talmud Torah school is attacked . . . its windows broken, its library burned -- it is an attack on the values of every Canadian,'' his text said.
"When even one Canadian child is threatened because of her religion, we all feel the cold breath of intimidation. We can only imagine the insecurity that Israelis feel day after day.''
Like Harper, Dion called for a two-state solution in the Middle East. And he said that when Israel's right to exist is threatened, it is an attack on the values of every democracy.
"We will continue to proudly support, as a cornerstone of our foreign policy, the right of Israel to exist in peace and security,'' he said.
"Because any attempt to question that right is inexcusable.''
