Angry in the Great White North

From the National Post:

Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe has rejected criticism from Israel's ambassador to Canada over his participation in a peace rally on Aug. 6 in which pro-Hezbollah demonstrators turned up.

Mr. Duceppe said he is upset about the accusations made on Tuesday by ambassador Alan Baker, who he said appears to have been misinformed. He maintained the rally was far from a demonstration glorifying a terrorist organization, as the ambassador wrote in a letter last week.

Duceppe insists that he tried to keep the rally clear of Hezbollah supporters:

Later, he denounced their presence and violence and called for disarmament by all sides of the conflict. Mr. Duceppe said he cannot be held responsible for the excesses of certain individuals.

"We had them expelled I can't tell you how many times," he said. "We told them we don't want any Hezbollah flags here. We also had them stop shouting certain slogans but some started up again. We can't have complete control of 15,000 people."

Mr. Duceppe said to cancel the demonstration would have amounted to caving in to thuggery.

Interestingly, caving in to thuggery is exactly the solution Duceppe wants to impose on Israel.

Duceppe described the Hezbollah supporters as a tiny group. Tiny, but visible. One on was standing on the podium with him:

Last week, Le Soleil reported that Ginette Lewis, a spokesperson for Quebec Solidaire, a breakaway party to the left of the Partis Quebecois, declared her party's unconditional support for Hezbollah at a Quebec City rally. Not for the people of Lebanon, whose suffering in the current conflict cannot be denied, but for Hezbollah.

Quebec Solidaire is a new left-wing sovereigntist party in Quebec. The party, led by Amir Khadir, has apparently disavowed Lewis' remarks. Right.

Duceppe should have realized that the crowd was just as pro-Hezbollah as Lewis and Quebec Solidaire:

Many speakers and photo displays effectively exposed Israeli war crimes. But only one of the speakers at the closing rally expressed solidarity with the fighters of the Lebanese resistance. Many leaned in the direction of deploring the violence of both sides. Most speakers did this with a light touch, while emphasizing Israeli atrocities. One exception was Denis Coderre who bluntly denounced "the rocket attacks of both Israel and Hezbollah." The crowd responded with sustained booing.

Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois (BQ), followed him to the podium and echoed similar themes: both sides should stop fighting, Israel's reaction is disproportionate, we are for disarming all militias including Hezbollah. Duceppe was more adroit than Coderre in his presentation and he was generally well received – although the crowd responded to his statements against the resistance with silence, then resumed its applause when he turned his fire against the Canadian government.

A tiny minority indeed. The same description of the incident appears in the National Post:

Leading the parade were Bloc Quebecois chief Gilles Duceppe, Liberal MP Denis Coderre, PQ chief Andre Boisclair, and Amir Khadir, spokesman for the new far-left provincial party, Solidarite Quebec.

As a sop to the Quebec-Israel Committee, which had taken out full-page ads calling on the march's leaders to condemn terrorism, however, they called for the disarming of Hezbollah as part of a negotiated ceasefire.

For this, they were roundly booed by the crowd.

Gilles Duceppe knew who he was talking too. He heard the reaction to Coderre's remarks. If he was really so concerned about being in the company of Hezbollah supporters, he had an opportunity to make it clear right then and there. Not adroitly. But clearly, unequivocably, showing no tolerance for a one-sided "solution".

Because we all know that a one-sided solution plays into Hezbollah's ultimate goal of the destruction of Israel. This is what Duceppe is tolerating when he tolerates the jeers and catcalls.

Mr. Duceppe said the Bloc made it clear to organizers before the march it would not tolerate any pro-Hezbollah demonstrators or flags or anti-Israel slogans in the march.

Duceppe apparently decided to tolerate the slogans after all:

One placard carried by a number of demonstrators carried the title "Zionist checklist." It listed a number of categories such as hospitals, roads, power plants, women and children with a checkmark against each category, The last line read "Hezbollah;" it had no checkmark.

In an outrageous infringement of democratic rights, police intervened to confiscate some Hezbollah flags. This may have intimidated some people, but we saw at least 50 Hezbollah flags throughout the crowd, and a scattering of large photos of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. A leaflet headed "What is Hezbollah?" which answered many of the slanders against the organization, was widely distributed and well received.

I'm not to blame Gilles Duceppe for the actions of others. He is right when he says that he can't control what others do, and at a rally that size, it is likely that pro-Hezbollah types will be participating.

But I can hold him responsible for his own actions. On the one hand he says that he told rally organizers that he would not tolerate pro-Hezbollah supporters. But then he says that he can't control 15,000 people and attends anyway.

Seems like he managed to tolerate pro-Hezbollah demonstrators after all. If he really couldn't tolerate them, he would have left.

It is clear that there were pro-Hezbollah types in the crowd. Duceppe insists that they were thinly scattered, and so below some toleration threshold that he apparently has. The Socialist Daily insists their representation was heavy, and support widespread. Who is right?

Well, the boos had it, I think. Even if Duceppe thought the flags and slogans were tolerable after all, toleration turns into acceptance when you address a crowd that has just jeered a call for Hezbollah's disarmament without challenging them. Duceppe is clearly happy to tolerate just about anything if it means securing a few more votes for Quebec sovereignty.

Now here's a question for any of my Quebec-based readers. Duceppe's dust-up with Israel's ambassador over Duceppe's participation in the rally is being reported in the National Post, serving English-speaking Canadians. Is the French-speaking press at all interested? Have they reported on Duceppe's alleged intolerance of anything pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel? Or is Duceppe getting a pass on this?