supposed that I was anything but a critical friend of Israel? But this was not the point. I had failed to understand how communities listen when they feel they are under attack. Isaiah Berlin and I used to talk about this. He would say, in jest, that the only real political question, when he was growing up in Jewish north London in the 1920s, was, “Is it good or bad for the Jews?” This is how language in politics is actually heard, not just by Jews, but also by any community that seeks recognition from a politician. The Sikhs wanted to know how I stood on the suppression of Sikh rights in India; the Tamils wanted to know how I stood on the brutal civil war tearing Sri Lanka apart;Iranians wanted to know my position on the brutal theocracy in Iran. For the Jewish community, the bottom line had to be unequivocal support for Israel’s right to defend itself. I had no trouble whatever with this, but I questioned whether a democratic state’s legitimate rights entitled it to violate the laws of war. This shouldn’t have been the issue. Why should a politician take it upon himself to rule on an embattled state’s compliance with the Geneva Conventions? It was not my job. What the Jewish community heard in my comment on Qana was that I was questioning their right to defend themselves. No matter what I did after that, I could not recover the confidence of the community leadership. When Stephen Harper aligned Canada with the most intransigent of Israeli positions, I couldn’t rally support among those members of the Jewish community who believed Israel’s best guarantee of its security lay in a two-state solution. I had lost my standing, my ability to get a hearing.
In politics, as in life, the challenge is how you learn from your mistakes. Later on, after the controversy had died down, I gave a speech at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto where I drew the lessons I had learned:
By trial and error—mostly by error—I’ve come to a few conclusions about how I should act. In reaching these conclusions I am guided by one of Winston Churchill’s wonderful remarks. He said politicians shouldn’t be sofas. We shouldn’t bear the shape of the last person to sit on us. We should keep our own shape, no matter what. We should have principles. So what are they?
The first rule is to be consistent. I must not defend Israel in this house of worship only to betray it in a mosque across town. I must not defend the rights of Palestinians to a state of their own in a mosque only to betray this commitment here in this great synagogue. I must be consistent.
A second rule is that I must not inflame discord with ill-chosen words. I must say what I mean and only what I mean. I must not pander to the forces of hatred and discord. When I do so, I betray my obligation to unite Canadians. A third rule is that I must speak for Canada. I am not here to speak for any political group within Israel or anywhere else. It is the national interest of Canada that must guide my actions as an elected representative. In relation to the Middle East, that means striving to prevent a wider and deadlier conflict in which Israel goes to the wall. 6
What you learn from your mistakes is that politics is a game with words, but it isn’t Scrabble. No one who enters the political arena for the first time is ever prepared for its adversarial quality. Every word you utter becomes an opportunity for your opponents to counterattack. Inevitably you take it personally, and that is your first mistake. You have to learn what the lifers, wise with years of experience, have long since understood: it’s never personal; it’s strictly business.
As the leadership campaign approached its finale, the public debates among the candidates curdled into bitterness and acrimony. I remember one of the final debates, in Montreal in late November 2006, when one of my rivals, Bob Rae, repeated the old charge that I had some explaining to do on the issue of torture. If not, he implied, I
In politics, as in life, the challenge is how you learn from your mistakes. Later on, after the controversy had died down, I gave a speech at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto where I drew the lessons I had learned:
By trial and error—mostly by error—I’ve come to a few conclusions about how I should act. In reaching these conclusions I am guided by one of Winston Churchill’s wonderful remarks. He said politicians shouldn’t be sofas. We shouldn’t bear the shape of the last person to sit on us. We should keep our own shape, no matter what. We should have principles. So what are they?
The first rule is to be consistent. I must not defend Israel in this house of worship only to betray it in a mosque across town. I must not defend the rights of Palestinians to a state of their own in a mosque only to betray this commitment here in this great synagogue. I must be consistent.
A second rule is that I must not inflame discord with ill-chosen words. I must say what I mean and only what I mean. I must not pander to the forces of hatred and discord. When I do so, I betray my obligation to unite Canadians. A third rule is that I must speak for Canada. I am not here to speak for any political group within Israel or anywhere else. It is the national interest of Canada that must guide my actions as an elected representative. In relation to the Middle East, that means striving to prevent a wider and deadlier conflict in which Israel goes to the wall. 6
What you learn from your mistakes is that politics is a game with words, but it isn’t Scrabble. No one who enters the political arena for the first time is ever prepared for its adversarial quality. Every word you utter becomes an opportunity for your opponents to counterattack. Inevitably you take it personally, and that is your first mistake. You have to learn what the lifers, wise with years of experience, have long since understood: it’s never personal; it’s strictly business.
As the leadership campaign approached its finale, the public debates among the candidates curdled into bitterness and acrimony. I remember one of the final debates, in Montreal in late November 2006, when one of my rivals, Bob Rae, repeated the old charge that I had some explaining to do on the issue of torture. If not, he implied, I
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