Beryl Wajsman: An Iranian embassy would stoke antisemitism in Canada

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It is therefore impossible to separate the question of reopening an Iranian embassy from the question of rising antisemitism in Canada.
An embassy is not merely an office issuing visas. It is a permanent political platform. In the hands of a democratic government, that platform promotes legitimate diplomacy. In the hands of an authoritarian revolutionary regime, it is a vehicle for influence, recruitment, propaganda and intimidation.

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Canada must not provide such a platform to the world’s foremost exporter of antisemitic ideology. Nor has anything changed to justify normalization.

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is now listed by Canada as a terrorist entity. Yet it has recently come to light that over 700 IRGC members or operatives are in Canada but Ottawa has done nothing to remove them nor offered an explanation of how they got in SOURCE PLEASE. Hundreds of Iranian officials and organizations remain under Canadian sanctions. Tehran continues to arm terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East. It continues to threaten Israel openly with annihilation. It continues to imprison dissidents, execute political opponents, suppress women demanding basic freedoms and persecute religious minorities.

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And Canadians have not forgotten Flight PS762. One hundred and seventy-six innocent people died when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a civilian airliner. This includes 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents. Their families are still waiting for justice.

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To reopen an embassy before meaningful accountability would send precisely the wrong message. It would tell authoritarian regimes that terrorism, repression, hostage diplomacy and state-sponsored hatred eventually carry no lasting diplomatic consequences.

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Some argue that Canada requires an embassy to maintain dialogue. Dialogue has its place. But diplomatic relations do not require granting the regime a permanent operational presence in Canada. Humanitarian and consular matters can be managed through protecting powers, allied embassies and multilateral channels without inviting the Islamic Republic back onto Canadian soil. And frankly, Canada has no heft to progress meaningful dialogue with the outlaw regime that rules Iran.

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Canada’s responsibility is first and foremost to protect Canadians. That includes protecting Jewish Canadians who already face unprecedented levels of intimidation. It includes protecting Iranian Canadians who fled the regime’s repression. And it includes ensuring that foreign authoritarian governments cannot more easily project influence into our democratic institutions.

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Canada should stand with the Iranian people, whose extraordinary courage in resisting tyranny has inspired the world. The Iranian people are not the Islamic Republic. Millions have demonstrated, often at terrible personal cost, that they seek democracy, secular government, equality before the law and peaceful relations with the international community. They deserve Canada’s solidarity. The Islamic Republic does not deserve another embassy.

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The answer should be simple: no embassy, no normalization, and no platform for a regime whose influence would make Canada less safe, less united, and less free. When Prime Minister Harper ordered the closure of the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa on Sept. 7, 2012 then Foreign Minister John Baird called Iran, “the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today.” That is still true today.

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Beryl P. Wajsman is President of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal

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