Harper pays tributes to 26/11 victims; denounces anti-Semitism

Bal Krishna

Ottawa, Mar 12 (PTI) Paying tributes to the Jewish
victims of last year's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that anti-Semitism was
a serious threat to international peace and security.

Condemning the November 26 attacks that killed 177
people, Harper said, anti-Semitism is an evil so profound that
it is ultimately a threat to all, he said while attending a
ceremony to honour Jewish victims.

The ceremony, held on Parliament Hill and attended by
Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason
Kenney and several other MPs, was organised by Chabad
Lubavitch, an international Jewish group that operates
centres in more than 50 countries.

The prime minister said that sadly, the "age-old
hatred, anti-Semitism remains an ever present evil in our
world today."

"Anti-Semitism is a pernicious evil that must be
exposed, that must be confronted, that must be repudiated,
whenever and wherever it appears. Fuelled by lies and paranoia
we have learned from history it is an evil so profound, indeed
as we saw in Mumbai, that it is ultimately a threat to us
all," Harper said.

"Under our government, Canada will remain an unyielding
defender of Jewish religious freedom, a forceful opponent of
anti-Semitism in all of its forms and a staunch supporter of
a secure and democratic state of Israel," he told the
applauding audience.

The prime minister said the quick appointment of a new
rabbi at the Chabad Lubavitch centre in Mumbai sent a powerful
signal that the Jewish people will "never bow to violence and
hatred."

"When it comes to standing against hate and
intolerance, none have persevered, none have been as resolute
as the Jewish people," he said.

Its centre in Mumbai was among the targets in the
series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks throughout the city
in November.

The rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, were
among six people killed in the building. Their two-year-old
son and his nanny escaped.

Harper also expressed his condolences over the couple's
murders calling them senseless and brutal and said they were
"affronts to the values that unite all civilized people.

Kenney also spoke at the remembrance ceremony and
described his visit to the Chabad Lubavitch centre when he was
in Mumbai in January.

Kenney said the Holtzbergs were representative of all
the world's Jews and that's why they were targeted. PTI CORR
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