Green candidate accused of Israel-bashing gets May’s support
 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080905.welxngreens06/BNStory/Front/
Globe and Mail September 5, 2008
OTTAWA — Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is affirming her support for an Ottawa-area Green Party candidate accused of “Israel bashing,” just one day after citing anti-Semitism as grounds for rejecting one of her B.C. candidates.
Qais Ghanem, a Yemeni-born physician with a strong interest in the Middle East, has stirred debate among his fellow Greens on the party’s online discussion forum. The Greens’ Ottawa-South candidate has aligned himself with three other Green candidates to form what they call the “Ottawa Group of Four.” They are pushing the party to approve a resolution called “Palestine” that “calls upon Israel to end its forty-year occupation of all Arab lands without preconditions.”
When some in the discussion forum suggested Dr. Ghanem’s comments were one-sidedly anti-Israel, the Green candidate fired back. “I do not have to record the opposite point of view to every quotation I dig up, for the sake of so-called ‘balance,’” he wrote on Aug. 17. “The Israeli point of view is voiced non-stop by the North American media which is controlled by a small oligarchy.”
John Bennett, a spokesman for Ms. May, said the Green Leader views the comments of Dr. Ghanem and the Group of Four as their own individual positions. He also said their proposed resolution is “within our party policy.”

The Green Party announced Thursday that it is dropping John Shavluk, the Green nominee in the suburban riding of Newton-North Delta, B.C., from its list of official candidates over an allegedly anti-Semitic remark in a blog by Mr. Shavluk several years ago “Dr. Ghanem is a well-known supporter of peaceful resolution in the Middle East,” said Mr. Bennett, who acknowledged the party is now rethinking its website policies. “It’s an open discussion forum in which people are allowed to express their opinion. Elizabeth knows Dr. Ghanem, is happy with him as a candidate, and he is definitely not an anti-Semite in any way.” The resolution makes reference to the U.S. Green Party, which drew the ire of Israeli and British Greens when it called in 2005 for a boycott and sanctions against Israel.
Sara Saber-Freedman, executive vice-president of the Canada Israel Committee, said the Greens would be adopting an extreme position should the resolution be endorsed by party members at their next convention.
“We think it would be extraordinarily unfortunate if it were to be adopted,” she said. “It would place the Green Party very far outside the Canadian mainstream.”
One individual writing on the Green website, Leo Williams, says the Green Party should not be posting Dr. Ghanem’s “scurrilous blog.”
“Every vote is important, and the alienation of discerning Christian and Jewish voters, via Mr. Ghanem’s vilest brand of Israel bashing and anti-Semitism, is something the GPC [Green Party of Canada] (and Canadian politics) does not need,” the post reads.
Reached by e-mail, Dr. Ghanem wrote that the Group of Four – whose other members, Ottawa-area Green candidates Paul Maillet, Akbar Manoussi and Sylvie Lemieux – are “ardent supporters of human rights and social justice for ALL people in the world, no matter their ethnicity or religion.”
John Shavluk, the B.C. candidate ousted on grounds of alleged anti-Semitism, has been a staunch online defender of Dr. Ghanem. “Bottom line? Qais gets my help … support … approval,” he wrote July 22.
The reason cited for Mr. Shavluk’s removal was an online exchange about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in which he wrote about the “shoddily built Jewish world bank headquarters.”
Comment by KLisa Burgett, writing from United States on September 8th, 2008 at 4:00 pm:
Somehow I just dont hink youll find it in Canada
Jif
http://www.anonymize.us.tc
Comment by reza, writing from on September 19th, 2008 at 8:55 pm:
Hello
My name in reza shams and I am an Iranian living in Ottawa Gatineau area since1989, I was searching the net and this article came to my attention. I don’t have any thing against green party, but mr. manoussi who is the candidate for green party in Ottawa is hated by most member of Iranian Canadian that live in this area, for he is actively collaborating with the Iranian fundamentalist government .He usually hides his true intentions from his political activities in Canadian society. He runs a so called cultural center which was bought by Iranian regime in 1999 at number 2 Robinson st. in Ottawa .The question is how someone who is actively supporting a terrorist and barbaric regime such as Iranian regime could be the candidate for Green party? Simply because he has the financial support of Iranian government and no doubt he is the master of deception. Thanks any way
Comment by herman rosenfeldt, writing from Canada on November 6th, 2008 at 8:45 pm:
Thank goodness the Greens got zero seats in the election. Any party that has a candidate the likes of
Qais Ghanem deserves to lose. We need not import reactionary Arab revanchists in our body politic.