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Stephen Harper is right when he says the current refugee crisis won’t be resolved without addressing its root causes. But he is so terribly wrong when he says those root causes can be dealt with by dropping bombs on the crazed and cruel extremists who call themselves the ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria.

The United States and its allies, including Canada, have dropped 22,863 bombs on ISIS-held territory in the region in the past year. How’s that working out? ISIS appears to be as strong as ever. And there are more refugees than ever.

The refugee crisis has spread from the Middle East to Europe. It’s now an election campaign issue here at home as our politicians debate how many more innocent refugee families Canada should take in.

Of course, Canada can do much, much more — and more quickly. The Harper government’s dithering, foot-dragging and mumbled excuses for inaction have been sickening.

Asked to meet with opposition leaders to agree on a non-partisan plan to expedite refugee flows, Harper replies by saying his government is already doing more than either the Liberals or New Democrats would do — sending warplanes to the Middle East to drop bombs on the “root cause”, a “violent movement attempting to conquer an area and kill and displace millions and millions of people.”

Canadians, I suspect, aren’t buying Harper’s argument that bombs will deal with the refugee crisis at its roots.

His analysis of the situation is shallow and shows no understanding of the blood-soaked history of the region.

What Harper doesn’t understand — or refuses to acknowledge — is that the biggest single factor poisoning politics and fueling violent conflict in the Middle East today is the long-unresolved issue of Israel and the Palestinians.

If you trace the history of terrorism back to before the al Qaida 9/11 attacks, to the Black September attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, you’ll find ample evidence that Palestinian grievances have been successfully exploited by terrorists to spawn more terrorism. (The eight Palestinian Black September terrorists in Munich named their operation after two Palestinian villages whose inhabitants were driven out by Israel in 1948.)

In 1996 Osama bin Laden issued a “declaration of jihad against Americans.” He demanded that the Americans get their troops out of Saudi Arabia (they finally did that in 2003) and stop “supporting with money, arms and manpower their Jewish brothers in the occupation of Palestine and their murder and expulsion of Muslims there.”

Harper finds it impossible to state the obvious: that ISIS, al Qaida and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups have successfully exploited legitimate Palestinian grievances to recruit tens of thousands of fighters from around the world. Harper finds it impossible to state the obvious: that ISIS, al Qaida and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups have successfully exploited legitimate Palestinian grievances to recruit tens of thousands of fighters from around the world.

The United States has supplied Israel with more than $100 billion in economic and military aid over the years. And Israel still occupies Palestinian land on the West Bank that it captured in the 1967 war.

Against this background, bin Laden’s call to jihad resonated with many Arab Muslims. By 2001 his organization was able to recruit and train 19 suicide volunteers to hijack four U.S. commercial jetliners — the small, murderous gang that brought down the Twin Towers and hit the Pentagon.

But even in the darkest days after 9/11, as the civilized world seethed at the brutality and scale of the attacks, there were leaders in Washington and Ottawa who recognized that — while there had to be a military response — more had to be done to address the root cause … the Palestinian issue.

Colin Powell, an American general who became a diplomat, was the U.S. Secretary of State at the time. He spoke publicly about the need to address Palestinian grievances. Two days after the attacks, he got on the phone with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to urge calm and to try arrange new negotiations on a comprehensive Middle East peace plan under U.S. auspices. That didn’t work out, but successive American leaders haven’t stopped trying.

Jean Chretien, the prime minister who kept us out of the calamitous Iraq war (a war that Harper would have had Canadians fighting), went to bed the night of Sept. 11 thinking about how terrorism thrives on the anger and resentment of the poor and dispossessed. “The Western world is getting too rich in relation to the poor world.” Chretien said in a CBC interview in 2002. “We’re looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied, greedy and with no limits. The 11th of September is an occasion for me to realize it even more.”

Now, compare the nuanced and thoughtful views of Powell and Chretien to Harper’s blunt claim that root causes of the Syrian tragedy go no deeper than the presence of Islamic State fanatics bent on murder and mayhem. Harper finds it impossible to state the obvious: that ISIS, al Qaida and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups have successfully exploited legitimate Palestinian grievances to recruit tens of thousands of fighters from around the world.

Before Harper could acknowledge this, he’d also have to admit that the Israeli government has often treated the Palestinians brutally and unfairly.

Previous Tory and Liberal governments tried to help build peace in the region by maintaining an even-handed and fair approach in their dealings with Israel and its neighbours. Harper doesn’t even pretend to be balanced. He told the Israeli Knesset last year that his government “refuse(s) to single out Israel for criticism on the international stage.”

Harper can’t acknowledge the true root causes of the crisis. And so, whenever anyone asks him how he’s handling the refuge crisis, his answer is always pretty much the same: Bombs away!

Jeff Sallot is one of Canada’s most experienced and respected political writers. A graduate of the Kent State University journalism school, he shared a Pulitzer Prize with colleagues at The Akron Beacon-Journal for his eyewitness coverage of the massacre of four Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war demonstration. He worked for The Globe and Mail for more than three decades, much of the time as a political journalist based in Ottawa. He started his career in political journalism at The Toronto Star when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister. He taught journalism at Carleton University for seven years until he retired in 2014.

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