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That personal warmth mirrors the extraordinarily strong support the Harper government has lent to Israel in the last few years.

From vigorously opposing the Palestinian bid for non-voting state status at the United Nations, to paying a controversial visit to an Israeli cabinet minister in east Jerusalem, the Conservatives have arguably become the Jewish state’s most steadfast international ally.

The government has also shown interest in helping advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Whether that is now in the cards is debatable. Some commentators here say Canada has lost any influence it might have had with the Palestinians and Arab nations, others say its new-found position of trust with Israel will make its advice — even if uncomfortable — more likely to be heard by Mr. Netanyahu.

One fact seems clear: Canada has got itself noticed in this region like rarely before.

“When Canada went with the crowd, voted with the Europeans, it failed to have any significant role,” said Einat Wilf, a foreign policy advisor and former Knesset member, first with Labor, then the centrist Independence party.

“You only have a role when you take a stand that matters. … The stature of Canada as a foreign policy player has risen as a result of the fact that it actually takes stands now.”

On the Palestinian side, the evolution of Canada’s Middle East policy has made just as much of a bang, with rather different results.

Its “fatal embrace” of Israel has dramatically alienated it from the Palestinian Authority, said Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization member and one of the Palestinians’ most recognizable faces in the West.