Rob Breakenridge: Naheed Nenshi bends the knee to Avi Lewis and the far left

CALGARY — Foreign policy is not typically a top of mind concern for voters at the provincial level in assessing those aspiring to lead as premier.

No one in Alberta was looking to NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi for insight on Israel, Palestinians, or conflict in the Middle East. And despite the self-inflicted controversy Nenshi now finds himself embroiled in, we still don’t really have any meaningful insight into his views on any of this.

The fact that he’s being dragged down by this issue is less a story about his own views, and more a story about his own judgement and — perhaps more importantly — the forces within his own party that he is clearly beholden to.

Prior to Thursday, this wasn’t even a story. Perhaps it never would have amounted to much of a story if Nenshi had simply opted not to say anything.

As we’ve now learned, on the previous Thursday, July 9, Nenshi had a brief encounter at a Calgary Stampede event with Iddo Moed, Israel’s ambassador to Canada. At one point, the two men posed for a photograph.

Clearly, Nenshi knew who he was talking to and standing with. His initial impulse — the one perhaps he should have stuck with — was that this was no big deal.

To various elements within his own party, however, this was a very big deal. A week after the photo was taken, Nenshi took to social media to post a lengthy and over-the-top “from the heart” apology.

“After talking to many people in the community over the last couple of days, I better understand the immense hurt that has been caused to a lot of folks,” he wrote.

It’s unclear how this caused any sort of measurable “hurt” or whether Nenshi himself even believes that to be the case. That he was compelled to write and post such a statement in the first place is quite revealing.

This is someone who was a star candidate for the Alberta NDP, someone whose political brand was touted as an asset for the party. The Alberta NDP have held themselves up as a more moderate version of the party, and Nenshi has been going out of his way in recent months to distance himself from the federal NDP and its new leader Avi Lewis.

As we can now see, there is no distance. The NDP has become co-opted by the far left and the far left has become fixated on the issue of Israel. The leader of the Alberta NDP is merely falling in line.

The problem for Nenshi, however, is that he has already failed this ideological purity test. His subsequent grovelling won’t be sufficient and it just makes him look weak.

Furthermore, his pandering to a narrow base on this issue will only hurt his political standing with the broader general public. While it’s certainly reasonable to take issue with how the Israeli government has prosecuted the war in Gaza, Canadians still overwhelmingly believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and its right to defend itself.

Nenshi’s statement ignores those points and makes no mention at all of the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which instigated the war. There’s one fleeting mention of antisemitism, which represents a troubling disconnect from the alarming rise in antisemitism that’s been manifesting in recent years right across Canada.

There’s a role here for principled leadership, but this will surely stand as an example of the opposite. As noted in a joint statement from the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, the Jewish Federation of Calgary, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs for Alberta, the idea that a mere photograph must prompt such an apology “sets a troubling precedent and risks creating an environment where engagement itself becomes impossible.”

There’s a curious and revealing double-standard at play here when it comes to engagement and dialogue. As mayor of Calgary, for example, Nenshi met with Chinese diplomats and even travelled to China to speak to and meet with Chinese officials. None of those meetings prompted an apology, yet it would be unfair to accuse Nenshi of being a Chinese government apologist or of being indifferent to China’s human rights record.

For his part, Ambassador Moed has taken the high road through his own statement that makes no specific mention of Nenshi’s comments. He simply notes that he welcomed the opportunity to connect with “Albertan friends old and new,” and to see “firsthand the growing strength of the Israel–Alberta partnership.”

But, as he warns, “it’s unacceptable for hate to creep and fester into a space built on hospitality, undermining the respect and empathy that should define it.”

Nenshi probably understands all of this. In 2011, as Calgary mayor, Nenshi was honoured at an event hosted by the city’s Jewishcommunity. It’s unlikely that that version of Naheed Nenshi would have put out a statement like the one he issued this week.

But that Nenshi didn’t lead the NDP. It’s sad and troubling that this is now the litmus test for Canada’s New Democrats and that even the allegedly moderate Alberta NDP are not immune.

Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com