{"id":322188,"date":"2017-08-18T09:31:31","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T08:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ndp-leadership-candidate-jagmeet-singhs-trip-to-israel\/"},"modified":"2017-08-18T09:31:31","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T08:31:31","slug":"ndp-leadership-candidate-jagmeet-singhs-trip-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/ndp-leadership-candidate-jagmeet-singhs-trip-to-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP Leadership Candidate Jagmeet Singh\u2019s Trip to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Like bears attracted to spawning salmon, politicians seek out power. The former needs to build stores of fat to survive the winter, while the latter must attract the resources and support necessary for successful electoral campaigns. Given the survival imperative, neither bear nor politician should be criticized too harshly for what comes naturally. But, the two best ways to judge politicians are by taking a look at whom they choose to gather resources from and what they are prepared to do to get them.<\/p>\n<p>At worst politicians pander to society\u2019s wealthiest and reactionary social forces, further solidifying their grip on the economic and political system. At best they seek out progressive grassroots and labour organizations, collecting the necessary resources from ordinary people while amplifying their influence.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s within this context that one should understand Ontario MPP Jagmeet Singh\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quintenews.com\/2017\/01\/mpp-smith-returns-outreach-trip-israel\/137570\/\">trip to Israel<\/a> with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. At the start of the year the current NDP leadership candidate took an organized trip there and met to discuss it with Galit Baram, Israel\u2019s consul general in Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>The trip and meeting were most likely aimed at allaying particular concerns since in early December Singh was the only member of the Ontario legislature to speak out against\u00a0a provincial vote to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. He criticized a CIJA-backed motion supporting the spurious \u201cOttawa Protocol on Combating&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/2017\/08\/ndp-leadership-candidate-jagmeet-singhs-trip-to-israel\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like bears attracted to spawning salmon, politicians seek out power. The former needs to build stores of fat to survive the winter, while the latter must attract the resources and support necessary for successful electoral campaigns. Given the survival imperative, neither bear nor politician should be criticized too harshly for what comes naturally. But, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2525,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-322188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}