Canadian Prime Minister to Address the Knesset

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will deliver a speech to the Knesset during his visit to Israel next month, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein announced Wednesday.

Harper will lead an entourage of approximately 200 politicians, businessmen and journalists towards late January. ‘”I am happy and proud to host the prime minister of Canada, a courageous and true friend of Israel," Edelstein stated.

Harper has stood behind Israel more than other world leader the past several years, backing it during the crises in the Second Lebanon War, counter-terrorist operations in Gaza and on the Mavi Mamara flotilla that was manned by IHH terrorists in 2010.

Harper told a recent Jewish National Fund dinner in Canada, where he announced his forthcoming trip, “In the world of diplomacy, we know how easy it is to drift away from Israel. We understand that the future of our country and of our shared civilization depends on the survival and thriving of that free and democratic homeland of the Jewish people in the Middle East.”