Canadian FM makes private visit to Western Wall
Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird visited the Western
Wall on Monday at the tail end of a Middle East trip that took him to Lebanon
and Jordan.
According to Joseph Lavoie, the acting director of
communications in Baird’s office, the visit was a private one. The minister,
Lavoie said, was flying home from Ben-Gurion Airport after having visited
Israel’s northern and eastern neighbors.
Israeli diplomatic officials said Baird, who was last in
Israel in early February for the annual Herzliya Conference, was here on a
private visit and they did not know whether he had any government meetings
planned.
The Canadian foreign minister is a staunch supporter of
Israel. The Hill Times, a Canadian weekly that covers that
country’s politics, listed him this year as the third-most influential person
in Canadian government and politics.
Asked by the magazine what he would be doing were he not
in politics, Baird replied: “Likely working on a kibbutz in Israel.”
Baird, while in Jordan, announced that Canada would
provide Jordan with $6.5 million in new assistance to help it deal with an
influx of refugees from Syria. Baird, who visited the Zaatari refugee camp for
the Syrian refugees in northern Jordan, said his country would also donate $2m.
for medical supplies for doctors inside Syria, and another $1.5m. to the World
Food Program to help feed Syrian refugees.
This is in addition to some $8.5m. Canada is already
providing in humanitarian assistance to those suffering from the violence in
Syria.
An estimated 140,000 Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan.
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