Pro-Israel head of Canada’s Greens resigns

The president of Canada’s Green Party steps down after his pro-Israel blog post caused controversy within his left-wing party.

“As you have read in comments, on the blog that the party took down and with other comments, there have been a lot of negative comments that were directed at either what I said, my right to have said it, or at my own person,” writes Paul Estrin in an email to supporters.

“It has been a tough time, and a tough decision had to be made.”

“With my resignation, I have time to focus on new and different things,” he writes.

“For instance, I have been invited to join a mission to go to Israel with a Canadian organization at the end of this month, an exciting proposition.”

Estrin, who is 35 and lives in Quebec City, has a long-term, keen personal and academic interest in the conflict. He has been to Israel twice to volunteer on a kibbutz, learn Hebrew, and study at a yeshiva.

“Since August 2005,” Estrin wrote in mid-July, “Gazans have been in control of their own destiny. Some might say otherwise, yet Gazans have their own government and they are their own people: If their neighbors, Egypt and Israel, close their borders to Gaza, one must look to a Gaza run by a terrorist organization cum government that teaches and propagates hate, death and destruction to understand why.

“The Gazan government has had ample opportunity over these past years, nearly a decade, to alter its ways, change its mantra of death to the Jews, and become respectable caretakers of the people in their charge. They have not,” he continued.