Two Arab Knesset Members heckled Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper until they finally stormed out of the chamber during Harper’s speech to the Knesset Monday.

The heckling started when Netanyahu spoke to Harper from the Knesset podium and called Canada a great ally. Netanyahu explained to Harper how Israel’s parliament works and that Knesset Members can scream as much as they like in the Knesset, something that “is not possible in Damascus and other places.”

MK Ahmed Tibi played right into Netanyahu’s hands and said out loud in English while pointing to his colleague MK Talab Abu-Arar, “There is no water or electricity in his village. Perhaps in Syria they have such things.”

(By the way, MK Talan Abu-Arar does have water and electricity in both his home and village).

Netanyahu, speaking in Hebrew so everyone in the Knesset would understand, said in reply, “I haven’t found that our Arab friends in Israel  want to separate from the State of Israel. Everyone wants to live here.” Knesset Speaker Yule Edelstein ended the entertainment, which Harper seemed to be enjoying, by telling Tibi, “Your message is clear, You don’t have to thank anyone for your right to speak.

Switching to English and addressing Harper, Netanyahu said, “I think I have my point about Israeli democracy. That was easy.”

In his speech, Harper said that condemnation of Israel is represents a “new strain” of anti-Semitism.

“We have witnessed, in recent years, the mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism and the emergence of a new strain,”  he said,

The Arabs MKs did not wait around very long and walked out  during Harper’s speech, which was so pro-Zionist one wonders if it was not written by a modern day Ben Gurion.

The Canadian Prime Minister  said, “The friendship between us is rooted in history, nourished by shared values, and it is intentionally reinforced at the highest levels of commerce and government as an outward expression of strongly held inner convictions… During Canada’s mission to Afghanistan, our use of Israeli-built reconnaissance equipment saved the lives of Canadian soldiers….

We have also periodically made terrible mistakes as in the refusal of our government in the 1930s to ease the plight of Jewish refugees….

“ I would argue, support today for the Jewish state of Israel is more than a moral imperative; it is also of strategic importance, also a matter of our own, long-term interests….

“As you, Prime Minister [Netanyahu], have said, when Palestinians make peace with Israel, Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations — it will be the first.

“Sadly, we have yet to reach that point….

“Canada finds it deplorable that some in the international community still question the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel.

“Our view on Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is absolute and non-negotiable.

“Second, Canada believes that Israel should be able to exercise its full rights as a UN member-state and to enjoy the full measure of its sovereignty….

“Third, we refuse to single out Israel for criticism on the international stage.

“Now I understand, in the world of diplomacy, with one, solitary, Jewish state and scores of others, it is all too easy  ‘to go along to get along’ and single out Israel.

“People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world, instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East. …

“Most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state.

“Think about that.

“Think about the twisted logic and outright malice behind that: a state, based on freedom, democracy and the rule of law, that was founded so Jews can flourish, as Jews, and seek shelter from the shadow of the worst racist experiment in history, that is condemned, and that condemnation is masked in the language of anti-racism.

Former Israeli ambassador to Canada Alan Baker and prominent Toronto lawyers have condemned an apparent discrepancy between Ottawa’s fervid public support for Israel and official policy.

Baker, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Canada from 2004 to 2008, and six Toronto lawyers, have written to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird demanding the Foreign Affairs Department website be changed “to align it with statements and policies publicly expressed by the Prime Minister, yourself and other government representatives,” the National Post newspaper reported.

The complaint comes on the eve of a high-profile visit by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper next week.

The attorneys are particularly upset that the website refers to Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as “occupied territories” and declares the construction of Jewish communities and parts of the separation barrier inside those areas as illegal.

“Parts of this policy statement appear to run counter to the Canadian expressions of support for Israel and its positions,” the group wrote, “as well as against specific statements repeatedly made by Prime Minister Harper and Foreign Minister Baird.”

Information on the Foreign Affairs website reflects long-standing Canadian policy, which comports with the widely accepted international view that the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are occupied territory because they were restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.

In response, Baird’s spokesman, Rick Roth, said Harper and his Conservative government “have articulated Canada’s policy on Israel and the Middle East at great length since 2006.

“Israel has no greater friend in the world than Canada,” Roth told the Post, “and it is through our actions, not just words, that this rings true.”

Canada’s new Ambassador to Israel is Toronto lawyer Vivian Bercovici, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced Wednesday.

She is a former Finance Ministry policy adviser and a severe critic of the Palestinian Authority.

She’s smart and capable and will be able to represent this government well,” said Baird , who pointed out that she will be the representative to Israel exclusively and not the Palestinian Authority.

Asked about a general consensus that she is far from being a fan of the Palestinian Authority, Baird replied, “It won’t be a huge shock to anyone that Canada is a strong supporter of Israel.”

The appointment comes less than two weeks before Prime Minister Stephen Harper will make his first trip to Israel as head of the government.

Bercovici writes a column in the Toronto Star, where last April she lambasted major media for not exposing the Palestinian Authority’s goon squad tactics to squelch press freedom while trying to turn Israel into a miserable offender.

Last January she wrote, “The Palestinian leadership, in the meantime, carries on with its unequivocal message — calling for the destruction of Israel — disseminated openly in political forums, the tightly controlled media and taught freely in schools and universities.

“That western leaders, among them President Barack Obama and U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague, regard Israel as the peace spoiler, defies logic.”

The famous Girl Guides cookies now have the OU approval as being kosher thanks to an all-Orthodox troop in Canada, but their chocolate mint cookies still are on the forbidden list. All Girl Scout cookies in the United States have been kosher for at least 20 years, said organization spokesman Stewart Goodbody.

When the 31 Jewish girls established the 613th Thornhill Pathfinder Unit  in Thornhill, Ontario, a heavily Jewish suburb north of Toronto, the first question member Sara Silverman asked was, “When do we start selling cookies?” according to the Girl Guides of Canada. But the troop could not bring the cookies into the synagogue where they met.

The unit “badly wanted to raise funds for Girl Guides and for camps, trips and other activities,” noted the Guides this week on its website. The unit’s leader wrote the organization, asking how to make the iconic treats kosher.

The Guides said they worked closely with the cookies’ manufacturer, Dare Foods Ltd., and found there was nothing non-kosher in  the ingredients in their classic chocolate and vanilla cookies sold in the spring.

All that was required was formal certification. Recently, the Guides confirmed that the spring cookies would be certified under the auspices of the Orthodox Union (OU).

The process was “a relatively simple and fiscally feasible endeavor,” the Guides said.

There will be no similar fate for the time being for the group’s chocolate mint cookies, sold in the fall, because of non-kosher ingredients in their coating, the group said.

“It feels like our unit has made a difference,” Avigail Rucker, a 12-year-old Guide, told The Canadian Jewish News.

Israel is the sixth favorite country of American citizens and Saudi Arabia is their least favorite among allies, according to a Pew Research Center survey carried out in November and released this week.

The Jewish state was viewed favorably by 61 percent of Americans and was sixth behind Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, and Brazil.

Some 26 percent of Americans view Israel unfavorably, while 81 percent of Americans viewed Canada favorably and 9 percent unfavorably, by contrast.

Saudi Arabia was at the bottom of the list of 12 countries that are U.S. allies, with 27 percent of Americans viewing the country favorably and 57 percent unfavorably.

Meanwhile, more Republicans than Democrats like Israel with 74 percent of Republicans viewing Israel favorably to 55 percent of Democrats.

The survey was part of a larger survey on “America’s place in the world.”

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.”

Canadian immigration officials this week ordered a former leader of the ultra-nationalist Jobbik party in Hungary out of the country prior to a speaking engagement in Montreal.

Csanad Szegedi was sent back to Budapest on a plane just before he was slated to address a Chabad group. Approximately 200 people who came out to hear Szegedi, who two years ago discovered he had a maternal Jewish grandmother and was ousted by Jobbik, instead heard a videotaped message.

“I acknowledge that I have a lot of sins,” Szegedi said. “And this is why I understand those people who are not happy me being here. But these sins I try to rectify not only at the verbal level but at the level of my actions.

“I have to tell the Canadian Jewish community … that I am exactly such a Jew as they are. I cannot help it — as you cannot help it.”

Szegedi, 31, was a leading figure in the neo-fascist Jobbik party for a decade and was known for his rabid anti-Semitism. After discovering his Jewish relative — an Auschwitz survivor — he made contact with Chabad representatives in Hungary. He since has embraced his Jewish roots and publicly denounced Jobbik.

His talk at Montreal’s Chabad of Westmount was titled “My Journey From Hater to Fighter of Hatred,” but the speaking engagement caused a backlash in Montreal’s Jewish community, with detractors charging that his denunciation of Jobbik is insincere and that he only embraced his Jewish identity after he failed to suppress the news through bribery.