The Mideast reaches its tentacles to Queen's Park

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WAR ZONE — “I’m a farm boy from Northern Ontario. What am I doing speaking in a place like this about tragedies that are happening in the Middle East?”

So began the NDP’s JOHN VANTHOF during debate on the PCs motion condemning the Hamas attacks on Israel — the less-combative of a pair of motions on the conflict — before launching into a moving speech about his father being a WWII veteran and his son-in-law being Lebanese.

“My grandson was christened in a Greek Orthodox church in Lebanon. I saw Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and I looked in those people’s faces as well, and in their faces, I saw hopelessness —complete, utter hopelessness. At least from what I saw, all they want is what we all want: to raise our families in peace,” he said, adding that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Like most other parts of the world right now, the Middle East is front and centre at Queen’s Park, scrambling provincial politics. The ruling Tories have laid into the Oppo NDP’s shak…