Former Canadian ambassador to Israel Vivian Bercovici speaks from war-torn Israel in tonight's edition of Hannaford. She says Israelis have many political disagreements. But, on the need to disarm Iran of its nuclear weapons, there's consensus."There's no daylight between Israelis on this, it's not a right-left issue, it's existential. This is an extremist, Islamist, fundamentalist fanatical government that for almost the last 50 years over and over has said that it exists to promote not only radical Shiite Islam but also to destroy Israel... It's their raison d'être... They have been working very hard for decades to develop a nuclear capability and they have said, repeatedly, that they intend to deploy it against Israel.".So yes, Israelis are hopeful that the US will deploy its so-called bunker buster bombs to put an end to the matter... "There have been years and years of attempts to negotiate with the Iranians and they have not been successful.".Ms. Bercovici was appointed ambassador by then-prime minister Stephen Harper in January 2014, days before his still talked-of address to the Israeli Knesset that month. She served until July 2016, when the Trudeau government relieved her of her post. She remains deeply involved in Israeli advocacy however, via her X account, and her podcasts. On tonight's Hannaford show, she talks about visiting the Beersheba hospital damaged just hours earlier by an Iranian missile.."I was astonished by how calm things were. Sadly, we're used to that kind of thing here... business was carrying on... we don't miss a beat.The hospital serves roughly 20% of Israel's 10 million population..The thing you don't want to do is to rely on Canada's Tel Aviv embassy, which Bercovici says performs at a significantly lower level of competence than its western peers."They told people today — today! — if you want consular services to come to the embassy, Monday to Thursday, in business hours. You know how crazy that is? Our embassy is located in one of the worst places to get to, it's in Tel Aviv and our people are mostly in Jerusalem."And the advice? "They are uninformed, all they tell you is to shelter, check the website and sign up for emails. But the emails are useless, they have no information.""They are beyond slow. Many other Western embassies, the day the attacks started, they have consular services, they are at the airports, they work on evacuation routes."Not Canada, alas, although as Israeli airspace is closed, Ms. Bercovici has personally arranged transit for several people to cross the Jordanian border and get to the airport at Amman, in order to leave the region.We joke about her 'underground railway.' But it's not funny if the overground railway is operating sub-par, and then only from Monday to Thursday.Hannaford airs at seven o clock this evening.
