Eventually blunt

After the Harper government declined to explicitly criticize Israel’s latest settlements and refused to say whether the Prime Minister discussed the matter with Benjamin Netanyahu during their call on Saturday, John Baird now directly criticizes the settlements and says Mr. Harper conveyed the government’s concerns to Mr. Netanyahu.

The Prime Minister believes the settlements would further impair efforts to achieve peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples – a message he conveyed directly to the Israeli Prime Minister during a phone call Saturday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird told The Globe and Mail...

“The Palestinians’ actions last week were very unhelpful to the cause of peace, and the Israeli response of settlement expansion is very unhelpful to the cause of peace,” Mr. Baird said.