Why was this Israel-hater invited to Parliament Hill???

I want to know more about the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association....

Members of Parliament who wish to hear someone demonize Israel don’t have to travel as far as Geneva, where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the Jewish state of being a cruel and racist regime at an anti-racism conference this week.

In fact, they won’t even have to leave Parliament Hill, following an invitation by the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association to Michael Neumann, a Canadian academic who considers Israel an “illegitimate state.”

Mr. Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario and is, by any measure, a radical voice in the Middle East debate. He has written that Israel’s goal is the destruction of the Palestinian people — a “kindler, gentler genocide” than that perpetrated by Adolph Hitler.

Earlier this year, he expressed support for a proposed resolution by the Canadian Union of Public Employees to ban Israeli professors from working in Ontario universities.

And in one particularly controversial episode, a Web site that claims to document Zionist influence on popular culture published an e-mail exchange with Mr. Neumann in which he said he would support any “effective strategy” to help Palestinians. “If it means encouraging vicious, racist anti-Semitism or the destruction of the state of Israel, I don’t care,” Mr. Neumann was quoted as writing. He has since said the comments were published against his wishes and has refused to comment on their accuracy.

In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Neumann said Israel is an “illegimate state” but it would be wrong to try to destroy it. “The cure of destruction is worse than the disease of illegitimate existence,” he said, quoting from his book, The Case Against Israel. “In practise, wiping out a powerful state like Israel or the U.S. would cause even more suffering than letting it survive.”

The real issue here is not whether Mr. Neumann is entitled to hold those views, even if most Canadians would likely consider them unpalatable. The issue is whether MPs should legitimize those views by inviting him to express them at an event in Canada’s Parliament buildings.

Real Menard, the Bloc MP who co-chairs the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association, refused to comment when he was asked why Mr. Neumann has been invited to speak.