The co-chair of Michael Ignatieff's Toronto campaign has quit over an accusation by the Liberal leadership hopeful that Israel committed a war crime this summer.

"Michael is an intelligent person and I would think that he would have a better handle on the Middle East given his years of experience on human rights and international law,'' Susan Kadis said Wednesday in a written statement.

The MP for Thornhill said she found Ignatieff's comments "troubling," given that Israel was defending itself in its conflict with Hezbollah.

In an interview broadcast Sunday on Quebec talk show "Tout le monde en parle", the Liberal leadership frontrunner apologized for telling the Toronto Star in August that he was "not losing sleep" over an Israeli air strike that killed dozens of Lebanese civilians in the village of Qana on July 30.

"I showed a lack of compassion. It was a mistake and when you make a mistake like that, you have to admit it," he said in French.

"I was a professor of human rights, and I am also a professor of the laws of war, and what happened in Qana was a war crime, and I should have said that."

Jewish leaders, who learned of the interview on Tuesday, reacted angrily to Ignatieff's choice of words. They are calling for a retraction.

"I'm concerned that somebody who claims expertise in this particular area would characterize events there as war crimes," Shimon Fogel, chief executive of the Canada-Israel Committee, told CTV.ca on Wednesday.

"He ought to know better and I'm sure he does. So it raises questions about what his motivation was and what his real agenda in going on record in that way is."

Ignatieff was in damage control mode on Wednesday, spreading the blame to both sides in the conflict.

"I've been a friend of Israel, but I'm a critical friend of Israel's," he told reporters in Toronto. "War crimes were visited on Israeli civilians, they were visited on Lebanese civilians."

Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada, said he believes Ignatieff's statement was meant to target Quebec voters.

Nationwide polls in the summer showed support for Israel's actions in Lebanon fell dramatically in Quebec, where nearly 60 per cent said the Israeli response was "not at all justified."

"It was a very regrettable statement that obviously was meant for internal Liberal politicking," Dimant told CTV.ca, "and it was specifically addressed to a francophone audience where I think he felt he could perhaps get more sympathy for an outrageous claim that has no validity."

Ignatieff admitted in August that he made a "mistake" in his comments to the Star; and since then transcripts of his interview shows that he prefaced those comments by calling the Qana bombing a "tragedy" for the Lebanese people.

But the interview in Quebec on Sunday marks the first time he has characterized Israel's actions as a war crime.

"One can say it was a tragedy without talking about it being a war crime -- there is a fundamental difference," said Dimant.

A spokesperson for Ignatieff's camp is quoted in a report Wednesday saying the Liberal candidate is not retracting the use of the term "war crime," and that the term was his way of describing a tragic consequence of war -- not a pronouncement relating to international law.

Other controversies

Ignatieff isn't the first politician to spark controversy with statements on the Middle East conflict.

Toronto Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj was forced to resign from his post as foreign affairs critic after he accused Israel's summer offensive against Lebanon as being nothing less than "state terrorism."

In August, Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Mourani backtracked from accusing Israel of committing war crimes during its assault on Hezbollah. In an interview with Le Devoir on Aug. 30, Mourani said she was troubled by the destruction she saw during a visit to Lebanon.

"It's clear to me, what I saw, what Amnesty International saw, what (United Nations high commissioner for human rights) Louise Arbour saw, is that there were war crimes in Lebanon," she is quoted as saying. When asked who committed these war crimes, she responded "the Israelis."

Mourani issued a statement the next day saying: "It's up to the duly mandated international authorities to define what constitutes a war crime and to describe one or the other of the parties involved a war criminal in an armed conflict."

Under international law, a war crime is an offence in violation of international treaties, for which criminal liability is imposed by a domestic or international tribunal.

Fogel said his organization has also registered concerns about comments and actions by organizers in Ignatieff's Quebec camp, including Denis Coderre, who attended an August pro-Lebanon march in Montreal, where some people were seen carrying the flag of the militant Hezbollah.

A clarification, said Fogel, would "go a long way towards providing clarity on his position. And I would hope that he takes advantage of that opportunity fairly quickly so that people can focus on other issues of the leadership campaign in the Liberal party and the issues on the public agenda."

Ignatieff's comments in August sparked outrage by Islamic groups in Canada, including the Canadian Islamic Congress and the Muslim Canadian Congress, which demanded the Liberal leadership hopeful apologize to all Lebanese.

Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said he was heartened by Ignatieff's description of Israel's actions as a "war crime."

Ignatieff so far has the support of nearly 30 per cent of delegates in the battle for the Liberal leadership, with the less than two months to go before the Nov. 28-Dec. 3 Liberal convention in Montreal. Results from earlier this month had Ignatieff in first place, followed by Bob Rae (19.8 per cent), Gerard Kennedy (16.9 per cent) and Stephane Dion (16.6 per cent).

With files from The Canadian Press