Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Standing with Israel through fire and water and sunny ways



This is what we look like at the United Nations General Assembly right now - one of a half dozen outliers of little red squares on the big screen voting NO on every single vote to do with Palestine.  It's the same look we've had for over a decade - standing with Israel through fire and water and now sunny ways - in the yearly UN ritual of non-binding resolutions on a humanitarian disaster that inconveniently implicates Israel.

The other NO voters are always Israel, the US and their coalition of the willing islands where the US has military bases, and occasionally Australia. We do not choose to abstain from voting, as some of the other 193 member nations do when they object to some part of the language of a resolution being biased or too critical of Israel; we just vote NO to all of it. 

Last Tuesday we voted against this one, sponsored by South Africa, calling for Palestine's right to sovereignty over her own natural resources :

December 22 2015 - Resolution 70/225 :
“Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources”   (document A/70/480) excerpted :
"Deploring the detrimental impact of the Israeli settlements on Palestinian and other Arab natural resources, especially as a result of the confiscation of land and the forced diversion of water resources, including the destruction of orchards and crops and the seizure of water wells by Israeli settlers.... Further calls upon Israel to cease its destruction of vital infrastructure, including water pipelines, sewage networks and electricity networks" 
  • 164 in favour
  • 5 against, (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, United States)
  • 10 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga, Vanuatu).
Here's another dozen Canadian NO votes on Palestinian issues from the last month :

December 17 2015 
Resolution 70/441 : The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination 
  • 177 in favour
  • 7 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States)
  • 4 abstentions (Cameroon, Honduras, Tonga, South Sudan).
December 10 2015
Resolution 70/108 : Assistance to the Palestinian people -introduced by Luxembourg on behalf of the EU and yet to be voted on.
A representative of the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine noted the World Bank had recently assessed the economy of Gaza to be “on the verge of collapse” and more than 100,000 Palestinian civilians remained displaced after 2014"

Israel responded that it "made continuous efforts to improve the well-being of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip" and blamed the Palestinian Authority for "evading its responsibilities regarding governance in Gaza".
  • 158 in favour
  • 8 against (Australia, Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States) 
  • 10 abstentions (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Honduras, Liberia, Malawi, Paraguay, Togo, Vanuatu)
"by which it condemned Israel’s continuing settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as violations of international humanitarian law" 
  • 161 in favour
  • 7 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States)
  • 8 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Honduras, Paraguay, Togo, Vanuatu) 

"The Assembly reaffirmed the Geneva Convention’s applicability, and further demanded that Israel accept the Convention’s de jure applicability in those territories"
  • 163 votes in favour
  • 6 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, United States)
  • 8 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Paraguay, Togo, Vanuatu)
Resolution 70/87 : Work of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories 
  • 158 in favour
  • 8 against (Australia, Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States) 
  • 10 abstentions (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Honduras, Liberia, Malawi, Paraguay, Togo, Vanuatu)
Resolution 70/86 : Palestine refugees' properties and their revenues
"By its terms, the Assembly reaffirmed that Palestine refugees were entitled to their property and to the income derived therefrom"  
  • 167 in favour
  • 7 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States)
  • 4 abstentions (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Paraguay, Vanuatu)

  • 169 votes in favour 
  • 6 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, United States)
  • 5 abstentions (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Nauru, Paraguay, Vanuatu)
Persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 and subsequent hostilities
  • 164 in favour 
  • 7 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States) 
  • 7 abstentions (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Honduras, Liberia, Paraguay)

"the continuing detrimental impact of ongoing unlawful Israeli practices and measures in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, such as excessive use of force by Israeli occupying troops against Palestinian civilians" 
  • 92 in favour
  • 9 against (Australia, Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Panama, United States)
  • 75 abstentions

November 24 2015 
Resolution 70/15 Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine excerpted :
"The Assembly reaffirmed the need to achieve a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine. It called for the intensification of efforts by the parties, including through negotiations, with the support of the international community, towards the conclusion of a final peace settlement, as well as urging renewed international efforts to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace, based on the relevant United Nations resolutions; the terms of reference of the Madrid Conference, including the principle of land for peace; the Arab Peace Initiative adopted by the Council of the League of Arab States at its fourteenth session; the Quartet road map to a permanent two-State solution to the conflict; and existing agreements between the Israeli and Palestinian sides."
  • 155 in favour 
  • 7 against (Australia, Canada, Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States) 
  • 7 abstentions (Cameroon, Honduras, Nauru, Paraguay, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga).
Resolution 70/14 : Special information programme on the question of Palestine 
  • 155 in favour 
  • 7 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, United States)
  • 7 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Tonga)
Resolution 70/13 : Division for Palestinian Rights 
  • 99 in favour 
  • 8 against (Australia, Canada, Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, United States)
  • 59 abstentions
  • 102 in favour
  • 8 against (Australia, Canada, Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, United States)
  • 57 abstentions
General Assembly of the UN Resolutions for November and December 2015

Sunny ways.


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7 comments:

Kev said...

Great work as always Alison

Sadly this is entirely unsurprising, it may be the only issue where all the party leaders are in agreement

Adam's Dad said...

So, given the Machiavillianism that flows through the minds of the objectors, remind me again just what psychological factors triggered the Holocaust. Could it possibly be a genetic replacate or learned behavior reinforced by a feeding frenzy of greed?

Adam's Dad said...

So, given the Machiavillianism that flows through the minds of the objectors, remind me again just what psychological factors triggered the Holocaust. Could it possibly be a genetic replacate or learned behavior reinforced by a feeding frenzy of greed?

e.a.f. said...

and Saudi Arabia executed 47 people today. so what is the difference between the two countries? At least in Israel women get to vote and don't get killed for having affairs. Lets not get too picky about Israel. we have a shit load of injustice in Canada. Oh, right Saudi Arabia is on the U.N.s. Human Rights committee or some such thing. When are you going to get around to that little subject, of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, the U.S.A, and a whole lot of other countries.

Just because Israel was created because of the west's collective guilty feelings regarding the Holocaust, we ought not to hold Israel to a higher standard than we do other countries. The U.N. created Israel because Jews wanted their own country. The world was willing to give it to them, because they knew, had they not denied the Jewish refugees access to Canada, U.S.A., Britain and france had behaved a little better during the war, the Holocaust would not have been as bad as it was. Now when you think about it how did you think Israel was going to turn out? Then you add in guys like the current P.M. and you have a problem.

Have a look at Mexico and their murders. its all relative, but its so much more fun to hold Israel to a higher standard and it works for those anti Jewish types who don't really want to come out of the closet. Some do remember the Holocaust, how it started and how it ended.

Alison said...

Hi e.a.f. I only write about Canadian politics here on Creekside, and specifically those issues or events which the Canadian professional media have missed entirely or have in my opinion neglected to connect the relevant dots about. So there will be no posts about human rights violations in Mexico or the USA or Saudi Arabia as you suggest, and about which there is hardly a dearth of other Canadians blogging -- although if promedia coverage declines to mention Canada's $15B LAV contract with Saudi Arabia which is currently using tanks to quell internal protests about today's executions, I might cobble the obvious together.

This post, in case you missed it, was about Canada's votes on Palestine at the UN in the past month and as Kev notes above, all three Canadian parties are in agreement here. Rather than hold Israel to a higher standard, as you mention twice, they appear reluctant to hold Israel to any standards at all.

Anonymous said...

The continually increasing Israeli settlements violating the Geneva Convention have now made a two state solution all but impossible, so short of completely wiping out the Palestinians, Israel has made the dream of a Jewish state impossible.

The Mound of Sound said...


"all three Canadian parties are in agreement here" - fair enough but there is a fourth option, one that recalls what Canada once stood for when we could hold our heads high.

What in hell have we allowed ourselves to become?

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