Why Canada’s vote on Palestine at the UN matters

Canada’s vote in favour of a draft resolution at the UN General Assembly on the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination has generated significant commentary. It did not take long for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reaffirm Canada’s friendship with Israel, and that the vote was not a shift in Canada’s foreign policy. While many Canadians welcomed the change, the vote has somewhat overshadowed the fact that, for the past eight years, Canada has voted against most resolutions relating to the political struggle over Palestine/Israel, and since the Nov. 19 vote, Canada has voted against other related resolutions in support of Israel. Many of the resolutions on Palestine/Israel are more than five decades old. The resolution on assistance to Palestine refugees goes back 70 years. Some are updated annually and others on an occasional basis. That the long-running political struggle remains unresolved explains in part their adoption year after year. The assembly is generally unwilling to remove an item that a member wants to keep on the agenda. In the case of South Africa, for example, members adopted resolutions almost every year until the apartheid regime was dismantled. Of the thousands of resolutions adopted since the General Assembly came into being after the Second World War, most are non-binding. This seems to beg the question about whether its resolutions have any importance at all. Agreed upon through deliberation and debate, resolutions often set parameters of legitimate (and illegitimate) political behaviour. Some resolutions elaborate principles for resolving conflicts. This might include binding legal obligations like the right to self-determination. Still, other resolutions may contribute to the development of international law. The drafting, adoption, and dissemination of assembly resolutions over many decades arguably helped to bring about an end to apartheid. That the struggle over Palestine/Israel continues in the face of hundreds of resolutions is a reminder that there are other factors at play. The South African case also illustrates why the state of Israel has consistently abstained or voted against resolutions which threaten to restrain its freedom of action. It is also why Canada should rethink its recent voting behaviour in the General Assembly. The Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, withdraw funding from United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which assists and protects Palestinian refugees along with its reversal of long-standing policy on the illegality of Jewish colonies in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is an attempt to determine the outcome of the struggle based on the imbalance of power. The government of Israel has welcomed these moves. By removing these issues from the agenda agreed to with the Palestinians, the Israelis, and the Americans have effectively rejected the idea of a negotiated solution. This contradicts long-standing Canadian policy on how to resolve the struggle over Palestine/Israel. It is also at odds with Canada’s emphasis on multilateralism and a rules-based international order. Canada can do better. Reassessing criteria for how it votes seems like a good place to start. Subjective and undefined terms like “fair-mindedness” offer little in terms of transparency and accountability. Concerns that resolutions are “one-sided” should be examined not only in light of respective international obligations, but also in relation to American and Israeli efforts to undermine and eliminate the need for negotiations. Nor does it seem helpful to suggest that current resolutions “politicize” the issues. The issues are political and require political solutions. As for the concern that the General Assembly “unfairly” singles out Israel, John Dugard, former UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Palestinian Occupied Territories, offered this response over a decade ago: “There are other regimes, particularly in the developing world, that suppress human rights, but there is no other case of a Western-affiliated regime that denies self-determination and human rights to a developing people and that has done so for so long. This explains why has become a test for the West, a test by which its commitment to human rights is to be judged. If the West fails this test, it can hardly expect the developing world to address human rights violations seriously in its own countries…”. Terry Rempel is an independent researcher on the history of the United Nations’ major resolutions on Palestine/Israel and voting behaviour of member states. Terry is a founding member of BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. The Hill Times

Why Canada’s vote on Palestine at the UN matters

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Why Canada’s vote on Palestine at the UN matters

Canada can do better. Reassessing criteria for how it votes seems like a good place to start.

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