Jewish organizations and human rights watchdog slam Canada as it “joined the jackals at the UN” on anti-Israel resolution.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
Canada’s UN delegation voted in favor of an anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations, sparking condemnation from major Jewish organizations and human rights groups.
Every year, the UN General Assembly votes on the same basket of 16 resolutions, titled “The Question of Palestine.” Last year, Canada reversed its established position of opposing the resolutions that are heavily biased against Israel, and the minority government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ignored calls to return to what major Jewish groups called “principled” voting at UN.
The Canadian delegation voted this week in favor of a resolution on “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” after major organizations pointed out that the UN fails to affirm the right of the Jewish people to self-determination.
“In its Explanation of Vote, Canada detailed the many shortcomings of this resolution, and the unfair targeting of Israel – yet Canada then proceeded to vote in favor of the text,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn said in a press release. “That decision is not only contradictory, it flies in the face of Canada’s principled opposition to other resolutions in the unbalanced Question of Palestine basket of resolutions that are tabled annually at the UN General Assembly. We must ask ourselves: Does support for this resolution bring us any closer to a durable and sustaining peace?”
A key organization that monitors abuse of power at the United Nations noted that the anti-Israel resolution was co-sponsored by three countries with the worst records of human rights abuses against their own peoples.
“Canada’s Justin Trudeau government just joined the jackals at the UN. by voting for a one-sided resolution singling out Israel, co-sponsored by Syria, Venezuela & North Korea. There will be 17 resolutions this year on Israel—and seven on the rest of the world combined,” tweeted Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the international human rights group UN Watch.
The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), a leading umbrella group of Jewish organization in Canada, and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) joined in condemnation of the vote, which the groups said in a joint press release was “intentionally erasing historical Jewish connections to Jerusalem – including the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.”
“The Government of Canada has now doubled-down on its incomprehensible support for a resolution that simply expands the anti-Israel narrative within the United Nations system – an aberration in the voting pattern established and re-affirmed by successive Canadian governments for almost two decades until the Liberal government changed its vote last year,” said CIJA head Shimon Koffler Fogel.
“Notwithstanding other praiseworthy initiatives, including the Security Infrastructure Program and the renewal and expansion of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, this vote will undermine the Jewish community’s confidence in this government – its willingness to stand by its principles as they relate to Israel, as well as its relationship with the Jewish community here in Canada,” Koffler Fogel said.