vrijdag 12 februari 2010

Israel als Schurkenstaat 2


Middle East International is a highly respected, British-founded journal, which retains its ties to the UK although now domiciled in Cyprus.


> https://www.meionline.com/index.php?section=mei_magazine&sub_section=32&issue=7
>
> Middle East International
>
> Ian Williams
>
> In January, Canada stopped contributing to the United Nations Relief and
> Works Agency (UNRWA). It is the latest in a series of decisions that have
> seen Ottawa ‘out-Israeling’ Washington. It had previously stopped funding
> KAIROS (Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives), an NGO that had been
> supporting human rights groups in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In
> each case, the government of Stephen Harper seemed to be responding to, or
> rather pandering to, rabidly pro- Israeli Jewish groups in Canada. Israel
> itself has certainly never encouraged an end to the funding of UNRWA, an
> institution that for decades has, in effect, been paying some of the bills
> for the occupation.
>
> Although camouflaged internationally by a similar drift in British and
> Australian policy, Ottawa has moved far from its own earlier positions, and
> possibly farther than either London or Canberra. Indeed, the Obama
> administration’s muted criticisms of Israeli policy sound relatively
> ferocious compared with Canada’s gestures towards the administration of
> Binyamin Netanyahu.
>
> Once upon a time, Canada was a paragon of international virtue: supportive
> of the UN and happily putting distance between itself and its southern
> neighbour on the Middle East. Then came Stephen Harper. Ottawa did not join
> the Iraq war, but that was more a function of strong Canadian public opinion
> and Harper’s parlous electoral position than any considered choice.
>
> Canada led the walk-out at the Durban conference on racism and was the first
> to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority when Hamas won the Palestinian
> parliamentary elections in 2006. It applauded Israel’s right to “defend
> itself” against Hizbullah (a “measured response”, according to Harper), and
> against Hamas in Operation Cast Lead.
>
> The move in the Conservative Party has also pulled the Liberal Party a
> significant distance from the principles of Pierre Trudeau, leaving only the
> New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois to uphold international law. Indeed,
> the first turns in policy came under the previous Liberal government,
> ironically with human rights stalwarts in its ranks like Irwin Cotler and
> Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who, in 2006, suggested correctly that
> Israel’s shelling of the UN post at Qana in southern Lebanon (in which a
> Canadian officer was killed) was a war crime.
>
> Ignatieff was criticised so strongly for his remark that he ended up
> apologising for it, and last May he commented on the Conservative bid for
> Jewish votes: “It is beyond reckless for political leaders to try to score
> points by branding one another as ‘anti-Israel’ — to try to win votes by
> claiming a monopoly on supporting Israel. My party will never claim to be
> the only genuine defenders of Israel in Canadian politics because I don’t
> want my party to be alone in the defence of Israel. I want all parties to be
> genuine defenders of Israel.”
>
> Yet why would anyone want to defend another country so uncritically, let
> alone one that had killed a Canadian soldier? How did these sincere
> defenders of human rights allow themselves an Israeli exception?
>
> It is not just the multilateralism and commitment to the UN that have been a
> cornerstone of Canadian policy since 1945, it is also the particular
> application of that policy to the Middle East. To look at the official
> Canadian Foreign Affairs website, a Likudnik might think it had been drafted
> by the PLO’s legal department. Canada does not recognise the annexation of
> East Jerusalem, considers the territories to be occupied and the settlements
> to be contrary to the Geneva Conventions. It calls the West Bank barrier
> illegal and supports the Arab peace initiative, which is, of course, based
> on the 1967 boundaries.
>
> Which leads to the basic paradox: why is Ottawa so fervent in support of an
> Israeli government that flaunts its denial of all these positions, whose
> prime minister only a week ago was declaring that the settlement in which he
> was planting a tree would always be part of Israel, and whose administration
> is evicting Palestinians from East Jerusalem and building that illegal
> barrier?
>
> If you delve into the official US State Department positions you will find a
> similar, if somewhat less explicit, exposition of and support for the
> accepted international legal position on the issues. But the gap between
> Canada’s legal position and its diplomatic gestures is amazingly wide.
>
> On one level, it is a cynical electoral ploy. Canada’s Jewish vote is small
> but concentrated in areas that include key marginal ridings
> (constituencies). By pandering to Israel, Harper hopes to dislodge enough
> votes to swing the balance. Some Canadian observers also suggest it appeals
> to the evangelical element in the Western prairie states that provides much
> of the Conservative vote.
>
> On the face of it, the strategy could backfire since there are approximately
> three times as many Canadian Muslims as Jews. Indeed, in the absence of
> adequate polling, it is possible that ‘official’ Jewish leaders, like many
> of their colleagues in the US, exaggerate the degree of support for
> Netanyahu’s Israel in their traditionally Liberal and liberal community.
>
> It is also possible that they have gone too far with defunding UNRWA.
> Penalising refugees to pander to groups of fanatics with dubious political
> support seems to have provoked a backlash from many Canadians, who want to
> know who made this decision, when and why.

1 opmerking:

AdR zei

Waar was die reactie van Sonja ook al weer over Jemen en de "onderbroekenterrorist"?

Ik geloof er niets van dat dit niet al langer in de pen zat, maar Socotra is aan de beurt. Het is niet bij te benen, ik probeer een inventarisatie van door de VS bezet gehouden eilanden te maken maar er komt bij waar je bij zit.

O ja - dat was de vraag - waarom meer dan ooit NAVO?
Ik denk dat Stan de spijker op zijn kop slaat met de diagnose dat de armen met alle en de allerhardste middelen arm gehouden dienen te worden, zeker na het lezen over Kwajalein.