[R-G] Globe & Mail Editors Laud Canada's Pro-Israel Stance

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090113.EISRAEL13/TPStory/Comment

UN VOTE ON GAZA
Selective on rights

January 13, 2009

In a world of cruelty and barbarism, the United Nations Human Rights  
Council and its predecessor organization have long opted to make one  
small democracy, Israel, their major obsession. On Monday the council  
lived up to its reputation for bias with its overwrought condemnation  
of Israel's "grave violations" in Gaza while soft-pedalling the role  
of Hamas in precipitating the crisis with rocket attacks on Israeli  
civilians.

Canada was the only one of the 47 member countries to vote against the  
unbalanced resolution. Canada's was a diplomatically brave, and  
correct vote, at odds with the abstentions of other Western countries  
that were unwilling to defend outright the principle of fairness, to  
say nothing of the role of the Arab, African, Asian and Latin American  
countries, including such human-rights abusers as China, Cuba and  
Saudi Arabia (all, shamefully, members of the council) in singling out  
Israel for condemnation.

The UN Human Rights Council could have fulfilled its global  
responsibility for the protection of human rights and played a  
meaningful role in efforts to end the fighting in Gaza. It could have  
demanded all parties in the conflict immediately cease unlawful  
attacks against civilians in Gaza who have been caught up in the  
fighting, both victims of attacks by the Israeli Defence Forces and  
victims of Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups that use civilians  
as human shields. It could have given serious attention to the rocket  
attacks that have terrorized Israeli civilians not just in recent  
weeks but for years. Instead, the council discredited its important  
mandate by picking and choosing whose human rights to protect.

True to its partiality, the council then established an independent  
investigation of - using its words - "all violations of international  
human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying  
power against the Palestinian people." This investigation too, then,  
like the main resolution, is tainted, its mandate limited to Israeli  
violations, while Hamas terrorists are off the hook, free to kill again.

Monday's vote by the United Nations Human Rights Council is unworthy  
of its noble mandate to strengthen the promotion and protection of  
human rights, and Canada was right to oppose it.