Canada must conduct an ethical foreign policy

John Volpe, Canada's Human Resources Minister, is nagged by the feeling that Canadians are just not literate enough. That explains why, last October, he announced a $250 million campaign to improve literacy levels among Canadians.

It may also explain why Volpe invoked “Canadian values” to justify Canada's recent vote at the UN General Assembly against a resolution that called on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian occupied territories. After all, how many Canadians can be expected to read the resolution?

Certainly Volpe didn't claim that “Canadian values” meant supporting the military occupation of three million Palestinians. Canada's vote, according to Volpe, shows the opposite. By voting alongside (listed here in alphabetical order) Australia, Israel, the Marshall Island, Micronesia, and the U.S., Canada stood up for the values of “rule of law, freedom, and human rights.”

These, Volpe averred, are the “Canadian values” that we share with Israel.

Ah yes, “Canadian values.” That should end the discussion, shouldn't it? The resolution called on Israel to respect the rule of international law, allow Palestinians their freedom, and end systematic human rights abuses, by ending the occupation. But Volpe has invoked “Canadian values” in defense of Canada's vote. Move on, pedestrians.

Turn to The Globe and Mail, surely a flagship for some of this country's finest writers. Shira Herzog, writing in The Globe, asks: why the fuss? The resolution that Canada voted against was the latest in a series of “blatantly anti-Israel resolutions.” It is about time Canada voted against an “anti-Israel” resolution.

Has Herzog read the resolution? Where did she read that the resolution was “anti-Israel”? The Jerusalem Post, a house organ of the Israeli right, reported that the resolution “[condemned] the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza.”

So that's an “anti-Israel” resolution. Volpe wants his literacy campaign to produce a “more literate work force.” How about we start with encouraging literacy among columnists.

And it wouldn't be a bad idea to encourage a more honest government. If, under Paul Martin's leadership, the Canadian government has taken to behaving like an American protectorate when it comes to foreign policy, then they should just say it. They can quote Henry Kissinger's famous maxim: “States have interests, not principles.” Canada's best interest, Paul Martin can timorously say, lies in going with the U.S. on this one.

He can explain that, faced with four more years of an American administration that displays a strong dislike of the United Nations, and even NATO, resistance is, well, a little too taxing. The U.S. has always looked jealously on any interference in the Middle East, which it considers a vital strategic region.

That includes interference in the Israel/Palestine conflict. For the U.S., the worst interference historically has come from the United Nations, especially the General Assembly. Last year, the GA asked the International Court of Justice to deliberate on the legality of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank. White House spokesman Richard Boucher condemned that as “inappropriate,” as if the ICJ was caught napping in the front seat of a bus reserved for the U.S.

At the time, Canada's position was that the barrier raised “serious matters of international law,” and that it had “a highly prejudicial impactâe¦on the already flagging prospects for peace.” No matter. Canada opposed taking the issue to the ICJ. Bill Graham said: “it's not time for the court to take this as a legal question.” Which is to say: not now, not when Boucher is calling this “inappropriate.”

What is appropriate for the Canadian government is to conduct an ethical foreign policy, one that does, in fact, accord with the values of freedom and human rights and the rule of law.

That's not what Canada is encouraging in the occupied territories. Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza for over 37 years, contravening several binding UN Security Council Resolutions. In the last decade, during the peace process, Israel doubled the population of settlers in the occupied West Bank, again in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

To be fair, in their battle against the Israeli occupation, Palestinian groups have targeted Israeli civilians, consistently, over the past four years. This without doubt constitutes a war crime.

But there is not one Palestinian group that has targeted civilians that is not outlawed as a terrorist group by the Canadian government.

Meanwhile, Israel, one of Canada's closest allies, has been strongly denounced by human rights groups for collectively punishing Palestinian civilians, for torturing Palestinian detainees, and for the killings of over two thousand non-combatant civilians.

One reason why Canada outlawed the Palestinian groups that target civilians is to discourage terrorism. But what has it done to discourage Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, or the Israeli army's systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians?

Can this government, in all seriousness, claim that siding with Israel and the U.S. in voting against a resolution that called for an end to the occupation, will somehow bring an end to the occupation and usher in peace? To claim this involves such accumulated absurdity as, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, nothing but base appeals to “our values” could palliate.

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