Canada, a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, consistently voted in lock step with the Israeli position on a number of key resolutions on March 26th.
While the votes aren't enforceable - since Israel doesn't abide by International Law anyway - they remain a largely symbolic representation of the international community's discomfort with Israel's 41 year Occupation of Palestine.
The most amazing vote came with Resolution A/HRC/10/L.5 which "deplores" the recent announcement that Israel will begin the expansion of a new housing settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territory - The West Bank. These settlements are regarded by everyone familiar with this conflict as one of the KEY obstacles to any future Peace agreement. Even George Bush routinely stated that their expansion needed to stop immediately. It seems utterly inconceivable that a democratic country like Canada would vote against a resolution "deploring" their expansion.
Terry Cormier, the Canadian representative, said that Canada would vote against the resolution, unlike other countries like The United Kingdom and France, because the resolution "was not balanced and did not refer to the Palestinian obligation". I don't understand how a violation of International Law and a universally accepted obstacle to peace requires a "balanced" resolution. The Palestinians are not occupying Israeli territory, nor are they confiscating Israeli territory for their own expansion. There is no balance to the settlement issue. If there is no balance to the power dynamic between the best equipped military in the world and a stateless people with homemade rockets, I have no idea how there would be balance to this issue. Canada and it's neoconservative government is once again in bed with Israel's far right.
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