canada neutrality changes

US votes against key UN motion on return of Palestinian refugees
Kaleem Omar,Tuesday March 14, 2006-- Safar 13, 1427 A.H. ISSN 1563-9479, International News

True to form, the United States on Friday voted against a UN motion asking Israel to allow all Palestinian refugee women and children to return to their homes. The South African-sponsored resolution was adopted by the UN Social and Economic Council by a vote of 41-2, with only the US and Canada voting against it.

This was the first Middle East resolution to come before a UN body since Canada’s new Conservative Party government headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper was sworn in last month.

Last year, Canada’s then Liberal Party government had abstained from voting on an identical resolution. This year, however, the Harper government openly sided with the United States in voting against the resolution.

Canada’s "No" vote suggests that the Harper government is aligning its Middle East policy more closely with the views of Israel and the United States. "It’s not a flip to go from neutrality to taking a position," Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said somewhat unconvincingly on Friday. In fact, that’s exactly what it was: a flip-flop.

"We’re very pleased with Canada’s vote," said Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Canada-Israel Committee, in an interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper. Hussein Amery, the president of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, said that unlike the Liberals, the Conservatives did not even consult Canadian Arab and Muslim groups before making such a significant policy shift.

"Now, we (Canada) sit isolated, alone with the United States, against a resolution calling on Israel to allow Palestinian displaced persons and refugees to return home. Is that the kind of image we want to project to the international community?" Amery said.

Canada, which chairs an international working group that deals with the issue of refugees, has long had a reputation as a supporter of human rights and humanitarian causes. Following Friday’s vote, however, that reputation now lies in tatters.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton is duly performing the function he was appointed for by President George W. Bush - to torpedo the United Nations. The US vote against the resolution asking Israel to allow Palestinian refugee women and children to return home, is of a piece with this, as is Bolton’s opposition to a blueprint drafted by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calling for direct election of member countries to the UN Human Rights Commission (instead of the method now used), scrutiny of members’ human rights records, and suspension of countries if they are constant violators.

Bolton has said that the UN was "not doing enough," and that the United States would vote against the restructuring. "Even human rights organisations are doubting his motives," commented Amitabh Pal in an article posted on the Common Dreams web site on Saturday.

"It’s an open question whether Bolton’s throwing all the cards up in the air is meant to improve the council or to prove that the UN can’t reform itself and therefore should be abandoned," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International, too, has joined in the criticism of the US stance. "The US administration should not jeopardise the best chance in decades to establish a more effective UN human rights body," said Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan. "This historic opportunity must not be squandered, otherwise victims of human rights abuses around the world will continue to suffer." Such criticism, however, is not stopping Bolton.

Meanwhile, a new book, "Atlas of Palestine 1948", authored by Salman H. Abu-Sitta and published by the London-based Palestine Land Society, uses detailed maps and tables and charts to provide the most accurate rendition of the Palestinian narrative of dispossession and exile at the hands of the Zionist forces in 1947-48.

"Israelis and some others challenge this narrative," notes Rami G. Khouri in an article published in Lebanon’s Daily Star on Saturday. "The facts show, however, that Palestine, during the 30 years of British rule between 1918 (the year of the Balfour Declaration) and 1948 (the year if Israel’s creation) was transformed from an overwhelmingly Arab society into a majority Jewish-Zionist-Israeli country. Palestinians see this as a deliberate Zionist strategy, often assisted by Britain."

According to other accounts, however, even as late as 1948, the population of the territory that became Israel comprised 900,000 Palestinian Arabs and only 600,000 Jews. So if a free and fair referendum supervised by the United Nations had been held at that time, the majority of voters would have voted for the territory to become a Palestinian state instead of a Jewish state.

Israel and its principal backer, the United States, make a great show today of Israel being the "only democracy" in the Middle East. But where was the principle of democracy in 1948 when the Zionist state was created? The US has long claimed that Israel has the "right to exist." Perhaps it does, but not on Palestinian land. That was the crux of the problem in 1948, and that is still the crux of the problem today.

The atrocities committed against the Jewish people during World War II were committed in Europe by Nazi Germany. So why are the Palestinian people being asked to pay the price for Germany’s sins?

In his article in the Lebanese Daily Star, Khouri writes: "Abu-Sitta has been documenting modern Palestinian history for decades, diligently gathering every credible source of evidence in order to provide answers to the simple question of how half the Palestinian population in 1947-48, over 900,000 people according to his work, found themselves refugees in exile. He also shows in great detail how and why 675 Arab population centres and villages were depopulated."

Says Khouri, "The power of this rich volume derives from its comprehensiveness and detail, drawing on Ottoman, British, Israeli, Arab and other available historical records. Documented in maps, aerial photographs and copious charts are every depopulated centre, every massacre or ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Zionist forces, land ownership records, land-use patterns, partition plans and evolving war and armistice conditions."

Khouri makes a telling point when he notes that Abu-Siita’s book "is not a record of what Palestinians have lost; it is an affirmation of that which still defines them and future generations. The collective link to the land is the source of their national legitimacy. It is documented here with startling power, and it can never be taken away from them, despite death denial, dispersal and occupation."

When Khori tracked Abu-Sitta down in Kuwait and asked him what he sought to achieve in producing his book, he replied: "My aim is both to look back and forward. I want to document what happened in those fateful 18 months around 1948, but also to show the facts on the ground that might provide the basis for future scenarios of how Israelis and Palestinians might live together, whether in one state, two states or some other arrangement. If Israelis or others are interested to know why the conflict persists today, they can review the information here, and wake up from their collective amnesia about what really happened in 1948."

The 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which was won by Israel, created a large number of Arab refugees. Estimates vary from about 520,000 (Israeli sources), to 726,000 (UN sources) to over 800,000 (Arab sources) refugees, Palestinian Arabs who fled or were forced out of their homes during the fighting.

This number has grown to include over 4.6 million displaced Palestinians today, about 3.7 million of whom are currently registered as refugees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA). Of these, somewhat over a million live in camps run by UNRWA. Generally, refugees living in the camps live in conditions of abject poverty and overcrowding. They constitute a monumental humanitarian and political problem, and no resolution of the conflict can ignore them.

The refugee problem has been at the heart of peace negotiations since 1949. Refugee camps are located in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and house somewhat over a million refugees. About 100,000 Arabs living in Israel were displaced from their own villages by force by Israeli forces.

In addition to the 1948 refugees, several hundred thousand refugees fled in the 1967 war and were not allowed by Israel to return. As part of the peace negotiations, a special committee was set up to deal with the issue, but the committee has made no progress to date.