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Outrage misplaced over Canada’s UN Palestine vote

As published in the Hill Times: December 4, 2019.

Canada's recent UN vote in favour of Palestinian self-determination scandalized “conservative” pundits who consider this minor gesture a massive betrayal of the Israeli state. Some have parsed Canada’s reference to international law on Israel’s settlement of conquered Palestinian territory by offering a flimsy Straw Man: the Trudeau government’s timid stance on China. This is like a trial lawyer highlighting the worse crimes of other offenders to minimize his client’s guilt. Unfortunately, this ploy sometimes works.

Such a stance is made possible only by ignoring Middle East before 1967. Certain older facts undermine the stated remarks of widely-read columnists in Canada’s larger publications. For example:
The European Zionists who founded Israeli began their planning in the 1880s and ignored the contradictory opinions and warnings of Judaic religious scholars on the viability of their secular scheme to eventually dominate all of Palestine. Current plans to illegal annex the West Bank obviously have a long history.

As violent as Hamas might be, the conditions for founding the Israeli state were facilitated by 1930s Jewish terrorism directed at the British, Palestinian Arabs and any Jews who were less than enthusiastic about Zionism. A number of leading terrorist commanders avoided prosecution and later became Israeli prime ministers.

The Israeli state as it exists is not a truly-independent nation but a protectorate of the colonial-era type. Only massive U.S. military, economic and diplomatic support allows Israel to behave with its current impunity. That said, American fears about Israel’s large nuclear arsenal remain a factor in its willingness to coddle the Middle East’s mini-super power.

Finally, the current tensions were avoidable since the 1967 Israeli cabinet was strongly advised by senior military officers to deal fairly with the Palestinians and obey international law. Obviously, they chose a different path and thousands have been needlessly killed and maimed since this decision.