Canada at the weekend decided to drop out of the race for a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council after the last round of voting the General Assembly put it in last place among the contenders. Canadian media believes its support of Israel is the reason for the snub.Canada has long held a non-permanent seat at the Security Council. But with current Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s consistent support for the Jewish State at the world body, the Muslim-dominated non-aligned movement of nations, which are a majority at the UN, had started to turn on Canada.
Toronto Sun columnist Peter Worthington wrote on Sunday that “Canada’s vigorous, unqualified support for Israel under Harper worked against us at the UN, which regularly condemns Israel for policies it ignores in other countries.”
Worthington decried the hypocrisy that rules the UN, noting that “while the UN regularly votes in favor of human rights, roughly half of the 192 member states abuse human rights in some form in their own countries.”
He concluded by condemning the UN as an institution that long ago abandoned its position as a credible and objective broker and protector of peace and human rights, and wondered “why decent countries still pay attention to it.”
Countries that did make it onto the Security Council included Lebanon, which with Hizballah’s growing power and influence is basically a satellite of Iran; Brazil, which has aligned itself with Iran in its defiant nuclear arms race; and Portugal, which is on the cusps of an economic meltdown.
Canada is fast learning what most Israelis have known for a long time - that economic and political stability, a true dedication to human rights and decency and an actual contribution to life in general mean nothing at the United Nations.
