Will Canada’s Position on Israel-Palestine Change?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

Canada recognized the State of Israel upon its founding in 1948, and the two countries established formal diplomatic relations on May 11, 1949. Canada and Israel have developed an exceptional bilateral relationship based on mutual cooperation in a number of key strategic areas.

They have close political, economic, social and cultural ties. Support for Israel, especially its right to live in peace and security with its neighbours, has been at the core of Canada’s Middle East policy since 1948.

But Canada also recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.

Canada enjoys positive relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governmental entity in the West Bank and Gaza. In accordance with the 1993 Oslo Accords, Canada’s representative office in Ramallah has responsibility for managing the Government of Canada’s relationship with the PA.

The Palestinian General Delegation, which opened in Ottawa in 1995, represents Palestinian interests in Canada. But Canada has listed Hamas as a terrorist organization pursuant to the Canadian Criminal Code. The Government of Canada has no contact with Hamas.

Traditionally, Canada has been one of Israel’s most stalwart allies on the international stage, often voting against one-sided resolutions targeting the Jewish state. But Israel’s recent election has brought Benjamin Netanyahu back to power, leading to the most right-wing coalition in the country’s history. In exchange for their support, the three ultra-conservative parties who have allied themselves with Netanyahu’s Likud have demanded a harder line on relations with the Palestinians.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a lawmaker known for his extreme views, has the job of Minister of National Security, a position that will put him in charge of Israel’s national police force. This includes the paramilitary border police, a unit on the front lines of the fighting with Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. The rise of this radical right will damage the image of Israel as an open, tolerant society.

So far, Canada’s votes at the UN in support of Israel has aligned it with a very small group of like-minded countries, while most of Canada’s allies lined up on the other side. That’s because “Canada opposes initiatives at the United Nations and in other multilateral forums that unfairly single out Israel for criticism,” Global Affairs spokesperson Grantly Franklin told CBC News. “Canada rejects one-sided resolutions at such forums that seek to politicize such issues.”

Allies such as Australia and Germany have shifted their voting patterns in recent years away from Israel. That trend may accelerate now that the new Israeli government may pursue actions such as building more settlements or changing the status quo around access to holy sites in Jerusalem.

Already December 2020, Canada had voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution that supported Palestinian self-determination while denouncing Israel’s presence in Jerusalem, characterizing it as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The resolution, co-sponsored by North Korea, also condemned Israel’s security barrier by claiming it “severely impedes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

The vote passed 167-5 with 11 abstentions.  Canada’s vote went against its own record over two decades in opposing the annual targeting of Israel through 20 one-sided resolutions, according to the Geneva-based U.N. Watch.

It seems many of Canada’s diplomats, with their “anti-settler” ideology, don’t look too kindly on the Jewish state, according to documents released this past September via Access to Information legislation and obtained by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), a pro-Palestinian group. The released documents cover the period leading up to Canada’s 2019 decision to resume its support for Palestinian self-determination at the UN.

In this report, CJPME looked at how Canadian officials really view Canada’s UN voting record and urges Canada to support all resolutions which aim to uphold Palestinian human rights. Many of Canada’s career foreign affairs officials maintain that too-uncritical support of Israel contradicts its own values and interests and harms its international reputation.

The released documents include a memo from Global Affairs Canada officials which recommends that Canada end its uniformly pro-Israel approach at the UN. In that memo, officials admit that Canada has been voting against UN resolutions on Palestinian rights “without considering the specific merits of each resolution,” and “despite their alignment with Canadian values, interests, and standard positions.”

The memo identified several votes on Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, and Palestinian refugees, that would likely change if Canada didn’t automatically oppose such motions as a package.

Officials also described Canada’s pro-Israel voting record as a liability to its international reputation, noting that it has “has set us apart from like-minded countries” and attracts criticism from UN member states. Canada’s representatives to the UN in New York, as well as officials working on UN Security Council issues, had been pushing for Canada to adopt an entirely “merit-based approach” to resolutions on this issue, which would have resulted in more votes in support of Palestinians.

With the incoming Israeli government, the international campaign against Israel, which seeks to criminalize the country, will become more energized. This will certainly have an impact on Canadian-Israeli relations and could put further strain on the Trudeau government’s diplomatic position. There’s a rocky road ahead.

 

Violence Remains a Problem in Mexico

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Mexico’s homicide rate has tripled since 2006, when an intensification of the government’s war on drug cartels triggered a spiral of violence. It went from 9.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants to 28 in 2021.

The number of people going missing has also increased sharply, and now totals 108,000 since record keeping began in 1964.

The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances estimates that, under current conditions, it would take 120 years to process the 52,000 unidentified bodies documented by the Movement for Our Disappeared (MND), a non-governmental organization.

'PAIN AND CRUELTY'

An average of 17 “atrocities” were reported each day in news outlets in Mexico during the first six months of 2022, up 18 per cent from the same period last year, according to a report released in September by Common Causes (Causa en Comun), another non-governmental organization.

It defined atrocities as the intentional use of force to severely abuse, maim, kill or provoke terror, and counted 5,463 victims from 3,123 events reported in 2,657 news articles in newspapers that sensationalize violent criminal behaviour.

Media reports of “highimpact” violence by criminal groups against authorities or large crowds rose 756 per cent, from 25 to 214. Although the problem of organized crime dominates public debate, the study noted that a large part of the violence was perpetrated by individuals, families and communities.

“This work points to an accumulation of stories that present a mosaic of pain and cruelty, hidden behind crime statistics,” the organization said in a statement. The study underlined the severity and number of atrocities recorded every day.

WOMEN AND GIRLS

In the first half of 2022, the study found the number of reports of torture doubled to 856, while those of murdering women using “extreme cruelty” rose 87 per cent to 410.

Another survey reported that violence against women and girls has increased over the last five years, with seven in 10 of them reported experiencing some form of violence.

“Violence against women continues to be a challenge in the country and constitutes a public health problem,” the president of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), Graciela Marquez, told a news conference Aug. 30.

Mexico’s soaring rate of femicide — the killing of women and girls because of their gender — has sparked waves of protests. On average, some 10 women are killed every day and tens of thousands are missing.

INEGI estimated that more than 70 per cent of 50.5 million women and girls aged over 15 have experienced violence, up four percentage points from the last time it ran the survey in 2016.

Reports of sexual violence increased the most, up eight percentage points to reach half of all women surveyed, 23 per cent of whom said they had experienced this in the last 12 months.

Nearly 35 per cent reported being a victim of physical aggression during their lives, up from 34 per cent in 2016, while 52 per cent said they had experienced psychological abuse, up from 49 per cent. Younger, single women living in cities and with higher levels of education were more likely to report being victims of violence.

The vast majority of women who experienced physical or sexual violence did not formally report their attacker or seek help from a public institution, according to INEGI.

Only in terms of “economic” violence, which includes workplace discrimination and withholding of personal property, did the study see improvement, down from 29 per cent to 27 per cent in the latest study.

Only in the southern state of Chiapas did less than half of the women surveyed report experiencing violence, at 49 per cent, while Mexico City and the surrounding State of Mexico had the highest number, averaging 77 per cent of women there.

All told, overall reports of violence increased in every state in Mexico, but were concentrated in the Pacific coastal state Baja California, where they nearly tripled, as well as in the central states of Guanajuato and Michoacan.

Not even journalists are spared. At least 36 have been murdered since Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador was sworn in as president in December 2019. Mexico is experiencing the deadliest year for the media in its history this year.

So far, eleven journalists have been killed this year, four more than in 2021. In most cases, the deaths are linked to investigations into drug trafficking, political corruption, and organized crime, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

All of this has led to efforts to restructure the country’s security forces. In early September Mexico’s Congress passed a bill to bring the civilian-led National Guard under army control — though critics claimed it would militarize law and order.

 

 

Peru Keeps Lurching from Crisis to Crisis

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

On Dec. 7, facing yet another impeachment vote by Peru’s Congress, his third in 18 months, President Pedro Castillo moved to pre-empt his likely ouster by announcing plans to dissolve the legislature and call elections for a new one. He indicated he would rule by decree until then.

While two previous attempts had failed, Castillo must have feared this third motion had the potential to unseat him. So he took this drastic step in the hope that Peruvians would prefer his government of emergency to the elected, but divided, Congress. In his televised address, he declared that “we have decided to establish an exceptional government aimed at re-establishing the rule of law and democracy.”

But Peru’s Congress, controlled by Castillo’s opponents, defied him and voted overwhelmingly -- 101 legislators to six, with 10 abstentions -- to remove him from office for “permanent moral incapacity.” Pressure on him had been building as he and members of his family came under investigation for alleged fraud and influence peddling.

Several ministers resigned within minutes. Neither the police nor the armed forces backed Castillo’s autocratic gambit and his bodyguards stopped him from seeking refuge at the Mexican embassy. Castillo was arrested and judges have ruled that he be held in preventive detention for 18 months pending trial on charges of rebellion and conspiracy. He faces at least 10 years in prison.

His own vice president, Dina Boluarte, called it an attempted coup. Now in charge, she urged Peruvians to come together to allow her to fight corruption. None of this is surprising -- in fact it has become routine. Peru has had six presidents in the last five years.

Most Peruvians blame the country’s political woes on Congress, seen as corrupt and self-serving. However, the push for an early presidential election, previously blocked by both far-left and far-right lawmakers, has now been approved by Congress. It will be held next December.

Supporters of Castillo took to the streets in anger. Demonstrators invaded the international airport in Arequipa, a gateway to Peru’s tourist attractions. Visitors from around the world have been left stranded in the ancient city of Machu Picchu.

 In nearby Ayacucho, soldiers used firearms as protesters threw stones and stormed the airport. Defence Minister Luis Otarola Penaranda declared a 30-day state of emergency on Dec. 14.

Both cities are in the Andean region, which was at the epicentre of the decades-long brutal conflict with the Shining Path rebel group, in which some 70,000 people were killed.

A teacher and union militant, Castillo became nationally known for leading a months-long 2017 teachers’ strike. A self-defined Marxist, Castillo promised to change the country’s neoliberal economic model for what he called a “popular economy with markets,” with pledges to redistribute huge copper riches by nationalizing strategic sectors such as mining.

Castillo’s rural, working-class background was unprecedented in Peruvian politics, dominated by a Lima-based Spanish-descended oligarchy, and it raised hopes that he would run an administration focused on improving the lives of the poor.

But he careened from one crisis to the next. With little political experience and facing a hostile Congress, the 53-year-old president quickly appeared out of his depth. He surrounded himself with a group of very questionable “advisors” who finally became recognized for their ineptitude and corruption.

His cabinet underwent constant change: Castillo has seen five prime ministers come and go. So it all finally came to a head. We need only look at what preceded Castillo’s demise by revisiting his narrow win in last year’s election.

With nineteen candidates competing for the presidency April 11, 2021, Castillo came in first with just 18.9 per cent of the vote. The runner-up, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori, followed, with 13.4 per cent. The June 6 runoff between them was so tight that Castillo won it with just 50.13 per cent to runner-up Fujimori’s 49.8.

Peru is a highly polarized state, economically and ethnically, and Castillo had his strongest support in the Andean highlands, largely populated by Indigenous peoples such as the Aymaras and Quechuas.

He had far less backing in the capital, Lima. Fujimori carried the city, which accounts for about 30 per cent of the national population, along with five coastal electoral districts.

The current crisis has capped the most turbulent era in Peruvian political history since authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori, Keiko’s father, resigned and fled to Japan in November 2000. In 1992, the Peruvian Army had helped then-President Fujimori successfully carry out an autogolpe (“self-coup”) enabling him to rule as a dictator for eight years.

Fujimori maintained a self-imposed exile until his arrest while visiting Chile in November 2005. He was extradited in September 2007 and was convicted of human rights violations. Sentenced to 25 years imprisonment, he was pardoned in 2017.

Castillo’s own setbacks came as Peru is in economic trouble. The United Nations warned last month that Peru has the highest rate of food insecurity in South America, with half the population lacking regular access to sufficient nutrition.

Latin America is split on the question of just who the legitimate president in Peru is. While six countries back the new Boluarte government, eight support Castillo. In any case, Castillo’s removal continues the seemingly endless and convoluted instability in Peruvian politics.