Canada commended

Re: “Oppressive regime,” Letter, Dec. 17.

It really takes chutzpah for James Currie to accuse Israel of charges that are historically false, overlook Palestinian actions that are anti-peace, and blame Israel when Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly repeated that he is ready to negotiate without preconditions.

Canada’s principled stance to oppose the recent UN resolution elevating Palestine to observer status is justified. There is no substitute for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, no matter how many resolutions are passed by an automatic majority at the morally bankrupt UN.

It is absurd that many of those countries do not even recognize Israel and yet supported a resolution they claimed is supposed to advance a two-state solution. The other tragedy of the UN’s hypocrisy is there are no resolutions on the statehood rights of Tibetans, Kurds or Chechens because the UN is obsessed only with Israel.

This UN resolution came purposefully on the 65th anniversary of the UN partition plan to divide the British mandate into a Jewish state of Israel and a Palestinian state of Jordan. The greatest irony is that Arabs and Palestinians voted against that partition resolution and started a war with the publicly stated goal of destroying Israel and killing the Jews. The issue has always been Arab nations’ inability to accept the existence of a Jewish state.

The UN has once again rewarded Palestinian intransigence to negotiate. In the last decades, Palestinian status has been gradually elevated at the UN despite the Palestinians engaging in state-sanctioned terrorism and refusing generous statehood offers.

In a world that lacks moral clarity, Canada’s actions should be commended for serving the interests of real peace.

Joseph Mandelbaum, Calgary