Just Peace Advocates is pleased to share a letter written by Father Robert Assaly in response to comments from Stephen Lewis stating that Canada’s recent failure to win a United Nations Security Council seat “had nothing to do” with Palestine. Just Peace Advocates agrees with Father Assaly that
The ultimate evidence however lies in the choice of the Canadian Ambassador, at the behest of Ottawa so he implied, to respond neither to Greta Thunberg’s similar campaign based on our environmental record, nor to the parallel campaign based on Canada’s foreign and domestic policy record, but only to the Palestine-focussed campaign.
Father Robert Assaly+
Robert Assaly joined with Just Peace Advocates and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute on the #NoUNSC4Canada campaign earlier this year.
In May 202, Just Peace Advocates released an Open Letter signed by over 100 civil society groups and dozens of prominent individuals urging countries to vote against Canada’s bid for a Security Council seat due to anti-Palestinian positions. The group also stimulated 1300 individuals to email all UN ambassadors asking them to vote for Ireland and Norway instead of Canada for the Security Council. In a sign of the campaign’s impact, Canada’s permanent representative to the UN Marc-André Blanchard responded with a letter to all UN ambassadors defending Canada’s policy on Palestinian rights.
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Richocet: Did Canada’s position on Palestine sink its UN Security Council bid?
