Israel protests Canada for supporting Palestine in UN vote

shaheennews

Israeli Ambassador to Canada Nimrod Barkan announced that his country intends to submit a formal protest to Canada after joining 165 other countries by voting “Yes” for a resolution entitled the “Right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” at the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee.

In an interview with the Globe and Mail newspaper late Wednesday, the ambassador said “we regret the Canadian change and we will express our regret officially to the Canadian representative in Israel, hopefully next week.”

“We think the resolution is not a substantive resolution, but an attempt to delegitimize Israel and is part of the whole package that should be rejected out of hand,” Barkan added, noting that Israel was only given a few hours notice on Tuesday that Canada intended to vote for the UN resolution.

“The UN is not court,” he stated, adding that it is an exercise in public relations and they have an automatic majority that votes against Israel so we don’t think Canada should co-operate with this exercise.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne stressed that Canada has explained its position to its allies and has been in touch with members of the Jewish community about its decision to support the UN resolution, the newspaper said.

“I think people in the Jewish community in Canada and across the world see Canada as an ally but there are times when we must express our opinion and our position as we did yesterday at the UN,” Champagne said, adding that Canada’s friendship with Israel is “strong” and remains.

//Petra//