Canada' s responsibility for Palestine: ... the Middle East has not occupied centre stage in Canadian foreign policy since the Suez crisis ...

Louis Delvoie in `The Arab-Israeli Conflict: is it History?' (Behind the Headlines, Autumn 1997) made a modest case in realpolitik for reducing the international concern over the Middle East, but he neglected to note Canada's leading part in the establishment of Israel, its consequent responsibility for the occupied and displaced Palestinians, and the means available to it to help remedy their painful situation. True, commerce with the Levant is not a major Canadian interest, and Suez has become a less critical trade route to Arabia and beyond. True also, the Middle East conflict no longer seems so likely to spark a global war. Mr Delvoie, however, must be less sanguine about peace in the area now that there is an Islamic bomb and no shortage of Muslims burning with resentment at what they see as the double standard applied by the United States which always seems to favour Israel. Israel, although still silent about its own nuclear armory, is actively collaborating with India in this field, much as it once did with South Africa. In what other regions are there comparable dangers?

Mr Delvoie advances the curious notion the Arab-Israel conflict is just `a civil war [essentially] indistinguishable...from any number of other civil wars' - except, he contends, that it is `reasonably benign.' Civil wars, however, by definition are between `fellow citizens' or at least elements of a single state or people, and the participants generally share in the responsibility for the conflict. Few civil wars, moreover, drag on for half a century. The Palestinians, who had abused nobody, are suffering because a people who had left the area, largely of their own free will, almost 2,000 years earlier, have now returned. No serious person questions the enormity of the suffering of the Jews during the holocaust, but it was a crime committed by `Christian' Europeans, not Muslim Arabs (who had treated them reasonably well.) Palestinian casualties in the Middle East conflict, moreover, now exceed more than tenfold those of the Israelis. The bombing in Lebanon in 1982 alone cost about 20,000 Arab lives, mostly civilian. If the peace process ever concludes, the Palestinians seem destined to be left with less than ten per cent of the land they owned before the Jewish return in this century. Even that fragment is likely to be carved up by highways to give secure communication between Israeli settlements in a way that will leave the Palestinians living in something like `Bantustans.' And they will be denied independent statehood.

What might Canada have done to avoid or to curtail the conflict? There have in the past been insignificant minorities who have wanted to bring a large number of Jews to Canada. Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, for example, raised the possibility of an autonomous community in Manitoba, and James Woodsworth, the saintly first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), agreed that persecuted Jews should be encouraged to share spacious Canada rather than impose themselves upon the Palestinians. (His party soon became the strongest supporter of the Zionist solution.) In the frightful 1930s - the hour of greatest Jewish need - a majority of Canadians opposed Jewish immigration. They appeared to agree with Prime Minister Mackenzie King's deputy minister of immigration that `none is too many,' and also with the false claim that Palestine was a `land without people for a people without land.' Most Canadians soon came to believe that the Jews should have a secure homeland, but not in Canada. Many thought, and still do, that the Bible had designated Palestine to be the home of the Jews, even after it was generally recognized that the Zionist leadership, and most other Jews, were secular. And a substantial majority of Jews clearly preferred to live in countries other than Israel. Canadians should not have been surprised when the Palestinians fought to defend their tiny land, with the help of other Arabs.

Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who wrote that he had learned in Sunday School that the Jews belonged in Palestine, was in his superb diplomatic prime during the first years of the United Nations when the partition of Palestine (essentially the creation of Israel) topped the agenda. He was widely regarded as the most effective of all the national representatives and was pressed, especially by the Americans, to chair virtually all the relevant committees. He steered through the UN the partition scheme that had been adopted by the UN Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP), an agency set up to recommend a solution for Palestine. Its dominant member had been another outstanding Canadian, Supreme Court Justice Ivan Rand. Rand quickly become hostile to Britain (the mandatory power), a close companion of the representative of the Jewish Agency, and sympathetic to the Jewish people, many of whom were still suffering painful displacement.

Pearson had strong support from some of his colleagues, notably R.G. Riddell, Saul Rae, and George Ignatieff. Others differed. General A.G.L. McNaughton, Canada's first representative on the Security Council, was popularly called `Sheikh McNaughton' in contrast to `Rabbi' Pearson! Justice Minister J.L. Ilsley, who headed Canada's delegation to the General Assembly, was conscience-stricken by the violation of commitments made earlier to the Arabs. The one voice that should have counted, but didn't, belonged to Elizabeth MacCallum, the government's solitary Middle East expert, admired by both Arabs and Jews. Describing herself as `Mr Pearson's loyal opposition,' she predicted that the partition plan would create 40 years of chaos.

Leon Mayrand, Rand's deputy on UNSCOP, was exceptionally harsh in his comments about the Arabs. He recorded with pride that Rand was `by far the main contributor to the partition scheme.' MacCallum, with dismay, concurred. Samuel Bronfman, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, stated that `Canada played the most important part in partitioning Palestine.' David Horowitz, who represented the Jewish Agency during the UNSCOP sessions, wrote glowingly of Rand and concluded `that Canada more than any other country played a decisive part in all stages of the discussion of Palestine.' David Bercuson, a Canadian historian, agreed: `Canada played a unique and critical role in the United Nations. Partition might not have been adopted without Person's efforts.' Prominent Zionists called Pearson `the Balfour of Canada.' Another Canadian historian, Robert Spencer, agreed about Canada's influence but did not approve; Canada, he thought, had exceeded the appropriate role for a middle power. A somewhat harsher note was struck by Ralph Bunche, the representative of the UN secretary-general, who described Rand as `an elderly crotchety gentleman who talked incessantly without contributing anything.' Another cautionary word was offered by Moshe Shertok, later to become prime minister of Israel: `We should by all means play up Rand with the Canadians so as to strengthen their noblesse oblige complex.'

The balance of evidence does suggest that Canada contributed more than any other country, including the USA, to the establishment of Israel. As such, Canada has considerable responsibility for the several million Palestinian Arabs who were forcibly displaced to make way for the new state of Israel, or incorporated into it as second class citizens. How has Canada met that responsibility?

It led the way, of course, in UN peacekeeping, a boon to all the countries in the area, including Israel. A modest portion of Canada's modest aid programme has been directed to the Palestinians, and Canada has led in the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which helps care for Middle Eastern refugees. For some years Canada has with distinction wielded the gavel in the multinational working group on refugees. What the Palestinians most want, however, and most need is not assistance but independent statehood - not merely for self-respect, although that is of course important, but also for economic development, which has suffered from Israeli efforts to suppress the Palestinian striving for independence. Moreover, in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel continues to extend and tighten its grip over much of the fertile West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Canada has long displayed a decided diplomatic tilt towards Israel. For decades its UN voting pattern was second only to that of the US (and at times Costa Rica) in its conformity to that of Israel. It even lagged behind the US in recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It still denies Palestinians the unequivocal right to become an independent state; while it doesn't exclude the possibility, it insists that it be negotiated with Israel. Since Israel, backed by Washington, rejects Palestinian statehood, Canada's `support' is really no support. Its stand on the borders is similar. UN Security Council resolution 242, the centre-piece of Canada's stated policy for 30 years, commands Israel to withdraw from the territories it seized in the Six Day War of 1967, including East Jerusalem. Canada often joins the overwhelming international chorus censuring Israel's disregard for SC242 and other related UN resolutions dealing with the violation of human rights and contravention of international law, but Canada firmly resists all proposals for enforcement.

Instead of trade sanctions such as those Canada initiated against the apartheid region in South Africa or against Nigeria, and supported against others, notably Rhodesia and Iraq, Canada negotiated in 1997 a free trade agreement with Israel. Since the economic significance of the agreement is trivial, this can be viewed as a pro-Israel political gesture.

Canada's official rhetoric fails to recognize that Palestinians and Jews are equal in humanity. Canada's formal statements of objectives in the Arab-Israeli dispute regularly lead off with `the security, well-being and rights of Israel, its consequent responsibility for the occupied and displaced Palestinians, and the means available to it to help remedy their painful situation - but not of Arab countries. In official statements, Israeli casualties are presented in far more tragic terms than those of Arabs. By way of comparison, Arab suicide bombings are typically characterized as cowardly as well as despicable, while Israeli crimes, such as the 1996 massacre of over 100 Lebanese civilians, huddled in the UN base in Qana, are in large part passed over lightly or ignored.

Would greater balance augment Canada's effectiveness in promoting peace and

equity in the Middle East? Probably yes. Norway, with fewer diplomatic assets but greater objectivity, orchestrated the Oslo Accords. Canada's diplomatic potential has been demonstrated by its role in the creation of Israel, the innovation of peacekeeping, the preservation of the Commonwealth, the formation of NATO, the banning of landmines, and the establishment of a court of international law. Its greatest diplomatic asset is its geographic and cultural proximity to the United States; Canada wields more influence in Washington than any other country save Britain. If peace and justice ever reach Palestine, it will almost certainly be because the United States has been persuaded to direct to that end its over-whelming potential influence over Israel. The US government would first, however, have to come to terms with Israel's powerful support from American Jews and fundamentalist Christians - but that is another story.

A more balanced and active Middle East policy would find Canada in step with all its European allies, the Third World, and much of the US administration. The State Department and the White House would welcome a countervailing influence to pressure exerted by the pro-Israel lobby. Neither at Canada-US summits, however, nor at other relevant encounters, has Canada seriously sought to place the Middle East conflict on the agenda. Thus, the most likely means by which Canada might meet its exceptional responsibility to the oppressed Palestinians without prejudice to the security of Israel has been neglected. Indeed, Israel is unlikely to achieve security against terrorist attacks until the Palestinians receive equitable treatment. This security threat is virtually the only one currently faced by Israel, regional superpower backed almost automatically by the global superpower.

The spread of instruments of mass destruction, however, may persuade the Israelis to accelerate a Middle East settlement that would be tolerable to the Palestinians and to other Arabs. If Canada's primary aim in the Middle East is the security of Israel, we should be pressing all out to convince Israel to negotiate far more seriously. If Canada were to seek vigorously to persuade Israel to heed international law, respect Palestinian rights, and thus advance its own long-term security, the change in Canada's position would be widely noted and would strengthen the hand of those Israelis - perhaps half the population - who favour peace based on fair treatment of the Palestinians.

Canada should endorse every constructive UN criticism of Israel. Under SC242, it should continue to call for the withdrawal of Israel from the territory it occupied during the Six Day War. It should also support current UN initiatives to ensure observance of the Fourth Geneva Convention that specifies the conditions required of any military occupation. As a signal of its more balanced approach, Canada could suspend special arrangements with Israel, such as the free trade agreement, and offer unqualified support to the Palestinian right to self-determination, including statehood.

Canada shares significant responsibility for the continuing problems between Israel and the Palestinians, and its Middle East policy should be re-balanced accordingly. Rather than retreat from the more challenging and complex issues involved, Canada should marshal such influence as it may carry and engage.

Peyton Lyon is a former professor of political science at Carleton University in Ottawa.