GOLDSTEIN: Mark Carney’s selective morality on human rights

If Mark Carney is going to keep gallivanting around the world making trade deals with the world’s worst dictatorships and downplaying their atrocities, could he please stop lecturing Israel about human rights?

Praising China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among others, in the pursuit of trade, Prime Minister? Seriously?

In Carney’s own words, we now have a “strategic partnership” with China and “constructive engagement” in areas such as “public safety and security” in co-operation with its law enforcement agencies, a country he described as Canada’s greatest security threat last year.

China has been accused of genocide – including by Canada’s House of Commons – for its brutal repression of its one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, using forced labour, torture and sterilization in “re-education” camps.

It presides over the world’s longest ongoing military occupation – its brutal suppression of Tibet since 1950.

China kidnaps foreign nationals, (see Canada’s two Michaels), imprisons journalists, lawyers and political activists and engages in global transnational repression of dissidents, described as a “genuine scourge” by Canada’s foreign interference inquiry.

PM contradicts his Davos speech message

In making the case for closer relations with China, Carney contradicts the message of his Davos speech, where he called for the world’s “middle powers” to form principled alliances on human rights, sovereignty and territorial integrity against the world’s hegemons.

While Carney didn’t mention any country by name, he clearly meant U.S. under President Donald Trump, while ever since he’s been touting closer relations with another hegemon – China.

Then there’s our new “strategic partnership” with Türkiye “bringing our people closer together,” according to Carney.

Türkiye, despite being a fellow NATO member, has been accused by human rights organizations of imprisoning journalists, politicians and civil society leaders on bogus terrorism charges.

They also say it directs police violence against student groups and labour unions, and terrorizes its LGBTQ+ citizens, along with its perpetual military crackdowns on its minority Kurdish population.

According to Carney, “Canada and Qatar enjoy a positive and growing partnership built on shared priorities, similar values, and mutual respect.” Really?

Qatar has been accused of exploiting migrant workers that make up the majority of its population and of refusing to investigate thousands of their deaths in construction during its preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

It criminalizes extramarital sex.

It denies equal rights to women under a system of male guardianship, requiring them to obtain permission from a male relative to marry, travel abroad and access some reproductive health care, as well as limiting their rights in divorce, child custody and inheritance laws.

Other questionable new partnerships

According to Carney, we now have a new “partnership” with Saudi Arabia “based on trust, friendship, and a shared vision of confronting global challenges.”

Saudi Arabia is accused of transnational repression, extrajudicial executions, unfair trials and mass executions and criminalizes LGBTQ+ citizens.

It limits the rights of women, bans independent political parties, trade unions and human rights organizations, and imposes lengthy prison sentences on those engaged in peaceful protest activities online.

In explaining his policies, Carney says Canada must accept the world as it is, not as we would like it to be and that we must increase our trade with other countries now that the U.S. has become our adversary and an unreliable partner.

In other words, Carney’s making an argument of necessity.

Israel can make the same argument – surrounded by enemies, including Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of global terrorism through its proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad the Houthis and other terrorist groups.

Israel has faced a continuing existential threat going back to the day it became a nation on May 14, 1948 and within hours was attacked by the armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan (now Jordan) and Palestinian irregular forces, with the goal of driving the Jews into the sea.

That was the origin of today’s anti-Semitic chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” since both call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

Over the decades since then, Israel’s enemies in the Arab and Muslim world have changed, but never their goal of eradicating the Jewish state, up to the present day, when Carney’s recognition of the Palestinian state, without any real pre-conditions, was praised by Hamas as “the fruits” of its terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7 2023.

Carney’s double standards when it comes to Israel compared to Canada’s new “partners,” ignores the history of what led up to today’s tragedy of the 70,000 Palestinians killed in the latest war in Gaza, and their continued suffering.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com

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