By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, October 27 -- After Canada voted "no" on UN resolution on nuclear weapons in the Middle East, a vote that was seen a further pro-Israel movement in Canadian foreign policy, diplomats of Arab countries began to discuss retaliating by voting against or abstaining on an otherwise unobjectionable Canada sponsor resolution on the fissile material, Inner City Press has learned.
Arab diplomats contacted by Inner City Press hearkened back to Canada's defeat a year ago for a Security Council seat, saying that too was attributable to Canada's pro-Israel, or anti-Palestinian, policies.
Now, they said, the fissile material resolution might be their only way to send another "message" to Canada.
This comes as several Left-leaning countries in the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC) have been expressing more support for Canada's fissile materials resolution.
They praised "L.40 rev. 1" to Inner City Press, by its Spanish title "Tratado de prohibicion de la produccion de material fissionable para la fabricacion de armas nucleares o otros dispositivos explosivos nucleares."
While Canada seeks to keep the two votes separate -- in voting against L.2 [101] "The Risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, Canada was joined only by the US, Israel, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands -- it represents a foreign policy "at war with itself," as one First Committee diplomat described it to Inner City Press.
Update: on October 28, there were fully 23 abstentions. Watch this site.
