Discover the reason for aggressiveness in the minds of criminals

The Operation Condor trial in Buenos Aires is a historical case for justice and reparations for the victims of the reign of terror...

 

Video shows James Forcillo Killing Sammy Yatim

Russian scientists have discovered new links between the aggressiveness of people with borderline personality disorders.

An investigation of the scientists of the MGPPU (Moscow University of Psychology and Education), published in the journal Psijologuia y Pravo (Psychology and Law), has shown new links between personality peculiarities and arbitrary behavior.

According to experts, personality disorder is not a disease, but a stable alteration of the character that entails the partial or total loss of the ability to adapt to conditions in society.

Unlike this, organic mental disorders are characterized by altered central nervous system functions or alterations in the brain that do not affect imputability.

Russian scientists discover cruel gene in natural killers | HISPANTV

Russian scientists discover that ‘born’ killers have a common ‘gene’ that makes them moderately cruel.

“The investigation showed that pro-aggressive factors predominate in delinquents with personality disorders with insufficient formation of factors that suppress aggressiveness, while the opposite can be said about mentally healthy offenders. In the defendants with organic mental disorders the factors that contribute to the aggression do not manifest themselves as the factors that suppress the aggression ”, highlights the director of the Department of Clinical and Forensic Psychology of the Faculty of Legal Psychology of the MGPPU, Farit Safuánov.

The investigation also showed that for people with personality disorder who manifested criminal aggression in situations of psychological abuse, this behavior was not only due to personal traits, but was the reaction to external factors.

    Neurobiologists create a semantic atlas of the brain that allows the mind to read

In addition, it was discovered that in these people psychological defense mechanisms are put in place aimed at alleviating psychological abuse.

According to experts, mentally healthy offenders have such a distribution of pro and anti-aggressive factors that the crimes are committed consciously and planned in neutral conditions, and the aggression is passionate in conditions of prolonged psychological abuse.

  
The possible recognition in Buenos Aires of the Operation Condor as a criminal association of dictatorships in Latin America generates interest in the press and socio-political media

This Christmas, Over Half a Million Americans Will Struggle with Homelessness

Society does its best to hide or normalize homelessness. Or, worse still, blame them for their own predicament. But, like slavery and apartheid, it is not natural and is a consequence of a man-made system that can be changed.

The government estimates ending homelessness would cost around $20 billion, less than Americans spend on Christmas decorations, yet there appears to be little appetite to address the growing problem.

by Alan Macleod: While millions of Americans celebrate Christmas this year with loved ones, carving turkey and sharing gifts, others are not so fortunate. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, over half a million of us will spend Christmas on the streets. The government agency estimates that on any given day, around 553,000 Americans are homeless. A third of those are families with young children. African Americans and those with disabilities are particularly likely to become homeless.

Yet these distressing numbers are sure to be underestimates of the true problem as they do not include the many more sleeping in vehicles or other makeshift accommodation, sofa surfing or relying on friends. Around 1.5 million people sleep at a shelter annually, according to figures from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Furthermore, the 500,000 number itself is likely an underestimate. A 2017 experiment done by The Guardian, where it placed actors posing as homeless people on the streets, found that authorities missed around one in three of them. And they were wishing to be seen, not individuals keen to go undetected.

Tens of millions of Americans are barely managing to stave off the same fate. Almost half of America is broke, and 58 percent of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, with savings of less than $1,000. 37 million Americans go to bed hungry and around 130 million admit an inability to pay for basic needs like food, housing or healthcare. After a decade of decline, the homeless population is again creeping up.

The Trump administration is believed to be readying a “get tough” approach to the problem. Singling out California, earlier this year, Trump claimed that its cities were “going to hell” thanks to illegal encampments that increase environmental pollution. The number of unsheltered homeless people in Los Angeles Country alone increased by over 10 percent this year, to 44,214.

Yet the United Nations has decried the already inhumane treatment of homeless Americans, claiming that the state “effectively criminalizes” them “for the situation in which they find themselves.” In many cities, activities like sleeping rough, panhandling or public urination (in locations with zero pubic bathrooms) have been turned into arrestable offenses, ensuring a carceral “solution” to the problem. Homeless people can be given tickets for infractions as innocuous as loitering, leading to warrants and unpayable fines, trapping them in a cycle of criminality which they cannot escape as their record prohibits them from subsequent employment and access to most housing. Thus, the UN report concludes that it is “effectively a system for keeping the poor in poverty while generating revenue” for the state to employ more police to speed the system up.

Despite being a very visible representation of the economic and social dislocation in society, there currently appears to be little political appetite in Washington to solve the problem. The government estimates ending homelessness would cost around $20 billion– less than Americans spend on Christmas decorations alone. Yet there may be an even easier and cheaper way to fix the problem. Amnesty International reported that there are five times as many vacant properties in the U.S. as there are homeless people. Legislation enacted to make use of those as emergency accommodation could be enacted.

If Democrats manage to unseat Trump in 2020 there is hope that this could be the last year of mass homelessness at Christmas. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, has made housing for all a key pillar of his campaign message. “In the richest country in the history of the world, every American must have a safe, decent, accessible, and affordable home as a fundamental right” his website declares, pledging to end homelessness, fight gentrification and protect tenants’ rights. Sanders also promises to invest $2.5 trillion into building nearly 10 million “permanently affordable housing units.” Other major candidates, like former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, have discussed measures to address the epidemic, but nothing as substantial as Sanders’. On the other hand, as Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg conducted a relentless campaign against homeless people under his jurisdiction.




Media often treat the problem of homelessness not as a condemnation of the callous disregard for human life of modern society, but as merely a natural function of the market. For example, in one supposedly heartwarming story about a good samaritan helping the homeless during the Chicago polar vortex last winter, CBS News casually noted that 22 homeless people had already died of exposure during the cold weather.

Society does its best to hide or normalize homelessness. Or, worse still, blame them for their own predicament. But, like slavery and apartheid, it is not natural and is a consequence of a man-made system that can be changed. Americans in 2020 will have an opportunity to decide what solution they wish to see enacted. For now, though, it won’t be a very merry Christmas for those at the bottom of the economic scale.

The Human Face of the Refugee Camps in Europe

Europe is home to a grave humanitarian crisis – but Brussels looks the other way

Damian Boeselager

In a Greek refugee camp, adults are being stabbed or raped, while children freeze. This suffering shames our continent 

 

Last month, I took a plane to Athens, and then another to get to the island of Lesbos. From the airport in Mytilene we drove to the village of Moria, overlooking the Aegean Sea. The waters are clear and in the distance one can see Turkey, a mere five miles (8km) away. The whole trip took less than five hours from Brussels.

From Moria, we drove to what was once an army base, surrounded by olive trees. Approaching the site, we could see people walking on the side of the road. First a few, then a small crowd, then so many that we couldn’t drive any further. Getting out of the car to walk towards the campsite, I saw all kinds of faces: young faces, old faces, women with children, children without mothers, men with injuries.

 

Time running out to resolve refugee emergency in Europe

What’s the plan, Europe? Negotiations can be tough, sure, but we manage to find agreement on things such as the EU budget

Once I passed the official barracks that house officials from the Greek ministry of citizen protection, I was met with rows of tents, halls, housing made of plastic – it looked like a construction site. And then I became aware of the smell, the result of people crowded in small spaces with limited access to sanitation. Beyond the confines of the actual camp, there was even more chaos, with homemade tents and piles of garbage.

At night, I am told, the situation becomes worse. Women are being raped. Rather than using the communal washrooms, some women wear nappies so they can stay in their tents. And every night, someone is stabbed, someone’s property is stolen.

The lack of a proper processing system has created a state of dreadful limbo, where people live in horrendous conditions without an end in sight. Some have been waiting more than two years to receive news about their asylum application.

The doctors working in the camp, of which there are too few, tell me that the physical and mental repercussions are dire. People are living too close to each other for years at a time, often without enough food, or access to medical services and basic sanitation. This is a humanitarian crisis and it is happening on European soil. Standing in that camp, listening to people tell me their stories, I could not feel proud to be European.

How could I be proud to be European – or even worse, proud to be a European representative – when I am standing idly by while people are dying avoidably, right here in Europe? The very place that pledges to become a leader in digital technology is also the continent that allows people to starve and die only five hours from Brussels.

I got in the car and drove back to Mytilene. That night, 262 new migrants arrived just a few kilometres north of where I was staying.

The next morning, I spoke to the people who were there trying to help. Lawyers, doctors, students, gym instructors, bicycle mechanics. They had come from everywhere. They could help some with their most basic rights and needs, such as handing out nappies to women.

I felt helpless when they asked me what the plan was. Sometimes I thought about explaining how things work within the European commission, the parliament, or why member states couldn’t agree on a negotiation approach – but then I stopped.

They were asking me in the name of the boy who had died a week before from fever after being denied proper medical care; in the names of the 1,200 unaccompanied minors who were sleeping on the ground below the olive trees.

"The invisible violence of Europe's refugee camps"
"The invisible violence of Europe's refugee camps" 

                    In Lesbos’s Moria camp, I see what happens when a child loses all hope

Jules Montague

           Read more

That’s when it really dawned on me: Europe did not have a plan. And it was the first time I truly felt ashamed of being European. So I’m asking myself now: what’s the plan, Europe? Every night we don’t address the situation, another woman is likely to get raped, another child might die and another person will get stabbed.

Negotiations can be tough, sure, but we manage to find agreement on things such as the EU budget. I accept that there are a number of possible solutions out there – some focused more on returns, some more on relocation. But I expect us to be honest, to comply with the laws and ethics of our continent. We must find short-term measures immediately, to meet the magnitude of the suffering. We should start with relocating the 1,200 unaccompanied minors freezing in the open right now.

As an old Greek adage goes, you can’t hide an elephant under a rock. And if we keep turning a blind eye to people dying, I have trouble seeing how us politicians can feel any pride in the offices we hold.

• Damian Boeselager is a German MEP and a co-founder of Volt, a pan-European party

Mexico’s President AMLO Is Delivering the Change He Promised

Mexico is in a period of profound change and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Morena Party are charting a dramatically new path for the country.

by Rick Sterlin  Jeremy Corbyn lost the election but one of his political friends, the progressive Mexican leader named Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has been in power for one year. He is carrying out the plans and priorities described in his 2018 book, “New Hope for Mexico.”

With 129 million people, Mexico is the 10th most populous country in the world. It has the largest population of any Spanish speaking country and is twice the size of the United Kingdom. 

From 2000 to 2005 Lopez Obrador was head of government for Mexico City. He left office with an 84 percent approval rating according to one study, having implemented 80 percent of his campaign pledges. In 2006, he ran for the presidency as the candidate of the PRD (Party of Democratic Revolution). The election was extremely controversial, with 49 percent of the population believing it was rigged against Lopez Obrador. Felipe Calderón was declared the winner.





In 2012, AMLO ran for president again. And again there were widespread “irregularities” and Enrique Peña Nieto was declared the winner. Following the election, AMLO founded a new party called the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (MORENA). 

Finally, in the 2018 election, AMLO decisively defeated the other candidates and his party, MORENA, won a majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and Senate. He assumed office on December 1st, 2018. 

A New Hope for Mexico 

López Obrador analyzed Mexico’s problems and his solutions in the 2018 book, “A New Hope for Mexico.” He describes how corruption and neoliberal politics have led to “rampant inequality, shocking poverty, frustration, resentment, hate, and violence.”

AMLO says, “In Mexico, the governing class constitutes a gang of plunderers…the astounding dishonesty of the neoliberal period (from 1983 to the present) is wholly unprecedented.”  He names the officials and oligarchs who have profited from privatizing public institutions. He describes how changes implemented under Salinas’ rule even took away the right of children to free education. 
López Obrador explains:

The first thing we must do is to democratize the state and retool it as an engine of political, economic and social growth. We must rid ourselves of the myth that development requires blind acquiescence to market forces… Mexico will not grow strong if our public institutions remain at the service of the wealthy elites.” 

AMLO describes the decline of Mexico’s industrial infrastructure in the neoliberal period. Banks were bailed out while “neoliberal technocracy has led to partiality with respect to hiring, and always at the expense of unions. There have been massive waves of firings.” 

AMLO describes ambitious plans: building sources of renewable energy and refineries to make the country energy self-sufficient; building a transportation corridor to move containers between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; having guaranteed crop prices to enable food self-sufficiency; expanding tourism in the Caribbean, Mayan and Olmec regions; planting large areas with timber and fruit trees; giving loans to hundreds of thousands of small farmers; providing training and internships for youth. 

He says that development is possible by cutting wasteful spending, “by cutting back on purchases of ships, planes and helicopters…[we will] sell those used by high ranking officials including the president; we will keep only those used for medical emergencies, security and public safety… The first priority must be serving the poor. Only through the creation of a just society will we achieve the revitalization of Mexico.”

He contrasts his goals for Mexico with those of the U.S., where the Trump administration has increased military spending while slashing spending on housing, transportation and education. 

López Obrador believes neoliberal economic policies have been especially detrimental in villages and rural areas of Mexico. As a result of these policies, small farmers have lost their livelihoods and food imports have risen dramatically.  He writes, “The abandonment of our rural areas has taken a heavy toll on production, has increased migration, and fostered societal breakdown and violence.”

López Obrador says, “The crisis of public safety and violence that we face today is the product of a poorly conceived war on drugs that relies solely on coercive means. The security crisis that plagues Mexico is a result of a confluence of factors: poverty, injustice, and exclusion, aggravated by the inefficiency of the authorities and corruption within the police and the judiciary.”

He proposes to combat police and judicial corruption, to use the army and navy to protect public safety, to develop and utilize a National Guard, and to change laws regarding drug use. Above all, he emphasizes, it is necessary to provide positive alternatives for youth: “The belief that the deterioration of our social fabric can be combated only through use of force is profoundly wrong and highly dangerous, as Mexican history amply confirms.” 

During his 2018 presidential campaign, López Obrador visited several U.S. cities to address Mexican Americans. His words are relevant for all Americans:

We must convince and persuade those who were brainwashed by Trump’s campaign rhetoric… We must reach out to lower and middle class American workers, explaining that their problems are rooted in the poor distribution of income… We must raise awareness among Americans of good faith who have been tricked by the propaganda campaign against Mexicans and foreigners….” 

One Year as President

After one year in office, the AMLO government has significant accomplishments: the minimum salary was dramatically increased while top government salaries and outlandish pensions were cut, small loans and grants are going directly to farmers, five key agricultural crops have a guaranteed price, the billion-dollar gas thieving cartel has been exposed and attacked, a 44 billion dollar infrastructure plan has been launched, and programs to benefit youth, the disabled and elderly have begun. 

AMLO sets an example of hard work and transparency. Each day begins with a 7 AM press conference broadcast on his twitter feed.  The Presidential jet is up for sale and he flies on commercial airplanes. During this first year in office, he has not left the country but travels constantly within Mexico seeing the conditions hospitals, schools, factories and the small cities and towns that makeup so much of the country. The presidential palace has been opened to the public.
  
While AMLO has a 67 percent approval rating and is steadily implementing his campaign pledges, there are challenges and opposition. The Mexican economy has been near recession throughout the year. The bond rating for the state-owned oil company (Pemex) has been downgraded so that investment loans will be more expensive. Some major development plans have significant opposition. For example, indigenous organizations have opposed the proposed Maya Train. In response, AMLO says the project will only go ahead if the people want it. 

Violence is still a major problem. As one analyst has written, “The Mexican right is cynically using a crisis of its own making in an attempt to destabilize AMLO, taking Mexico’s people as hostages.”

The MORENA majority in Congress plans to legalize marijuana and create a federal agency to regulate its sale. But as the analyst says, “Legalization and the targeting of cartel finances must go hand in hand with the slow but necessary work of reestablishing the presence of a social state that decades of savage capitalism have allowed to wither: education, health care, housing, arts and culture, dignified alternatives to cartel employment, and an urgent redistribution of wealth…”  These goals are precisely what is outlined in AMLO’s book and seemingly where he wants to go. 

The changes in Mexico are also important on the international stage. Through most of the 20th century, Mexico had a foreign policy of non-intervention and independence from Washington. They maintained relations with Cuba, supported the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and broke relations with the Pinochet coup government in Chile. But in recent decades Mexican foreign policy has been subordinate to Washington. With AMLO and the Morena Party in power, Mexico is returning to a foreign policy based on independence, self-determination and non-interference. 

The difference was important early this year when the U.S. and Canada tried to impose a new government on Venezuela. The subordinate Latin American countries went along with Washington. Mexico did not. 

As the recent coup in Bolivia unfolded, President Evo Morales’ life was threatened. Mexico sent a plane for his escape and granted him asylum. AMLO said to a huge crowd, “Evo was the victim of a coup d’etat! And from Mexico, we tell the world, ‘Yes to democracy, no to militarism!'”

As the Trump administration escalates its economic and political attacks on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, Mexico’s independent stance is especially important. AMLO’s administration has stood up against the U.S. at the Organization of American States and the anti-Venezuela Lima Group. Recently AMLO welcomed Ecuador’s former socialist leader Rafael Correa, followed by Cuba’s President Díaz-Canel. Argentina’s newly elected progressive president, Alberto Fernández, made his first foreign trip to meet AMLO. 

Both internally and internationally, a new and hopeful process is happening in Mexico.

.Drugs, guns, and despair: How America is killing Americans

American life expectancy has declined.
The free market economy has pushed the American population to the brink.
There's no foreign invasion. No war within its borders. No one to blame but ourselves. How then, is America killing Americans?

Most reports point to three things: drugs and alcohol, guns, and despair.

There is also fat. Statistically, it is more important, but oddly, it is not often included in discussions about the decline in life expectancy.

This last decline is from 78.7 years of life to 78.6. That does not sound terribly frightening. One-tenth of a year. One month and one week less to live. However, it has gone down for three years in a row, which has not happened in more than 100 years. The last time life expectancy went down was during World War I, when apart from deaths at the front, the US suffered an influenza epidemic that killed 675,000 people.

Is it just the US?

An article published on BMJ (previously the British Medical Journal) looked at 18 high-income countries: Japan, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, Italy, Norway, Sweden, France, Canada, Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Portugal, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the US.

Over the last quarter of a century, the lifespans in all of those countries have gone up. People are living four to five years longer, except in the US, where it has only increased by 3.7 years. Actually, the US fell into last place in life expectancy in 2001 and the gap has been growing since. The Germans, the next lowest on the list, get to live almost two years longer than the Americans. The Japanese make it to 84 - or almost six more years.

Drug overdoses killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017 - an increase of 95 percent over 10 years (up from 36,000 in 2007).

Guns killed nearly 40,000 Americans in 2017, according to official statistics, which only counts cases if guns were "the principal cause" of death but not if they only "contributed" to it; that is 4.43 deaths per 100,000. By contrast, the death rate from gun violence in Japan and the United Kingdom is 0.04 and 0.06 respectively.
 
About two-thirds of all gun deaths in the US are suicides. This tells us there is plenty of despair. It has gone up by 33 percent in the last two decades while the global suicide rate has declined by 30 percent in roughly the same period.

Then there is fat.

The US is one of the most obese nations in the world, second only to island nations and Kuwait. It is listed as having an obesity rate of 36.2 percent. Most of the Western European countries have a rate of 20 to 25 percent.

Obesity is a relatively new problem and studies of it are even newer. The statistics are rapidly changing and becoming more dire. It started with saying that only severe obesity mattered and that it could shorten a lifespan by about 10 years. Moderate obesity was supposed to be OK, probably, but newer studies have said that it can take up to three years on average from someone's life.

Do these four elements have anything in common?

Yes. Free market theology is at the root of it all.

America has a profit-driven health care system. Not only is it more expensive than any other system in the world, but it creates special inefficiencies and distortions. Its goal is always to sell an item, usually a drug or a service. How, then, can it address the obvious causes of the obesity epidemic - bad diet, lack of exercise, and a sedentary lifestyle? For the most part, it cannot and it does not.

The more insidious contributor to the American wideness and wallow is the food industry which uses excessive levels of sugar, fat and salt to ensure food is addictive.

The pharmaceutical industry also plays a major role in this. Its protected status allows it to spread addiction to various medications, causing more damage than the Mafia, the Colombian cartels and the Mexicans that Donald Trump accuses of bringing drugs over the border, combined.

Meanwhile, money from the gun industry and the NRA - a profit-seeking enterprise - keep Americans shooting themselves and each other.

Maps of suicide and addiction rates are maps of despair. They largely match the disappearance of American manufacturing. We can date that decline to President Ronald Reagan's economic policies of the 1980s. They gutted the industrial midlands, destroyed the unions, leaving the traditional working-class poor and powerless. A certain portion of them turned to alcoholism, addiction and suicide.
 
There are other things that the American health care system cannot address, and that free market theology considers non-existent: self-esteem, supportive communities, positive expectation for the future, especially for children, which clearly affect healthy lifestyles and life expectancy.

Free market theology insists that what we pay for things is the best and only true measure of their value. The higher inequality rises, the more we have the feeling that this must be true. 

Teaching was once a highly regarded, even revered profession. Teachers were doing a public service. They had college and advanced degrees. But now their pay has become closer to the poverty line than to the middle class. How valuable can they be? 

As the 1 percent continue to amass wealth, we are getting to the point where they are literally sucking the life out of the 99 percent.

That is how America kills Americans.

“A NATION OF SHEEP WILLL BEGET A GOVERNMENT OF WOLVES.”

"For your attention"(Me): I grew up in foster care from the age of 3yrs old. Kicked out on my 18th birthday, because my foster parents didn't make an income from me anymore? Prime Minister of Canada!!!They promise that they will solve problems that will correct inequalities that will banish hunger, malnutrition and poverty. They promise to cut taxes, open more schools, improve salaries, and build hospitals, roads, dams and "first world" infrastructure. They swear that they will be indefatigable, that there will be no despotism, authoritarianism, sectarianism or privileges for friends or family... - F. Abad

Bryan Oliver‎ to End Homelessness In Canada Now

December 12 at 8:35 AM

 
Are the Trudeau Liberals “Two-Faced” on Israel/Palestine?

At the recent NATO summit, US President Trump called Canadian prime minister Trudeau “two-faced” for gossiping about him behind his back. That was certainly mean and rude. But it might be an accurate description of the Trudeau Liberal policy towards Israel/Palestine.

Last month, in a move which caught many by surprise, Canada voted “for” a UN resolution affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination. But then on December 3, Canada voted “against” the UN committee tasked with promoting that very right.

The resolution that Canada and 163 other nations supported (only Israel, the US, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Nauru opposed) read: “Affirming the right of all States in the region to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders, 1. Reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine.”

In explaining its vote, Canada’s UN representative said the resolution “addresses the core issue of the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict. It is essential that both sides of the conflict have a prosperous future.” A Global Affairs Canada official said the vote “sends a message that Canada does not agree with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s assertion” on the legality of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Israel lobby in Canada enraged

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) called the vote a “betrayal.” Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center said the resolution “unfairly implies that Israel is responsible for the Palestinians’ self-determination.” Both CIJA and UN Watch launched online petitions.

The titles of articles in the National Post and Montreal community newspaper The Suburban (“Trudeau’s Faustian bargain” and “Trudeau joins the jackals…”) both channeled quotes from UN Watch CEO Hillel Neuer. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer called Canada’s vote “appalling,” while Liberal MP Michael Levitt expressed “concern and disappointment.”

But there was also support. NDP MP Charlie Angus congratulated Trudeau “on ensuring that Canada’s vote at the UN recognized the rights of Palestinians.” In a letter to Trudeau, 14 Canadian-Palestinian organizations thanked the government for its “principled vote.” Independent Jewish Voices Canada and CJPME also extended their congratulations. All expressed the hope that the vote signaled the beginning of a more balanced approach to the conflict and stronger support for human rights.

In the face of all this, newly-appointed Foreign Affairs minister François-Philippe Champagne hastened to issue reassurances to the Jewish community. “Canada has been in touch with members of the Jewish community about its decision to support the UN resolution. 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” he declared.

Canada’s ambassador to the UN, Marc-Andre Blanchard, appeared to strengthen that resolve by tweeting: “Le Canada retrouve sa voix à l’ONU” [“Canada finds its voice at the UN”], linking to an editorial in Quebec’s influential media outlet, La Presse, which had praised Canada’s vote.

So that means the Trudeau Liberals really are “returning Canada to an ‘honest broker’ role in the Middle East,” as then Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion promised four years ago? Right?