Carney wants a new world order - but only for the West

ours before Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s call for a new world order in Davos, Switzerland, Israeli forces stormed Unrwa headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called it “a historic day”. Jerusalem’s deputy mayor, Aryeh King, explained that Unrwa is “the Nazi enemy”.

He went on: “With God’s help, also in the big battle over all of the land of Israel, we will throw out, annihilate and kill all members of Unrwa.”

Such genocidal language, amid the destruction of Unrwa infrastructure, is a grotesque breach of international law. So too is Israel’s presence in occupied East Jerusalem, as the world’s highest court confirmed in a historic 2024 ruling.

Even more grievous is the slaughter of Unrwa workers, more than 300 of whom have been killed by Israel in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

Up to now, this murderous and illegal assault on Palestinians has not much bothered Canada’s Carney or Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer. They have provided the occasional ritual condemnation, but not the serious action that would force Israel to think again. 

In this way, Britain, Canada and other middle-ranking western nations have colluded with Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and across the occupied West Bank.

Smashing the omerta

Let’s turn to Carney’s now-famous speech at Davos this week, delivered as Israeli bulldozers were working to demolish Unrwa infrastructure.

His acknowledgement that the so-called rules-based international order does not exist prompted headlines in countries like Britain and France. 

Yet, Palestinians have known this for years. So too have the victims of former US President George W Bush’s “war on terror” holed up in Guantanamo.

A host of former world leaders - Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Chile’s Salvador Allende, Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi, Iran’s Mohammad Mosaddegh - and the leaders of countless resistance movements in US client states have learned the hard way that the rules-based world order is code for US gangsterism. 

The same applies to the Uyghurs suffering cultural genocide in Xinjiang. It is a phenomenon that would be well understood by any undergraduate student who has read Noam Chomsky.

Carney’s statement of the obvious attracted attention only because no western leader had made it before. His reason for coming clean and smashing the omerta was more interesting and admirably honest.

Carney explained that western states had gone along with the fiction of a rules-based order because it suited them well. Left unsaid, however, was that the losers in this gross system of international trickery were developing countries in Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East.

But this was implicit in everything he said. 

Racist equation

What sparked Carney’s intervention was not Sudan, Venezuela or Gaza. It was the US threat to Canada and Greenland. 

A western prime minister took umbrage only when the US, under President Donald Trump, threatened to treat the prosperous West in the same way it has long treated the Global South.

Let’s return now to Israel’s recent invasion of Unrwa’s headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem: a gross breach of international law and a direct attack on the United Nations.

Carney is prepared to be principled when it comes to western countries like Canada and Denmark, and pragmatic when it comes to Palestine and Venezuela

Article 6 of the UN charter establishes that any state that persistently violates its principles can be expelled from the UN. The attack on Unrwa is part of a pattern of Israel’s criminal hostility towards the UN, including its refusal to respect orders from the International Court of Justice on Gaza, its slaughter of UN aid workers and its regular attacks on UN positions in southern Lebanon.

The case for expelling - or at the very least suspending - Israel from the UN is overwhelming. Yet neither Carney’s Canada nor Starmer’s Britain, nor any other western power, has so much as suggested the idea.

In his Davos speech, Carney set out Canada’s approach as follows: “We aim to be principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights. Pragmatic in recognising that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values.”

This is all well and good. But on the evidence so far, Carney is prepared to be principled when it comes to western countries like Canada and Denmark, and pragmatic when it comes to Palestine and Venezuela.

This is a fundamentally racist equation.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.