You won’t hear me praise this government often. On the whole, I find Stephen Harper’s conservatives [sic] spineless, unprincipled, mushy and just plain awful (to say nothing of not conservative at all). But on this one, they did splendidly well.

OTTAWA–Canada stood alone before a United Nations human rights council yesterday, the only one among 47 nations to oppose a motion condemning the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

The vote before the Geneva-based body shows the Stephen Harper government has abandoned a more even-handed approach to the Middle East in favour of unalloyed support of Israel, according to some long-time observers.

Thirty-three countries voted for the strongly worded motion, which called for an investigation into “grave” human rights violations by Israeli forces, while 13 nations, mostly European, abstained.

The United States, regarded as Israel’s greatest ally, is not a member of the council.

Marius Grinius, Canada’s representative on the council, said the language of the motion, which accused Israel of sparking a humanitarian crisis, was “unnecessary, unhelpful and inflammatory.”

He said the text failed to “clearly recognize” that Hamas rocket attacks on Israel triggered the crisis.

But observers say Ottawa’s unwavering support of Israel in the current conflict – highlighted by yesterday’s vote – is a break from more neutral positions of the past.

Yes, well, that’s good.