Canada’s decision to temporarily recall its diplomats from missions in Israel and the West Bank has left former top diplomats baffled and disturbed.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird pulled two mission heads and special representatives to the United Nations on Friday in the face of the decision to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state.

“What we’ve done is really quite unprecedented and it’s very hard to calculate just how extensive the damage might be,” said Paul Heinbecker, formerly one of Canada’s top diplomats and special representative to the UN.

PHOTOS:Palestinians celebrate UN vote

While Baird has said that Canada will not cut ties to the Palestinian Authority, Canadian funding for the body could be up in the air. The move comes just months before the end of a five-year aid program that has supplied Palestine with $300-million in projects designed to encourage development in the areas of security and governance. Over the past week Julian Fantino, minister of international cooperation, has been calling for a shift in priorities for Canada’s aid agency that would closely tie aid to mining projects abroad.

Baird said in a statement that the diplomats were being brought back to “temporarily to assess the implications of yesterday’s UN General Assembly vote and inform Canada’s response to it.”

“Canada will now review the full range of its bilateral relationship with the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “Yesterday’s unilateral action does nothing to further the Middle East peace process. It will not change the reality on the streets of the West Bank or Gaza. This unilateral step is an impediment to peace.”

Canada was joined in voting against the motion by the United States, Israel, Czech Republic, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama. Forty-one states abstained from the vote and 138 voted in favour of it.

“There seems to be a perception that the UN is an opponent, whereas the UN is a kind of club that lives in New York which is run by its members and everything that happens at the UN is done by decision of the members. If you have a problem with UN decisions you have a problem with UN members, you don’t have a problem with the secretariat and you don’t have a problem with the building on First Avenue,” said Heinbecker.

“We have a disagreement with 179 countries and I’m not quite sure how you penalize 179 countries,” Heinbecker said.

Typically countries recall heads of diplomatic missions when they disapprove of something. It’s a diplomatic gesture that has little effect on day-to-day operations of embassies, but sends a message, says Louis Delvoie, former Canadian ambassador and a fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University.

“I don’t see what this accomplishes in that the vote has taken place, it was adopted by an overwhelming majority and there’s nothing that Canada can now do to change that fact,” said Delvoie. “It seems to me to a bit of a piece of theatre.”

The move symbolizes a continued commitment to a Conservative foreign policy, according to University of Ottawa international relations professor Costanza Musu.

“The position of the current government of Canada on the outcome of the peace process has not changed — two states, Israel and Palestine, for two people. But the diplomatic behaviour has changed,” she said, noting that Canada has taken a more “principled” stance. “The position is clear but the diplomatic fallout is that Canada loses the aura of impartiality.”

She noted that the government’s move in this case was to emphasize its belief that Palestinian statehood must come from negotiation, not from a UN motion.

Paul Dewar, foreign affairs critic for the NDP, said the move further isolates Canada on the world stage.

“We’re a country who has a track record of building bridges and getting people to work together. We actually had the process on refugees if and when we had a peace negotiated. I’m not sure we’ll be seen as being capable of doing that anymore,” said Dewar.

“My advice would be when you find yourself in a hole the first thing you should do is stop digging. I think the Canadian government is now in a hole for international relations as far as the Middle East is concerned,” said Heinbecker.

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The Palestinian representative in Canada, Said Hamad, issued a statement Friday praising the UN declaration and attempting to bridge the divide with detractors.

“The Palestinian Liberation Organization fully respects the votes cast by all member states in the General Assembly, irrespective of whether they were in favour of, abstained from, or were cast against the resolution,” said Hamad.

With files from Bruce Campion-Smith

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