Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to provide more details about his government's plan to recognize a Palestinian state.DAVE CHAN/AFP/Getty Images
Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, had a sharp – if inadvertent – critique of the Liberal government’s diplomatic volte-face to formally recognize a Palestinian state in the wake of similar moves by France and Britain.
On July 30, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will extend recognition to Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in September, based on (but seemingly not contingent on) a number of things, including general elections in 2026 and the disarmament of Hamas.
“An important step forward for Canada,” Mr. Rae wrote in a post on X the following day. “Now the hard part starts – convincing Israel and Hamas to stop fighting, and for Hamas to give up its arms. Free the hostages, get the food in. Start the task of mending and repairing, of truth, accountability, mutual recognition, and making two states work. Build a better world together.”
Mr. Rae is quite correct. All the real work required to achieve a two-state solution of a secure Israel alongside a democratic Palestine remains to be done. Announcing diplomatic recognition now may feel good – finally, Canada is doing something in the face of the horrors unfolding in Gaza!
But the only gauge of the wisdom of that move is whether it hastens the end of the Israel-Hamas war and speeds progress toward a two-state settlement.
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One small question for Ottawa, London and Paris: What are the boundaries of the state that you propose to formally acknowledge? Do they extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, as Israel’s most radical opponents hope? Or is it something more along the lines of the 2000 peace process that the Palestinian Authority ultimately scuppered, which would have created a Palestinian state but fallen short of dismantling all Israeli settlements in the West Bank?
Mr. Carney also needs to spell out what he will do if Hamas refuses to discard its weapons or if Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas continues his two-decade streak of neglecting to hold free and fair elections. Is Mr. Carney prepared to backtrack?
In the meantime, the reaction of Hamas is instructive: a gleeful fist-pump toward Israel and their rival, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. In an interview with Al Jazeera, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad gloated about what the terrorist group (as officially designated by Ottawa) has accomplished through its brutal attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
“For more than a decade, no one spoke with Abbas about a two-state solution or the establishment of a Palestinian state. All that was offered to the PA was humanitarian aid,” Mr. Hamad said. “We are the ones who brought the issue back to the forefront, and that is why all the countries are starting to recognize a Palestinian state.”
To give Hamas its due, it speaks plainly. The diplomatic recognition of Palestine by Canada and others is an enormous propaganda victory for Hamas that not only strengthens its hand versus Israel but also undermines the PA, the only hope for a government of a Palestinian state.
That was the reaction of the radical forces represented by Hamas. As for Israel, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that it intends to reoccupy Gaza, eventually handing over control of the enclave to unspecified “Arab forces.” So much for the notion that diplomatic recognition would compel Israel to abandon its hardline approach.
The alternative to Ottawa’s diplomatic backflip is not inaction. Israel’s move to occupy Gaza is provocative, especially if it proves not to be temporary. But it does open up the possibility of a secure and sustained effort to ramp up aid to Gaza. Canada can, and should, aid in that effort. As we argued last week, it is in Israel’s interest to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Ottawa, and the rest of the West, must make that point to the Netanyahu government.
Mr. Abbas has promised elections. Very well: let Canada propose an election-monitoring group under the auspices of the United Nations to hold him to that promise, and to make clear that the foreign aid that sustains Mr. Abbas in power is contingent on his cooperation. A democratically elected government would be a far more effective counterweight to the fanaticism of Hamas than the current corrupt PA regime.
Such steps might not impart quite the same thrill as diplomatic posturing. But they would help on the vital matter of securing a lasting and just peace for the peoples of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
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