There’s an axiom that you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Give credit where it is due, Prime Minister Mark Carney didn’t negotiate with Hamas, he just surrendered to them.
Carney’s
on Wednesday that Canada would recognize the state of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in September is a direct consequence of the butchery, slaughter, rape and abductions carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
It is a reward for terrorism.
To be sure, there has been a lot of death and destruction since that date, and Israel cannot escape all the blame — but that mayhem could have been avoided if Hamas had handed over the hostages they took 21 months ago.
At his press conference Wednesday, Carney said, “The deepening suffering of civilians leaves no room for delay in coordinated international action to support peace, security and the dignity of human life.”
Terrific. But what if those fine words had been offered by a Liberal prime minister on October 8, 2023? What if he had been joined by the British prime minister of the time (since the current one, Keith Starmer, is also intent on recognizing a Palestinian state)? What if the UN had joined them?
If international action had been mobilized on October 8 against the obscenity that is Hamas, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Carney also
, “Canada is always among the first to stand to defend peace and security around the world.”
Not on October 8, 2023 it wasn’t.
Carney said, “International cooperation is essential to securing lasting peace and stability in the Middle East and Canada will do its best to help lead that effort.”
Where was Canada’s peace and stability efforts in the wake of the October 7 massacre?
Carney’s official statement
, “For decades, it was hoped that this outcome (a two-state solution) would be achieved as part of a peace process built around a negotiated settlement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Regrettably this approach is no longer credible.”
To clarify, it’s almost nine decades since a two-state solution was first proposed and then rejected by the Palestinians.
It is instructive to look back at that
by the Peel Commission which issued a report in 1937 urging the partition of the British Middle East into a Jewish and an Arab homeland.
Because almost ninety years later nothing has changed.
The Peel Commission
, “For Partition means that neither will get all it wants. It means that the Arabs must acquiesce in the exclusion from their sovereignty of a piece of territory, long occupied and once ruled by them. It means that the Jews must be content with less than the Land of Israel they once ruled and have hoped to rule again. But it seems possible that on reflection both parties will come to realize that the drawbacks of Partition are outweighed by its advantages. For, if it offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely freedom and security.”
The offer was freedom and security. The Palestinians rejected it then, and in the intervening years (in 1948 the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan. In 2000, Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat rejected the Camp David Accords and in 2008 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected another land-for-peace deal.)
A two-state solution was always contingent on compromise, and the Palestinians have refused to do so.
Now, Carney has grown so tired with the Palestinians continually rejecting a state that he has decided to unilaterally recognize a non-existent one.
Where is this new state? Is it Gaza, a territory Israel left in 2005 and which was subsequently ruled and governed by terrorists with one overriding aim being the complete destruction of Israel? Or the West Bank, ruled by the corrupt Palestinian Authority?
One of Carney’s stated reasons for recognizing Palestine was “because the Palestinian Authority has committed to lead much needed reform. “
Apparently, said Carney, Abbas has committed to holding general elections in 2026.
This is the same Abbas who was elected in 2005 for a four-year term. He’s still there. There have not been any other elections in 20 years, but now that Abbas has “committed” to holding them next year, Canada will, this year, give him what he wants?
This is the kind of negotiation strategy that will doom us in trade talks with the U.S., conceding long-held positions on nothing more than pinky promises.
Meanwhile, Carney’s announcement has
U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh’ Canada!!!,” Trump
on his Truth Social account.
And while Canada was recognizing Palestinian statehood, the U.S.
that it was sanctioning members of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization because of their continuing support for terrorism, for inciting and glorifying violence (especially in textbooks) and providing financial aid to terrorists and their families.
Carney’s announcement also smacks of political chicanery. We are at a pivotal moment in trade talks with Friday being a significant tariff deadline. And yet Carney’s press conference was almost exclusively about Palestine.
Why is foreign policy suddenly so paramount at such a crucial time? What are the Liberals hoping to bury?
Carney said, “The two-state solution Canada supports is built on the promise of Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace and security.”
The exact same hope was offered ninety years ago.
“To both Arabs and Jews, Partition offers a prospect — and there is none in any other policy — of obtaining the inestimable boon of peace,”
the Peel Commission.
Peace, but the Palestinians must choose it. Or does Carney think he can unilaterally impose that as well?
National Post
