OTTAWA — The NDP says that Montreal-based activist Yves Engler is misleading party supporters and the media by running an
unsanctioned leadership campaign and soliciting donations from Canadians.

Éric Hébert-Daly, who is the NDP’s chief electoral officer for the leadership race, said he had serious concerns about how Engler had been conveying the status of his campaign to members of the press.

“It has recently come to my attention that Mr. Yves Engler has been sharing with the media that he has not yet been approved by the Leadership Review Committee … to stand as an official leadership candidate. I would like to clarify that we are not in receipt of an application from Mr. Engler, and as such, he has no current standing within the leadership contest,” wrote Hébert-Daly.

“While we have not been sharing the status of candidacy to date in order to respect privacy and confidentiality, it is not acceptable to be misleading about approval status,” he said.

He added that, to avoid confusion, Engler and others testing the water for a leadership run have been “strongly advised” to wait for official approval before accepting campaign contributions or “making any public pronouncements.”

Hébert-Daly said that taking contributions before receiving approval was against

the leadership race rules

, which require all donations to be processed through the party.

Engler said in an earlier email that he was doing “everything in line with NDP and Elections Canada rules” and expected to be onstage for the

first official leadership debate

in November. He added he’d raised more than $80,000 thus far, which would put him on pace to easily pay the $100,000 entrance fee, and collected more than twice the required 500 signatures, with all

age, equity and regional criteria

met.

He added in a follow-up email on Monday that, per the rules, he had until January to turn in his nomination papers and would do so at the time he considered “most opportune.”

Engler also said he planned to attend a

Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) hosted

candidates forum later this month.

“We expect to be invited to CLC forum whose rules for participating are not outlined in candidate package,” wrote Engler.

As of Monday, three candidates had officially

entered into the race

: Edmonton MP Heather McPherson, filmmaker Avi Lewis and labour leader Rob Ashton.

Engler is a self-described social agitator with

a recent harassment arrest

on his rap sheet, running on a radical platform of

anti-capitalism and degrowth

.

He put X’s “community notes” function to work over the weekend

by posting fake endorsements

of his policy platform from socialist icons J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas and Karl Marx (all long dead).

“NDP 2026 (Engler’s platform) is a blast from the past with an eye on the future,” read the apocryphal blurb from Woodsworth.

McPherson told the National Post last week that she wouldn’t stand in the way of Engler jumping into the race.

“Mr. Engler can do what he does. I fundamentally disagree with him on a number of issues, but that’s neither here nor there. He can put his offer forward,” said McPherson in an interview.

Matthew McKenna, a spokesperson for Elections Canada, said that it wasn’t against the law for Engler to raise funds in advance of his candidacy being approved by the NDP.

“There’s nothing in the Canada Elections Act that prevents any individual from raising money for any reason,” said McKenna.

McKenna did caution that Engler could still face legal penalties for incorrectly reporting such contributions in his annual tax returns.

The donation page on Engler’s leadership website directs visitors to give via Interac e-Transfer, and clearly indicates that donations are not tax-deductible.

Donors must also attest that they’re Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA — The federal government will table its annual budget in the fall from now on and distinguish capital spending from operating costs, breaking with a longstanding tradition of presenting the annual spending plan in the spring.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the new budgetary cycle and presentation on Monday morning. He said budgets will be tabled in the fall for the following fiscal year while the fall economic update would move to the spring. Finally, pre-budget consultations would move to the summer.

In a background technical briefing, senior government officials explained that the new schedule aims to make the government’s fiscal year planning more predictable for the private sector and other levels of government.

They also noted that it would better align with construction season, announcing capital investments further ahead of the summer construction season. “In the old cycle, budgets didn’t allow projects to take full advantage of the construction season. A fall budget cycle changes that — giving builders and investors a real head start,” reads a background document published by Finance Canada.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government also made good on the campaign promise to separate capital investments and operation spending in future budgets.

Champagne said capital investments would be spending that falls into one of six categories: capital transfers, capital-focused corporate income tax incentives, amortization of federal capital, private sector research and development, support to unlock large-scale private sector capital investment and measures to grow the housing stock.

Remaining spending would be classified as day-to-day operating spending. That would include many major government expenditures including transfers to persons, health and social transfers as well as government operation spending (such as salaries and benefits).

During the briefing, senior officials promised that the budget document would still contain the traditional unified accounting information including total spending, revenues and budget balance (such as the total value of the deficit if applicable).

More to come

.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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“Ghosted”— ignored — by the surgeons who altered their bodies and ostracized by the communities that once embraced them, the largest study of detransitioners in Canada and the U.S. in decades is exposing a new form of stigma: detransphobia.

The survey of nearly 1,000 people suggests that many who halt or reverse a gender transition feel poorly supported by LGBTQ groups and gender-affirming care practitioners, and wish doctors “took a more neutral approach to care.”

“The mainstream gender-affirming care system largely presumes that gender identity/expression is immutable and that TGD (transgender) people will engage in only one gender transition,” the York University-led research team wrote in wrote in the

International Journal of Transgender Health.

“While this may be the reality for many TGD people, this presumption can create environments in which multiple transitions, gender fluidity, and detransitions are misunderstood or even stigmatized.”

While there’s no universally agreed upon definition, detransition “has been conceptualized as stopping, shifting or reversing aspects of an initial gender transition, often motivated by a shift in how one understands their sex/gender,” the researchers wrote.

It can mean changing names and pronouns, halting hormone therapy or seeking reversal surgeries such as breast reconstruction following a double mastectomy for masculinizing, female-to-male chest surgery.

“Some people who detransition may self-label as ‘detrans’ for short,” the research team wrote.

Estimates for detransition range from as low as less than one per cent, to as high as 30 per cent. Many studies only followed people for a few short years, meaning people can get lost to follow up.

Some who detransition may later resume the process — retransition — especially if the felt forced to detransition because of family pressures, discrimination or what one survey participant described as “the climate of fear around trans people.”

For others, the pressures are internal, the researchers wrote, including a shift in identity or a realization that their gender dysphoria was tied up in something else, “such as trauma or internalized homophobia.”

“Irrespective of their current gender identity, those undergoing a detransition often retain ‘atypical’ sex characteristics from prior hormonal and surgical treatments, leading to vulnerability to gender minority stressors and, potentially, an experience of ‘reverse dysphoria,’” the researchers wrote, meaning distress with the physical changes to their bodies.

Yet no formal health-care guidelines exist to help meet the medical and psychological needs of detrans people, who can also face social rejection and stigma from LGBTQ communities, said the research team, which is composed of a majority of LGBTQ researchers.

“I feel so alienated now, and super isolated from the rest of the queer community,” one study participant said.

“I lost every adult and friend in my life when I chose to detransition,” added another.

“I lost everything I had socially.”

The study is based on an anonymous survey, conducted between December 2023 and April 2024, of 957 people aged 16 and older living in the United States (704) or Canada (253) who self-identified with experiences of detransition, as well as one-on-one follow-up interviews with 42 selected participants.

In an effort to capture as wide a range of experiences as possible, the researchers advertised on Instagram, TikTok and other major social media platforms. The survey was sent to more than 615 trans and LGBTQ groups and gender clinics. Researchers also developed a protocol to spot and weed out scam, bot and fraudulent responses.

Respondents were asked to rank their degree of agreement (always, sometimes, never, not applicable) to a series of statements, like, “I needed health care but didn’t receive it.”

Most participants (79 per cent) were born female, reflecting the startling surge in biological girls being referred to gender clinics. One Canadian study found that, of 174 youth aged 15 and younger referred for puberty blockers to one of 10 gender clinics in Canada, 82 per cent were born female.

When asked how they describe themselves, 40 per cent of survey respondents were comfortable with “detransitioned,” 43 percent with transgender, 33 percent non-binary and about 20 per cent “cisgender”

About 42 per cent reported a history of discontinuing, and then later resuming transition.

Many people mentioned challenges getting access to medical care, or financial support to cover detransition procedures like voice training to deal with voice deepening, or laser hair removal for body and facial hair — side effects from testosterone therapy used in female-to-male transitions.

“I was turned down by four surgeons and ghosted by the one who did the mastectomy,” one participant described in the search for a surgeon for breast reconstruction.

Others said they would not have detransitioned “if I’d had any support whatsoever.”

About 60 per cent said they “sometimes” or “always” avoid doctors, which other research has put down to fears of being judged for detransitioning; 42 per cent reported that their health-care provider “never” seemed knowledgeable when discussing detransition. Some reported receiving no information at all about what to expect going off hormones and how to avoid the side effects of stopping cold turkey.

“I had no confidence in my providers when I stopped transitioning,” one said.

Some described wanting “non-trans-affirming care providers,” saying past therapists were too eager to encourage their transition in the first place, or to retransition after detransitioning, “despite no expressed desire to do so.”

“Many shifted from (transgender) to gender non-confirming lesbian, gay or detrans identities, and, in hindsight, wished they had access to providers who took a more neutral approach to care,” the researchers wrote.

That backs previous research “and carries implications for gender-affirming care delivery,” they said.

Many described a need for professional mental health support, such as grief counselling “for losing a life I thought was gonna make me happy.”

Some felt detransitioning is being politically weaponized. “Conservatives want us to speak to them to ‘prove’ that transitioning is ‘evil.’ Liberals want to silence us for fear that we’ll somehow ‘influence’ trans people to detransition,” one said.

“We’re in a horrible space and it’s nearly more painful detransitioning for me than it was just suffering through an identity that didn’t fix my problems like everyone said it would.”

People expressed a need for detrans support groups and other community resources “to speak with other detrans people in person,” not online.

The study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, a Canadian federal research funding agency.

National Post

• ‘How will I come back from this?’ Detransitioners abandoned by medical and trans communities
• Canada’s pediatricians advised to support affirming gender-questioning six-year-olds

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

OTTAWA — As Prime Minister Mark Carney has often said, when it comes to his conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadians should not expect to see “white smoke.”

The “white smoke” he refers to is the long-sought-after deal he has been trying to negotiate to gain reprieve from the president’s tariffs, something that remains elusive as the prime minister departs Monday for another sit-down with the president.

A senior official, who spoke to National Post on a not-for-attribution basis, emphasized that the trip is more of a working meeting for both sides to sort out the specific issues before them, rather than an imminent announcement of a breakthrough or deal.

That means businesses and Canadians waiting for one are likely to have to keep waiting.

Carney’s government is dealing with higher steel and aluminum tariffs than when he entered office, with two summer deadlines come and gone. So far, expectations are being kept low for the prime minister’s latest meeting with the president.

The official said that no specific expectations are being attached to the trip, but that Canada views it more as an opportunity for both sides to have honest conversations behind closed doors, which only an in-person meeting can allow.

This week’s meeting will be the third official meeting Carney has had with Trump since he won the April federal election. His first trip to the White House was back in May, followed by a sit-down when Canada hosted the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta.

Both leaders also attended the UN General Assembly in New York last month.

Travelling with Carney will be Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who has served as his cabinet presence around the negotiating table, along with Industry Minister Melanie Joly and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand.

Carney is expected to sit down for a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday and attend a working meeting with his U.S counterpart and other ministers.

A motivating factor for the trip, according to the official, was to have face time with the president and his team as both countries approach the starting line of what will be a critical review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement, set for 2026.

Both Canada and the U.S. have launched their respective consultations on the deal, which is set to undergo its first joint review since it was inked in 2020, during Trump’s first term in office.

Carney recently met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum during a trip to Mexico City last month, which offered similar face time to discuss reviewing the deal.

That agreement is what the prime minister points to as being the key to having what he refers to as the “best” situation of all the countries grappling with U.S. tariffs, given the fact that products covered by it are currently exempt, which equates to roughly 85 per cent of goods travelling across the Canada-U.S. boundary tariff-free.

The Canadian side is heading into its talks in Washington armed with a message about the importance of maintaining that deal.

As for Canadian sectors still feeling the brunt of tariffs, such as steel and aluminum, which remain subject to a 50 per cent levy under Section 232 of its U.S.

Trade Expansion Act,

as well as softwood lumber, which the Trump administration recently hit with a new 10 per cent tariff, the Carney government has focused on securing some sectoral reprieve.

Tariffs also remain on auto parts not in compliance with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement, as well as on copper.

Speaking to National Post

after a Senate committee appearance last week

, LeBlanc said Canada was open to either striking a deal specific to those sectors still subject to tariffs or pursuing a broader arrangement.

“Both tracks are still in discussions,” LeBlanc said at the time. He also declined to say which option was more likely, but said it could also involve critical minerals, defence and energy security. 

With no signs of a tariff deal, Carney is facing increasing pressure from Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who last week posted to X that the prime minister entered office on the promise of striking a deal with the president.

“No word on where the prime minister’s elbows have gone after he backed down again and again with nothing to show for it,” Poilievre wrote.

-With files from Simon Tuck

National Post

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.

Two Canadians are being detained in Israel after participating in the flotilla bound for Gaza last week, Global Affairs confirmed to National Post on Sunday.

Citing privacy laws, the agency did not identify the individuals, but said consular officials have contacted local authorities and “are providing consular assistance to those who request it.”

“Canada urges the Israeli authorities to ensure the safety of participants and facilitate their timely access to Canadian consular services to support their swift return,” a spokesperson said in an email.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, made up of 42 vessels carrying humanitarian aid, was sailing for the Gaza coast in an effort to break through Israel’s blockade.

Volunteers on the voyage consisted of activists, lawyers and doctors.

According to the

Canadian Boat to Gaza

, which was sailing under the name Conscience, the Canadians on board included Mskwaasin Agnew and Khurram Musti Khan from Toronto, Devoney Ellis, Nikita Stapleton, Sadie Mees from St. John’s, and Montreal’s Nimâ Machouf, a former federal NDP candidate.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was also on board one of the vessels and is also

being detained in Israel

. In a news release, the flotilla group said an estimated

443 volunteers were taken from their vessels

.

According to the

Jewish News Syndicate

, 137 were deported to Turkey over the weekend, but Israel’s Foreign Ministry reported that some have deliberately obstructed the legal process,

“preferring instead to linger in Israel.”

A week before stopping it in the Mediterranean, Jerusalem said that the flotilla was organized by Hamas for its own purpose and said it would not be allowed to breach the “lawful naval blockade.”

“Israel urges the participants not to break the law and to accept Israel’s proposal for a peaceful transfer of any aid they might have,” the ministry said in a

statement

.

Last week, t

he ministry published documents found in Gaza

which allegedly indicate that the flotilla was linked to the Palestinian Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA), a wing of the Hamas terrorist movement already labelled a terrorist organization in Israel since 2021.

Among its leadership, the ministry said, is a CEO for a Spanish front company that owns dozens of ships in the flotilla.

“Thus, these ships are secretly owned by Hamas.”

Global Affairs Canada had previously advised that Canadians should avoid travel to the region due to the Israel-Hamas war and that safety and protection cannot be guaranteed.

“The decision to travel is personal, and individuals are responsible for their own safety abroad,” the spokesperson wrote.

• Documents indicate Hamas’s ‘direct involvement’ in Gaza flotilla, Israel’s foreign ministry says
• Israel rejects reports Greta Thunberg and others in Hamas flotilla being mistreated in custody

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Noa Tishby, one of Israel’s best-known advocates, is waging a narrative battle that she says is aimed as much at defending Western values as the Jewish state.

With an Instagram following of nearly a million and an X following of almost a quarter million, she has fought misinformation in real time since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, against the TikTok bots, campus protests, and celebrities tilting the court of public opinion against Israel and the West.

She is a Hollywood actor (The Affair, Big Love, Nip/Tuck, NCIS, Dig) and producer (HBO’s In Treatment, which won 14 Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and a Peabody). She has also written two best-sellers, Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, and Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew, with Emmanuel Acho.

In 2022, Tishby was appointed Israel’s first-ever Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization, but was dismissed after Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected as prime minister, after she spoke out against his proposed judicial reforms.

Dave Gordon interviewed Tishby for National Post ahead of the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks:

Q; What’s your perspective on the newly proposed ceasefire plan that came from President Trump and Israeli PM Netanyahu?

I pray to God that Qatar will convince Hamas to say yes to this plan. What’s extraordinary about it is that for the first time, Hamas is isolated by the Arab world. For the first time, they’re kind of acknowledging — some fully, some kind of half — an acknowledgement, from Saudi Arabia to the UAE to Turkey to Indonesia, that the war has to end, and they have isolated Qatar and Hamas.

To bring all these Arab countries together to stand as a united front against Hamas and to kind of acknowledge, to some extent, that Hamas simply took it too far and they cannot continue to rule Gaza, is absolutely extraordinary. Yes, Hamas needs to come to the table. If Hamas doesn’t agree, then I don’t even know how much more hell can break loose for the Palestinian people, but it is an absolutely extraordinary plan.

Israel defended itself. Israel didn’t start this war. Didn’t want this war, but has to win this war. And nobody wins in wars. Everybody loses. But what Israel wanted the entire time was return the hostages and get Hamas to not rule Gaza anymore. And effectively, this is the plan.

So look, Hamas is a Jihadi terrorist organization that is committed to destroying Israel, killing the Jews, and dying as martyrs for their 72 virgins. That’s who they are. They don’t hide it. So who knows what’s going to happen? But this was an extraordinary step.

Q; As a communications person online, I want to ask you about what you thought of Charlie Kirk’s letter to Netanyahu, which was recently made public, suggesting that the Israeli government ought to set up a real-time fact-check website, rather than have Israel’s allies scramble for answers?

Look, this is way before October 7. Israel’s too slow. I’ve been doing this since I started the first digital advocacy and rapid response organization dedicated to Israel in 2011. I was like, “Why are we not there?” I’ve been talking to government officials throughout the years, and NGOs and Jewish organizations. They’re not open to hearing anything about this. The reason that got me to do this to begin with was because of the first flotilla that came out of Turkey (2010). I saw that Israel’s (clarifying) facts, that took them 48 hours.

Whereas on Twitter at the time, the message was that Israel killed nine peace activists, out of nothing, and that came out in 48 seconds.

Why is there no IDF spokesman press conference every single day? Why isn’t there an Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference every single day? Why? I don’t know, but there isn’t.

We’re very late to the game.

But it’s a bigger problem than that. What’s happening on TikTok is that we have kind of outsourced our children’s education to social media and an agent of an algorithm that isn’t even human, that is feeding to our kids something that we have no control or no knowledge over.

Yeah, it’s very dangerous. So not just for Israel or the Jewish people. This is very dangerous for Western values, for liberal democracies around the world.

Israel is just a piece or a pawn when we talk about the threat against Western values. They’re using Israel as a proxy to fight against America. Everything that’s happening on TikTok, all this feeding of this propaganda, it’s all paid and sponsored by entities and countries that want not just to see Israel down, but wants to see America fractured. It’s the undoing of the West’s social fabric.

Q; Is Israel losing the PR war, and what can it do better?

It’s already lost.

It neglected the PR front 30 years ago, and this has been going on specifically in the last 15 years actively. Israel did not see this coming. There had been a war waged on Israel, except one side knew that they’re at a war, and the other side was asleep, which is us.

They’ve been preparing the ground for this for 30 years. Literally, we know where that language started, and how it started, and how they infiltrated all these social justice movements, and what their plan was. Their plans were on college campuses, and it worked better than they probably have expected, right?

So Israel arrived at October 7, already losing, but not knowing it. I think that Israel, as a country, and to some extent, the Jewish communities around the world, we didn’t think we needed this. Like, why would a country think that it needs to justify its existence, right? But the reason that we need this is because the other side was trying actively to dismantle the State of Israel by delegitimizing its existence.

Israel is not committing crimes; Israel

is

 the crime to those people. Its mere existence. They’re not building a case against occupation ‘67; they’re building a case against occupation ‘48.

And what had happened was that Israel turned into the only country that its existence and creation is litigated again and again and again and again. And it’s completely astonishing. Because when you look back at the creation of every country on Earth, they were all created in a war.

No country was created on a bed of like, you know, unicorns and cupcakes.

And still, some people think that it’s about the so-called genocide libel, or the so-called starvation libel. That then turns out to be completely fabricated. It’s a bigger game, the game to delegitimize Israel’s existence.

Q; And what can Israel do, moving forward?

First of all, acknowledging that this is what’s happening. Second, actually actively work towards building peace and regional alliances in the Middle East. Deradicalize the entire region through textbooks.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants peace and quiet as well. He doesn’t want the Wahhabis, the jihadists and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. He doesn’t want them to have power. They’re threatening him too, meaning safety, security, stability, quiet, prosperity of Saudi Arabia. They’re threatening everybody, but they’re getting support on college campuses.

It’s the blindness of the Westerners and the Hollywood activists, and all these idiots; really, it’s heartbreaking, but it’s also specifically just very dangerous, because they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what it is that they’re supporting, and how they’re helping these horrible forces.

Q; Speaking of Hollywood, why you think there’s so much quiet with the big voices in the entertainment industry?

This is not new, that people don’t want to put themselves out.

Right now, with all the libels about starvation in Gaza, it’s making people really afraid. People are legitimately scared. It’s more than they don’t want to risk their jobs. So that’s where we’re at, in 2025, when people in western civilization and Jewish people are afraid for their safety.

History is coming back, you know?

Q; Have you received pushback that your message might have less credibility, or more bias, because you’re Israeli?

I don’t see that as an issue at all. I’m a proud American, OK? And I was born, raised in Israel, and I have the perspective of both countries that are very similar. I have nothing to do with the Israeli government whatsoever. When I need to, I criticize the Israeli government, as I did with the proposed judicial overhaul that they attempted to do. I spoke up against it.

I get a lot of crap for it from like, very right-wing American entities. I always say that I’m pro-Israeli and a pro-Palestinian, and these two things are not mutually exclusive. I’m just against Hamas and against jihadists.

Q; I’m reminded of the quote from the Jewish sage Maimonides, who said to accept the truth, no matter the source.

That’s all 100%. And by the way, that’s one of the reasons probably why people are mum about the peace deal, because it came from Trump.

So instead of understanding that it actually has the backing of the regional countries in the Middle East, they’re ignoring it because it came from somebody that they didn’t like, which is unfortunate.

You have to separate yourself, and that’s how I see it. I’m a non-political entity. Nobody knows where my politics and policies are on anything. They just know that I’m pro-Western values.

Q; What do you find is the biggest difficulty in battling anti-Israel propaganda?

There’s always been the lie of colonialism and the lie of ethnic cleansing, and now there’s the lie of genocide. But honestly, I think that the biggest problem that we have right now are the bots.

The sheer amount of money that is put into platforms like TikTok to deliver horrific blood libel lies about Israel in a rhythm and amount and quantity that we cannot overcome. Qatari money, Iranian money, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian.

All this dark money that is going into actively poisoning young people’s minds against Israel and the Jewish people. Again, to fracture the West. Not just the Jews.

Young people’s minds, that’s the biggest problem. Their brains are being hijacked. It’s an orchestra, pushed in every platform, from the New York Times, all the way down to every single social media platform.

Q; Prime Minister Carney recognized Palestine at the United Nations last month. I’m wondering what you think of that?

Look, there’s no desire on behalf of Israelis to rule over millions of Palestinians. But if one thing became clear after October 7, and became clear with this proposed peace plan, is that the Arab world understands that the Palestinians need help. Because if they get a piece of land, what they come up with is October 7, and that cannot happen again.

There has to be many, many steps that need to be taken before a declaration like this can make any sense at all. It’s literally magical thinking.

It’s virtue signalling to their voters, their left-wing, brainwashed constituencies: Don’t vote me out! But it doesn’t mean anything.

This interview was edited for brevity.

• Avi Benlolo: In the face of Jew hatred, we are embracing Zionism more than ever before
• ‘Hamas is the genocidal entity’: Warfare experts on what the world is getting wrong on Gaza