John Ivison
National Post, July 30, 2025
“It makes no sense to have pre-emptively handed over a bargaining chip that could increase the chances of a lasting resolution.”
In a late afternoon press conference in Ottawa, Mark Carney announced that Canada intends to break with 75 years of foreign policy tradition and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, following a lead set by France and Britain.
He said the level of human suffering in Gaza is “intolerable and rapidly deteriorating” and laid the blame at the door of the Israeli government.
Canada’s traditional position has been to push for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of, but not before, a negotiated two-state solution: it has long dangled statehood as an incentive to bring the Palestinians to the table.
“This approach is no longer tenable,” the prime minister said. “Prospects for a two-state solution have been steadily and gravely eroded” by the threat of Hamas terrorism and accelerated settlement building across the West Bank by Israel.
Preserving a two-state solution means standing with people who choose peace over violence, which is why Canada intends to recognize the state of Palestine at the 80th UN general assembly in September, he said.
But if the goal is to bring peace to the region this is a mistake.
It might be a case of stating the blindingly obvious, but such a move would vindicate Hamas’s strategy that jihad, violence and bloody sacrifice are the only ways to get what you want; that the chain of events that led to statehood started on October 7th.
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