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Once again, domestic politics trump foreign policy considerations in Canada
By Wodek Szemberg, former broadcaster and publisher of The Idler, a literary and political monthly magazine
The Canadian prime minister sets impossible conditions for Canada’s recognition of a non-existent state of Palestine, and, lo and behold, a few days later, the Holocaust-denying President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, embraces them. During a meeting with Germany’s foreign minister in Ramallah, Abbas called for general elections that would exclude any factions unwilling to accept a demilitarized Palestinian state: “one state, one law, one legitimate weapon.” It was almost concept-for-concept the language Ottawa had just issued in its threat to Israel.
The conditions Canada has attached to the promise of recognition—democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority, general elections in 2026 with Hamas banned, and the complete demilitarization of any “future” Palestinian state—make the recognition theoretical by design. Ottawa isn’t recognizing Palestine as it exists today; it is recognizing a Palestine that most likely will never exist at all, whose potential citizens are people who—within two months after the October 7 massacre—overwhelmingly (72 percent) called “the attack” “a good idea”; a figure that only fell to 50 percent this May.
Within hours of Abbas’ statement, Hamas and other armed factions rejected the plan outright, dismissing it as “a free service to the Zionist occupation.” The future Canada proposes to recognize is already playing out as theatre: Abbas auditioning for the responsible democratic statesman, Hamas taking its usual role as the implacable opposition, and Ottawa writing a script for a state that doesn’t exist under terms that have not been conceived of yet.
Lester Pearson, here I come.
It’s classic Canadian statecraft in the Mackenzie King tradition: “Recognition, if necessary, but not necessarily recognition.” We never miss the diplomatic train, especially when France and Britain are already aboard. We pose as even more principled than they are, while leaving the escape hatch wide open. The signal to Washington is unmistakable: this is theatre at a time when Trump himself is losing patience with Netanyahu. To Israel: You have 45 days to prove to us that you really mean to make peace and feed the hungry in Gaza. The signal to ourselves is even clearer: our national conscience is clean.
