It’s been one year since Canada recognized the State of Palestine. Last week, in coordination with the UK and France, Canada announced what they characterize as their “next step” along this path by taking:
“steps to ban the importation of goods from [Israeli] settlements and enforce targeted measures against settlements and those who facilitate them or profit from them.”
It’ll be worthwhile to take a quick look back at last year’s initiative. According to the official statement from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office, Canada’s recognition was conditional on:
Commitments by Palestinian Authority President Abbas to fundamentally reform its governance
General elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part
Demilitarization of the Palestinian state
Hamas’ immediate release of all hostages taken in the terrorist attack of October 7
The disarming of Hamas
Hamas playing no role in the future governance of Palestine
Of course, none of those were actual conditions. We know that because, a full year later - besides the final hostage release orchestrated by the Trump administration - not one of those conditions has been met.
Just how little has changed?
To the surprise of exactly no one, Fatah secretary-general Jibril Rajoub just announced that the Palestinian elections scheduled for November 2026 will be delayed indefinitely
The Palestinian Authority’s financial support for convicted (and dead) terrorists - known popularly as pay-to-slay - continues as before under different names (to confuse incurious EU auditors)
Hamas has been forcibly suppressed but clearly not disarmed
Hamas is still the dominant governing force in the parts of Gaza not under IDF control
Has any of that inspired second thoughts at Global Affairs Canada or the Prime Minister’s Office? There’s no indication that they’ve even noticed, much less cared.
The latest announcement was described as an effort “to protect the two-state solution”. So it would also be worthwhile digging a bit deeper into that.
The issues aren’t quite black and white. There’s definitely much more the Israeli government should be doing to curb rogue settler violence. Although by the same token, there’s much more the U.K., French, and Canadian governments should be doing to curb violent and deadly antisemitic attacks within their own borders.1
The primary grievance driving the new boycott, however, was continued housing and road construction in the E1 area. The claim is that such construction will preempt Palestinian territorial demands.
The strength of that particular argument could perhaps be measured against federal home construction initiatives on contested land much closer to home.
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Not to mention the 24 confirmed church arsons across Canada since May, 2021 - for which there have so far been only two(!) convictions.