The disgraceful push to reward Hamas
No matter what the latest anti-israel mob thinking says, there is no “State of Palestine.” It is simply a matter of fact to point out that no such entity exists. The Palestinian territories do not have any of the legal characteristics of a state, rules that have underpinned international law for centuries, and that have been codified again and again, including in the United Nations Charter.
The Recognition of sovereignty by other governments is typically the final step. Before that, a state must have fixed borders, a permanent population, a government that is uncontested throughout its territory, and a government that has control of its own security, and foreign relations. Apart from the population in Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinian territories do not come even close to being a state. Suggesting otherwise is pure make believe.
What’s worse, recognizing Palestinian statehood now would bestow legitimacy on Hamas and reward it for its terrorism. And yet, three European countries — Ireland, Norway and Spain — announced on Wednesday that they will formally recognize the so-called “State of Palestine” — a gesture that was quickly endorsed by the NDP.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has also indicated that she is open to this idea. Following Canada’s abstention last week from a UN General Assembly vote on Palestinian membership, Joly tweeted “Canada is prepared to recognize the State of Palestine at the time most favourable to a lasting peace, not at the last step along the path.” The wording of Joly’s statement strongly implied that Israel’s blessing would not be a prerequisite of Canada’s future recognition of a Palestinian state.
Joly, whose parents are both well known Quebec federalists, should know better than to embolden Hamas and, by extension, other violent nationalist groups the world over.
In addition to being a mockery of long-established legal principles, the universal recognition of a Palestinian state, at this juncture, would be the ultimate vindication of the unspeakable atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. The global community rolling out the red carpet to a blood-soaked Palestinian delegation would be tantamount to a full endorsement of the use of wanton violence as a tool of “liberation,” adding tactics like organized rape and torture to the respective playbooks of militant organizations like ETA, in Spain, or the PKK in Kurdish Iraq and Turkey.
Shrugging its shoulders at a secessionist terrorist attack that claimed the lives of more than 1,100 in southern Israel is certainly a departure for a Liberal government that, just a few weeks ago, was raising alarm bells over the obscure “Diagolon” plot to carve out a new North American republic consisting of the Western Canadian provinces and a collection of Republican-leaning American states.
While Diagolon itself may well be little more than an elaborate joke, the spectre of secessionist violence on Canadian soil certainly isn’t: we can, of course, find it in our not-too-distant past; most dramatically in the October Crisis of 1970.
And just imagine how the last fifty years might have played out if Pierre Trudeau had responded to the FLQ’S kidnapping of James Cross and Pierre Laporte by granting Quebec its independence in lieu of invoking the War Measures Act. Chances are there would be no “Canada” today to mull over recognizing a Palestinian state.
As outlandish as the alternate history above might seem, the Trudeau (II) government is now primed to do pretty much this in response to Hamas’s own campaign of terrorism. As we speak, more than 100 hostages are being held captive by Hamas in Gaza.
Justin Trudeau may not have inherited his father’s famous intellect, but he should have at least learned the dictum “don’t negotiate with terrorists” at papa’s knee.
And make no mistake: there’s no permutation of the “State of Palestine”, at present, that does not involve Hamas. Hamas is heavily favoured over moderate rival Fatah in both Gaza and the West Bank. Polling indicates it would beat Fatah by a 2-to-1 margin if parliamentary elections were held today, winning a near-majority of seats in the dormant Palestinian Legislative Council.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority’s lame duck President Mahmoud Abbas continues to see his star fall. His approval rating is mired in the single digits, with seven in 10 Palestinians calling for him to resign. Abbas, who’ll turn 89 later this year and hasn’t won an electoral mandate in nearly two decades, would have virtually no credibility as the leader of a fledgling State of Palestine.
As of March, seven in 10 Palestinians said they approved of Hamas’s barbaric actions on October 7. The October 7 attacks will only become a bigger political winner if Palestinians see continued momentum toward international recognition in the weeks and months to come.
With separatism on the rise in Quebec and, to a far lesser extent, Western Canada, the federal government should be especially weary at present of the dangerous precedent an endorsement of Hamas’s violent path to sovereignty would have here at home. How hypocritical would it be for Justin Trudeau to warn of the hypothetical violence of groups like Diagolon in one breath while, in the next, rewarding the very real violence that Hamas unleashed indiscriminately on southern Israel seven months ago.
A near-term “State of Palestine” would unavoidably be a de facto Hamas state. For the sake of both the international order and Canada’s own territorial integrity, the Trudeau government must dispense with its opportunistic posturing and voice a hard “no” to both.