Israel is Sovereign

"Extending recognition absent real change on the ground is a recipe for another failed Palestinian pseudo-state controlled by terrorists."

"It is deeply concerning that the government [of Canada] did not make statehood recognition contingent on the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages. This only emboldens Hamas and condemns Palestinians and Israelis - including the hostages and their families -- to more suffering."

"Our community seeks an end to this painful conflict and a better future where Israelis and Palestinians can coexist in peace. As the prime minister previously said this requires a Palestinian state to be Zionist -- affirming the right of a democratic Jewish state to exist in safety."

"Preemptive recognition of a Palestinian state undermines this core principle."

"[This move by Prime Minister Carney is] predicated on misplaced faith in vague commitments by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas notorious for his corruption, lack of democratic credibility, and funding of terrorists." 

Noah Shack, CEO, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA)

 

"At minimum, I think it would have been prudent ... to have had a conversation. It's possible it took place. But it certainly doesn't seem that way."

"It is always a good idea not to take allies by surprise."

"Geography matters, and our neighbour [United States] is a super-power. And last time I checked, we still very much depend on them for our national security, and it will be so for a while, and so we have to be fairly balanced and careful about that." 

Louise Blais, Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN for Canada, 2017-2021

 

"We have long ... felt that this should come later in a process and that our recognition ... of the State of Palestine, should come a point of maximum impact during a peace process."

"We're now at a position where, in our judgment and the judgment of others, the prospect of a Palestinian state is literally receding before our eyes."

"We make our own independent foreign policy positions, independent of the United States." 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney 

 

"[President Trump] expressed his displeasure and his disagreement [with the leaders of France, the U.K. and Canada on that decision]."

"He feels as though that's rewarding Hamas at a time where Hamas is the true impediment to a ceasefire and to the release of all of the hostages."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt 

Rockets launched by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, in Gaza, October 7, 2023. (AP Photo/ Hatem Moussa)

 

France, Britain and now Canada, traditional allies of Israel, have decided between and among themselves and individually, that they know what road must be taken to solve the generations'-long antipathy between Israel and the Palestinians. They must also be aware that Israel has attempted through previous negotiations with Palestinian leaders to reach a peace agreement, and all have failed. They have failed primarily despite the concessions that Israel had agreed to, because Palestinian leaders steadfastly refused to recognize Israel's right of existence.

 

They failed because Palestinian leadership has always had an agenda, never expressed to the West, but amply to the Arab world, that their aspiration is for the absence of Israel on the ground on which it sits, where the self-entitled Palestinians would then take charge and realize their goal of sovereignty within the total geography, absent Israel. It is for this end that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas -- whose own enmity toward one another has been proven time and again -- teach the younger generation through a biased and venomous school curriculum that Jews exist illegally on Palestinian property.

 

These Palestinian children are groomed to hate, and hate they do, fed a diet of antisemitism and a heady infusion of glorious nationalism and religious fealty where the highest, most blessed inspiration to the faithful is to die a martyr for the 'cause' against oppression and denial of their rights of inheritance and recapture of 'Palestine'. The population in both the West Bank and Gaza has been force-fed hatred of Jews and the  glories inherent in self-sacrifice, to die a shaheed, and ascend to Paradise.

 

Those that do commit murder, who attack Israelis to maim and to kill, are rewarded by given hero-status, their families given financial rewards for their sacrifice. Palestinians found guilty of terrorism against Israel are incarcerated in Israel for their violent crimes, but bask in the knowledge that their families are well funded for their sacrifice. When Hamas invaded southern Israel with the PIJ and other terrorists, among them were Palestinian civilians who had been befriended and hired as farm labourers by the kibbutzim that were subjected to rape, torture and mass murder on October 7, 2023.

 

Yet Canada, France and Britain make themselves oblivious to the Palestinian polls that found most people in both Gaza and the West Bank, supported and approved of the ghastly horrors that took place on October 7. They felt justified in lionizing Hamas terrorism, and were complicit in the celebrations marking the sadistic savagery that took 1,200 Israeli lives and the hostage-taking of another 250 Israelis to be tortured, tormented and held as exchange prisoners.

 

Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists are seen on their way to cross the Israel-Gaza border fence from Khan Younis during the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023. (Said Khatib/ AFP/ File)

 

If any of the countries that have expressed their willingness to formally recognize Palestinian statehood were faced with a similar situation, living next to a neighbour that continued to mount ongoing atrocities against their citizens there would not be a murmur of condemnation when they took up arms to defend themselves and above all, to destroy the menace that faced them without end. But the tiny nation of Jews living within their ancestral territory, within a sea of Islamic rule is harshly criticized and defamed. 

 

Leaders of other countries feel entitled to ascribe the worst attack against Israel to its 'occupation'. The solution to which, they insist is to turn away from the tragedy and appease the terrorist culture that wounded and traumatized its population. As though a forced declaration of recognition of a Palestinian State would solve all the problems of living next to a terrorist culture that no other Arab nation in the Middle East will have themselves by offering haven to Palestinians who turn instead to the welcoming West.

 

The countries that now commit to bullying Israel into a self-harming commitment to overlook the unending violence committed against it by its neighbour are themselves heedlessly admitting the presence of Palestinian 'refugees' who swiftly demean the welcoming country, decrying the culture, values and laws, with the intention of creating social havoc in divisive displays of contempt for law and order, suspicion and distrust of authorities, and insistence that they have the right to import their dedication to disruption of all that is orderly and civilized.

 

Palestinians on the Israeli side of the Gaza border fence during the Hamas-led invasion and slaughter in southern Israel, October 7, 2023. (Reuters/Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa)

 

"Canada's endorsement of a Palestinian state -- without a roadmap for peace or clarity on borders, leadership, or governance -- is not a step toward peace; it is a reward for terrorism."

"Prime minister Mark Carney does not have a plan. There is no agreement between the two parties. A two-state solution cannot be imposed from abroad. It must be the outcome of direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians."

"And yet none of that is happening."

Avi Abraham Benlolo, CEO, chair, Abraham Global Peace Initiative