The House of Commons passed a watered-down motion about Israel and Palestine Monday night after a raucous day in Parliament. The compromise amendments on the New Democratic Party’s motion seemed as much about saving face for the governing Liberals as they did about doing what is right for Palestinians and Israelis.
The main takeaway from the compromise was the change from calling on the government to unilaterally recognize the “state of Palestine” to working toward “the establishment of the state of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution,” which is essentially what Canadian foreign policy has said for years.
The rest of the motion was a laundry list of demands, some reasonable, some far out. There were mandatory expressions of concern for victims on both sides and platitudes about future coexistence.
The clear sticking point was the unilateral recognition of Palestine as a state. The opposition Conservatives were unanimously opposed to the motion. The Bloc Québécois (which might hope other countries would someday recognize an independent Quebec), the Greens and, of course, the sponsoring NDP lined up in favour. The drama Monday was in the Liberal caucus.
Opposition parties have tried to use the conflict and the larger issues in the Middle East as a wedge between various factions in the governing Liberal caucus. While many Liberal MPs probably wish the unending bugbear of Mideast politics would stop filling their inboxes, small numbers of MPs on both sides of the issue are deeply committed to their respective positions. After the motion was amended, the most vocal pro-Israel Liberals – Anthony Housefather, Marco Mendocino and Ben Carr – voted against their caucus colleagues, leaving the decided impression that the Zionists were frozen out in a negotiation that most Liberals felt they could support without alienating too many of their voters.
While everyone wishes the violence would end, the motion’s call for an immediate ceasefire is, speciously, a backdoor for continued Hamas rule. The call to end Canadian military trade with Israel is a largely hollow symbol – there is hardly any trade in military equipment and, of that, it is exclusively non-lethal material.
What many people found offensive in the motion was the idea that, in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attacks, we should move in what is, in historical terms, the blink of an eye, to demanding Palestinian statehood. Most reasonable people imagine a two-state solution – but to prioritize that now sends a message, not only to Palestinian extremists, but to violent forces everywhere, that mass murder and kidnappings are the surest ways to advance your cause.
The NDP position is based on an assumption that Israel appears to have given up on the two-state solution – indeed, the prime minister of Israel has effectively said just that. And, yes, there are extremist voices within Israel’s government who are committed to denying Palestinian statehood. However, the continued terrorism and incitement to eradicate Israel that remains widespread, if not ubiquitous, in Palestinian politics and society is a major cause of the failure of a two-state solution. Israel may have an effective veto on Palestinian statehood, but it is Palestinian terrorists (and the failure of the, ahem, elected leaders to reign them in) that has put the two-state solution on a back burner. It is a challenge to understand how Oct. 7 reasonably moves that goal forward. To suggest that Canada should recognize a Palestinian state before the Palestinians have believably committed to living in coexistence is to demonstrate a profound nonchalance about the lives of Israelis.
But, let’s be clear about a couple of things. No reasonable person is expecting a permanent peace between Israel and an eventual state of Palestine that looks like, say, the amity between Canada and the United States. We can hope for a cold peace like those between Israel and Egypt or Jordan. Anything beyond that is still in the realm of fantasy, though there are people on the ground, on both sides, who are working towards a warmer, more integrated and, frankly, safer reality.
Moreover, for all the nail-biting on Parliament Hill this week, in the greater scheme, the whole drama amounted to a hill of hummus. Let’s not overestimate the impact Canada can have. Whatever Canadian MPs say or do about the conflict, the Dead Sea remains salty. This does not mean, however, that Monday’s spectacle has no impacts. It has impacts – on Canadian Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, Muslims and others with a deep connection to these issues.
Heather McPherson, the NDP foreign affairs critics, acknowledged on CBC TV Monday that the motion was really about making a statement in support of Palestinians (as were, presumably, the numerous keffiyehs and fists of solidarity raised during the votes). Fine. As other MPs noted, though, the motion – whether passed or defeated – was destined to leave one community hurt.
The final motion was better than the original one. Not by much, though. In the end, a compromise was attempted, but the voices of the Jewish and pro-Israel communities were the ones who still felt betrayed.
Pro-Israel organizations in Canada released condemnatory statements, with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs scathingly declaring that the Liberal government has “chosen to effectively sub-contract Canadian foreign policy to anti-Israel radicals within the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.”
For all the fireworks and emotion, the entire fiasco was an example of multicultural communities being pitted against one another through wedge politics on a divisive issue that guaranteed one community in the country would feel abandoned. And, after political manoeuvring, backroom negotiations and 11th-hour compromises … surprise! It’s the Jews.