WhatsappBy recognizing a Palestinian state after the Oct. 7 massacre, Prime Minister Mark Carney rewards terror, abandons Israel and sabotages the path to real peace.
(Aug. 1, 2025 / JNS)
Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, has made his diplomatic debut by announcing that his country plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly this September. While he presents the move as a noble attempt to preserve the two-state solution, in practice, it does the opposite: It rewards terrorism, undermines Israel’s security and legitimizes a Palestinian leadership that has rejected peace time and again.
The timing of this announcement is not just poor but downright appalling. Carney invokes the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists burned, murdered, raped and kidnapped Israeli civilians in the worst atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust. And yet he frames his country’s decision as a reaction to Israel’s actions—not those of Hamas.
Canada, he says, must act because of Israel’s growing presence in Judea and Samaria (aka, the West Bank), and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Somehow, Hamas’s war crimes become Israel’s moral burden.
This is the same perverse logic that animated recent decisions by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who have also made gestures toward recognizing a Palestinian state. In each case, the recognition is “conditional,” based on vague promises of Palestinian reform, elections or demilitarization. But those conditions are fantasy.
The Palestinian Authority has not held elections in nearly 20 years. Its president, 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, is in the 19th year of a four year term of office. It pays monthly salaries to terrorists. It glorifies murderers in textbooks and on television. It rejected generous offers for peace in 2000, 2001, 2008 and 2014—each time walking away without offering a counterproposal.
If Carney wants reforms, why offer recognition now? What incentive remains for Abbas, or his successor, to change course once Canada has handed over diplomatic legitimacy for free?
Israel’s furious reaction to Carney’s announcement is fully justified. The recognition of a Palestinian state, particularly while Hamas still holds hostages and Gaza remains a launchpad for terrorism, sends a clear message: Violence works. Kill enough civilians, and the West will pressure Israel to make concessions. It’s an inversion of justice.
Instead of standing with the victims, Canada is penalizing the one democracy in the Middle East trying to defend itself while respecting the rule of law. We are now in Bizarro World.
What’s more, the Canadian decision endangers future peace. Recognition should be the result of negotiations, not a substitute for them. By acting unilaterally, Carney’s government undermines the very process it claims to support. You don’t negotiate with someone after they’ve already been handed what they want. And by elevating the P.A., Canada further diminishes the prospect that it will ever come to the table in good faith.
Let’s also dispense with the idea that this is merely a symbolic move. In the Middle East, symbols matter. Recognizing a Palestinian state under current conditions gives international credibility to a governing structure that lacks legitimacy among its own people, that uses foreign aid to finance terrorism and that denies Israel’s right to exist—not just in word, but in deed.
For decades, Canada has been a principled supporter of Israel, recognizing the shared values of democracy, civil rights and human dignity. That legacy is now at risk. Carney is aligning Canada not with the forces of moderation and accountability, but with the bloc of appeasement—those who believe that peace can be bought with gestures, rather than earned through security, mutual recognition and hard diplomacy.
Jews around the world have learned the painful lesson of history: when the world says “yes” to terrorists, it’s the innocent who pay the price. Once a beacon, Canada’s moral clarity is dimming at precisely the moment when it is needed most.
Carney still has time to reconsider. He can reverse course and insist that Palestinian recognition be earned—not handed over as a consolation prize for Hamas’s campaign of destruction. He can stand with Israel and with those who seek real peace, not political points.
If he doesn’t, history will remember that Canada chose symbolism over substance—and made the road to peace longer, bloodier and more uncertain than ever.
