(Ottawa) The New Democratic Party (NDP) is urging the Liberals to recognize the Palestinian state, warning that a Conservative government would not protect international law in the Middle East.
“If we go to an election in a few weeks or months, and if the Conservative government is in power, that’s not going to happen,” NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson said Monday.
She accused the Liberals of lacking the “moral courage and political will” to advance the Trudeau government’s stated goal of advancing a two-state solution, in which Israel and a Palestinian country would coexist peacefully.
Mme McPherson says Canada should recognize the Palestinian state before any snap election. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been leading in the polls for months, and Mme McPherson maintained that the party fully supported Israel.
“We’ve heard from Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives that they’re not interested in international law, that they’re not interested in protecting Palestinian rights,” she said.
Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong wrote in a statement that Israel is defending itself against terrorism from Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Conservatives recognize that Israel is a democratic state fighting a battle between democracy and rising authoritarianism,” he wrote. “There is no doubt about which side Canada should be on.”
The NDP is also seeking a two-way arms embargo, where Canada would go beyond banning new weapons permits and block all military trade, including goods from Israel.
The Liberals have restricted arms sales by halting new permits and suspending existing ones. But the U.S. government has offered to buy Canadian weapons and ship them to Israel. Federal Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has said she is studying that option.
“Genocide language”
The NDP wants Canada to go beyond just sanctioning some settlers in the West Bank and to impose a ban on at least far-right ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.me McPherson argued that two of them used “genocidal language against the Palestinian people.”
Last month, Ottawa condemned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for suggesting that starving Palestinians would be justified. He had previously said the Palestinian village of Huwara should be razed.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is part of a Jewish supremacist party, has called on Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip and let Israelis settle in the territory, prompting accusations of ethnic cleansing.
The Liberals and Conservatives had no immediate response to Mr.me McPherson.
The MP noted that the government could act on its three proposals without a vote in Parliament or parliamentary study.
Israeli strikes killed nearly 500 people in Lebanon on Monday and wounded a thousand, a week after pager explosions killed Hezbollah militants as well as civilians and children.
Canada has recognized Hezbollah as a terrorist group and Mme McPherson said the rocket attacks must stop.
It also claims that international law is being violated, including in the pager explosions that killed Hezbollah members as well as civilians and children. It is widely believed that these attacks were carried out by Israel.
Mme McPherson would not say whether she believed the pager attack was an act of terrorism.
“We know that Hezbollah is a terrorist entity, but the government [israélien] violates international law when it uses indiscriminate weapons and the Lebanese people suffer.”