(Ottawa) The recognition of the Palestinian state by three countries – Spain, Ireland and Norway – prompted the NDP to relaunch its call in this direction.
“The State of Palestine already exists under international law. It is recognized by 140 countries, soon 143. It is time for Canada to join the growing number of countries that recognize it,” argued NDP Foreign Affairs spokesperson Heather McPherson.
“The right of the Palestinian people to the creation of a state is a globally recognized right and it does not legally require negotiations or a peace agreement,” she added, describing as “shameful” the fact that the Liberals “refuse to take this crucial step.”
The New Democratic Party (NDP) MP tried to get the Trudeau government to take this action through a motion. However, following close negotiations with the Liberals, the provision on recognition of the Palestinian state fell by the wayside during the vote last March.
The New Democratic approach was especially annoying for the Liberals. In the other camps, positions were clearly demarcated, at least publicly. Conservatives: no. New Democrats, Bloc and Greens: yes.
Before the Liberal caucus meeting on Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not stop to answer questions from journalists. Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, who led the negotiations which led to a dilution of the motion, did not speak either.
The long-standing Canadian position is that this recognition is part of a two-state solution, as Minister Pablo Rodriguez recalled. That said, “one day, we are going to have to do it,” he pleaded in the press scrum before the caucus meeting.
Saying he was speaking “as a simple citizen” and not as an “expert in international law”, his caucus colleague René Arseneault said that “in general”, he was one of “those who believe that there absolutely needs to be a Palestinian state “.
Spain, Ireland and Norway announced on Wednesday that they would recognize the Palestinian state, which did not fail to provoke Israel’s fury.
This is a second snub by the international community against the Jewish state in the space of a few days, after the International Criminal Court (ICC) requested on Monday arrest warrants for the first Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant.
While recognizing the independence of the international tribunal, Prime Minister Trudeau said he found it “really problematic that there is any suggestion of equivalence between the elected leadership of a democratic country like Israel and the leaders of the murderous terrorist group Hamas.”
In the Conservative Party, the ICC’s announcement sparked indignation. “The ICC Attorney General’s demand to arrest Israel’s democratically elected leaders for defending their country against terrorism is outrageous,” MP Michael Chong said in a statement published on the X network.