While all eyes are on Israeli elections this month, Canada can hardly close its eyes to the postponement of Palestinian elections scheduled for next month.
asserted
Canada → close → month
When Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed statehood for Palestine last year, he linked it to fresh elections for a Palestinian Authority grown stale since the most recent vote was held two decades ago.
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vote → hail → Authority
Recognition and democratization must go together, or statehood would go nowhere.
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statehood → go → ?
Now, that promise is postponed.
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promise → postpone → ?
Today, the Palestinian political landscape is so corrupted and conflicted that the results might further entrench Hamas and destabilize the PA.
uncertain
results → entrench → PA
What does that mean for Palestinians?
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that → mean → Palestinians
What should Canadians make of the undertaking between their government and the Palestinian Authority that is now under water?
The path for Palestine is far more complicated than Canada counted on.
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Canada → make → Palestine
Yet recognition was still the right move, even if the timelines have unravelled.
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timelines → unravel → ?
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and her counterparts declared they “deeply regret” the delay.
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they → declare → delay
In a joint statement with Australia, France and the U.K., Canada urged PA President Mahmoud Abbas to “reconsider the decision” and hold elections “without further delay.”
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Canada → urge → delay
It hardly meets the preconditions for free and fair elections.
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It → meet → elections
The prerequisite for democracy is security, and Palestine has neither.
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Palestine → have → neither
The problem is not just decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but the last two decades of Hamas’s suffocation of Gaza, both of which have left Palestinian statehood stunted.
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both → leave → statehood
Yet that false start does not suggest Canada took the wrong path when it embraced Palestinian statehood a year ago.
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it → suggest → statehood
Then as now, the reality is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needed an intervention, and that intervention was recognition.
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intervention → need → intervention
The far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, propped up by fringe nationalist-chauvinist parties, had brought Israel’s already aggressive support for Jewish settlements to the brink.
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government → prop → brink
Every new encroachment was a provocation designed to preclude a two-state solution for two peoples living side by side in Israel and Palestine.
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encroachment → design → Israel
Canada had to draw a line in the sand.
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Canada → have → sand
In truth, it was also diplomatic fiction — and it goes way back.
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it → go → truth
When I was based in the Middle East as a foreign correspondent for the Star in the late 1990s, Palestinian statehood was considered embryonic — and today, that gestation endures.
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gestation → base → 1990s
I covered the first Palestinian elections three decades ago.
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I → cover → elections
About 90 per cent of eligible voters turned out in a massive show of support for what looked like the most promising democracy in the Arab world.
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what → turn → world
That said, the legislative and presidential campaigns were marked by a tightly controlled Palestinian press and arbitrary arrests by PA security forces loyal to then-president Yasser Arafat.
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campaigns → say → Arafat
Hamas boycotted the 1996 elections, biding its time until the 2005 vote that set the stage for stasis.
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that → boycott → stasis
Belatedly, Hamas made its move for power — artfully running slates to win targeted seats while Arafat’s Fatah factions split the vote.
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factions → make → vote
Hamas triumphed in Gaza, then promptly evicted the PA apparatus in a brief but vicious civil war that amounted to a post-election coup.
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that → triumph → coup
In the aftermath, Israel unilaterally uprooted the remaining Jewish settlements in Gaza, withdrawing its troops to the border areas.
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Israel → uproot → areas
That gave Hamas a choice — to forge an independent Palestine, or to sabotage the possibility for peace.
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That → give → peace
Hamas chose the latter, culminating with the massacre of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Hamas → choose → Oct.
The rest is history, including the Israeli counterattack and overkill that followed.
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that → include → counterattack
Canada’s foreign affairs minister pointed out this month that it has been two decades since Palestinians were last able to vote: “An entire generation of Palestinians has reached adulthood without the opportunity to choose their elected representatives.”
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generation → point → representatives
If democracy were a strict requirement for recognition, Canada would have few embassies abroad.
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Canada → have → embassies
So it is not just the lack of elections that imperils Palestinian statehood, but the absence of peace and security.
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that → imperil → peace
At the same time that Canada wants free and fair elections, it insists that Hamas cannot be part of any future Palestinian government.
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Hamas → want → government
That is not a contradiction but a recognition of the rejectionist policies of a militant movement that has chosen perennial sabotage over a permanent settlement.
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that → choose → settlement
It takes two to make peace.
asserted
It → take → peace
Recent events make the postponement of a two-state solution unavoidable.
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postponement → make → solution
But for all the instability and setbacks on both sides, diplomatic recognition of Palestinian statehood — however fictional and ephemeral — remains the correct stance for Canada at present.
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recognition → remain → Canada
If for no other reason than it protects the possibility of peaceful co-existence in future.
asserted
it → protect → future
The Aporia
