John Robson: Only a fool would recognize a Palestinian state that doesn’t exist

Among my favourite Solomon Proverbs (14:24) is “the foolishness of fools is folly.” Which brings me to Canadian foreign policy on the anniversary of the October 7 genocidal attack. In a Post interview last week about Israel’s changed political climate, Eylon Levy told Adam Zivo, “You cannot talk about the two-state solution without being laughed out of the room.” And on cue, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Affairs minister Anita Anand did. Though of course they weren’t laughed out of the room because they’re not in it … and don’t even know it.

We’re not meant to blurt out that Canada is governed by dunces lest it call into question the credibility of commentators solemnly dissecting their windbaggery. So when they insist they’re “building reliable infrastructure at a speed and scale not seen in generations” for helping subsidize fixing a curling rink roof, and call it an “investment” because they insist they’re spending less and investing more, the press gallery don’t insist the PM define the difference.

On the Middle East, Carney’s cliché festival included “Canada unequivocally condemns Hamas, which must play no role in the future governance of a demilitarized Palestinian state. Our support for Israel’s right to live in peace and security with its neighbours has been at the core of Canada’s Middle East policy for almost 80 years. We stand steadfastly with the Israeli people in their pursuit of a safe and secure Israel as part of a two-state solution.”

Meanwhile Anand driveled “Canada will continue working with international partners toward a just and lasting peace, in which Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in security and with dignity. We remain committed to advancing the two-state solution and the diplomatic work needed to sustain it.”

Our stale, increasingly tepid and entirely verbal fog about supporting Israel is blown away by David Ben-Gurion’s famous “It doesn’t matter what the goyim say. It matters what the Jews do.” Like clearing out terrorist nests while our politicians squawk and faint. And while he also memorably sneered “OUM shmoum,” OUM being UN in Hebrew, our so-called leaders chatter about “international partners” and “the diplomatic work” as if either were a real thing.

Carney and Anand are not expressing ideas. They’re displaying thoughts preserved as in amber, pretty, rigid and long dead. What have they to say of Levy’s actual idea that “Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, in the promise that the Palestinians could show what they would peacefully do with territory, and instead of getting Singapore we got nearly 20 years of rocket attacks”?

I’ll tell you. Nothing. That Israel offered land for peace, got “Itbah al yahud” back, made the deal unilaterally in frustration anyway, and got “Itbah al yahud” anyway, literally did not register, because they are pompous ninnies.

Consider their recognizing a non-existent Palestinian state last year. As with the scale-and-speed thing, if Carney couldn’t find a two-state solution he’d fake one instead, running in familiar mental circles, offering solutions that weren’t relevant to a situation that did not exist, and shutting his eyes to any contrary evidence lest it puncture his self-importance.

At the time he duly intoned “The Palestinian Authority has provided direct commitments to Canada and the international community on much-needed reforms, including to fundamentally reform its governance, to hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarize the Palestinian state.” And you could argue that it didn’t count as a lie because we all knew it wasn’t true.

We all knew Hamas and the Palestinian Authority had not promised and would not do the things he called for. As we all knew he would not therefore withdraw recognition, including when Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Abbas just cancelled elections again, as he enters the 21st year of his four-year mandate.

Instead Anand prates that “Canada unequivocally condemns Hamas, a listed terrorist entity under the Criminal Code since 2002. Hamas must fully disarm and play no role in the future governance of Palestine.” Yet her department continues to subsidize Hamas and hate through UNRWA while giving the alleged Palestinian state more aid than anyone else, twice what Ukraine gets.

Speaking of Solomon, his existence demonstrates that Israel, not “Palestine,” has a demonstrable historic right to the land. As history demonstrates that Jews there were subjected to genocidal attacks before their homeland was restored in 1948, giving the lie to claims that Israel’s policy prompts terrorism, not Israel’s existence. Remember, like Hamas that FlyDubai terrorist copilot talked of killing Jews, not Israelis.

It’s not rocket surgery. Unfortunately our prime minister is a fool whose folly is foolishness. And dangerous, to Israel, Jews and Canada, for as Solomon also said “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.”

Indeed.

National Post