Call for Canada to Recognize Palestinian Statehood Is Both Ridiculous and Wrongheaded

By Conrad Black

The stampede in many Western countries to champion the Palestinian cause has been a thoroughly nauseating spectacle of misdirected righteousness, faddishness, and racist bigotry.

The Palestinian leadership is divided and largely discredited, and even if they were disposed to have substantive discussions towards peace through a two-state solution, there is no serious party Palestinians could put forward at this time as a respectable interlocutor with the Israeli government.

There is no question that the motivation of the NDP is just to get on board with the demonstrative and energetic left: the vapid, belligerent sophomores cluttering our universities and stirred up by the hooligans who come up out of the sewers in times of public strife to amplify racism, violence, and chaos. Since the government of Canada—relaxed though its standards of integrity and responsible foreign policy are—cannot get under the covers with the authors of the gruesome Oct. 7 massacres, this is a method for the NDP to distinguish itself opposite the Liberals in the eyes of the depressingly large number of useful idiots who believe that this country should be supporting Hamas at this time.

But by any reasonable comparison of the histories of the Irish, the Jewish, and the rather ambiguous and unorganized nationality of the Palestinians, the greatest similarity is between the struggles of the Irish and the Jews to have a country of their own, and now the very great success and prosperity of both countries, Israel’s gained through constant combat with hostile and much larger neighbours. Of course, the current war in Gaza is entirely the result of an invasion and massacre of over 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians and many small children, women, and the elderly. These were killings of the most savage and inhuman kind and might have been expected to appall the Irish, sentimental Christians as they are, and accustomed historically as they have been to a heavy-handed occupation, though nothing on quite the scale of barbarism as was inflicted on Israel on Oct. 7.

On the same day that Ireland declared that it recognized a Palestinian state, the same decision was taken by Norway and by Spain. Norway was, from time to time in its history, essentially a part of Denmark and of Sweden but has declared its independence quite peacefully at intervals, the last occasion being in 1905. It is now a sumptuously rich northern petro-state enjoying a standard of living comparable to Ireland, and it is not obvious what virtue it detects in Hamas. Norway endured Nazi occupation for five years and has no record of anti-Semitism. Its gesture is inexplicable, unless it simply supports all separatists because of its own experiences.

The Canadian NDP is fishing in deep waters. No one could accuse it of anti-Semitism; it has been popular in many Jewish districts and has had a number of distinguished Jewish leaders, particularly David and Stephen Lewis and Bob Rae (now a Liberal). In joining this fad of recognizing a Palestinian government—with no idea of who this government might be, where it might be located, or what borders Palestine might eventually aspire to occupy—is a ridiculous, meaningless, and irritating gesture. They aren’t really recognizing anyone or anything, and they are enabling their opponents to colour them with the brush of the monstrous atrocities of Hamas. They may even succeed in giving some comfort to the Quebec separatists, with whom they have played footsie many times before.

Considering everything that is involved, the NDP are children playing with high explosives, mindless of the fate that may await them or the damage they could do to this country. Fortunately, no one in the rest of the world will pay any attention to them.

First published in the Epoch Times