We will doubtless find out the quid for this particular quo in the next budget
The vote on the NDP motion to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state gave every indication that the House of Commons is now governed by its nursery.
The debate was highly charged all day Monday, with a number of Liberals joining NDP, Bloc Québécois and Green MPs to speak in support of the motion.
It began to look like the vote would be a close-run thing for a government whose foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, said that Canada couldn’t change foreign policy based on an opposition party motion.
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It seemed that the New Democrats, who have been propping up the Liberals for months, were about to deliver a potential coup de grâce by exposing ruptures in the government caucus.
Mutiny in Liberal ranks has been brewing ever since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
He might have whipped the vote on the motion to avoid embarrassment, but it appears he no longer has the authority within his caucus to enforce it.
Humiliation loomed, until … at the 11th hour, after debate in the chamber had closed, the Liberal House leader, Steve McKinnon, stood to put forward a series of amendments. The most consequential was a proposal to replace the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state with language more in line with current policy: that Canada would work with international partners to pursue the goal of a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including towards the establishment of a state of Palestine as part of a two-state solution.”
The motion’s sponsor, NDP MP Heather McPherson, agreed to the amendments and Trudeau’s blushes were spared.
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We will doubtless find out the quid for this particular quo in the next budget.
The hasty nature of the rescue act was apparent from the fact that McKinnon did not even table a French translation of the amendment.
The whole thing smacked of farce and furtive intrigue. MPs on all sides complained that their parliamentary privileges were infringed because for hours they had debated a motion that, when finally presented for vote, bore little resemblance to the original.
In the end, the sharp edges of the McPherson motion were smoothed sufficiently that it mattered little who voted for it; it was just another in a series of ceasefire votes.
It was just as well. The motion was non-binding, but it would have not been ignored overseas if Canada had joined the 139 other countries recognizing a State of Palestine.
For Trudeau, the problem has not gone away.
The radical left of the Liberal caucus is a tail that is increasingly wagging the dog and its members are unlikely to assume their submissive position in the future. It seems untenable that passionate Palestinian advocates like Ottawa MP Chandra Arya and fervent Zionists like Montreal MP Anthony Housefather can continue to sit in the same caucus after this debate.
Legally and morally, the motion was on dubious grounds in any case.
Melissa Lantsman, the Conservative deputy leader, called it “a blind sell-out to the forces of evil” that abandons “our values, our allies and our reason.”
Sarah Teich, a senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, pointed out that the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States outlines the requirements for statehood — and the Palestinians don’t meet them.
“For instance, the criteria of defined territory and government. What are the borders of Palestine as recognized by Canada? Does that include East Jerusalem?” she asked. “How can there be a Palestinian state when the West Bank and Gaza are run by different entities (Fatah and Hamas)?”
The convention is also clear that using military force to gain sovereignty is prohibited.
Israel’s ambassador in Ottawa, Iddo Moed, said that such one-sided recognition would reward Hamas.
“What kind of message would this send to the people of Israel from Canada?” he asked.
The idea of recognizing Palestinian statehood has a long history.
Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon raised the possibility two decades ago. But only after a Palestinian state had agreed to demilitarize and give up claims to a “right of return” to Israel for Palestinians and their descendants living elsewhere.
Statehood has long been seen as an incentive to bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table — not something to be granted pre-emptively in response to a terrorist outrage.
The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 oblige both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to negotiate between them the permanent status of the disputed areas. Israelis argue that unilateral recognition would undermine that agreement, embolden Hamas and erode the power of the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank.
The legal barriers were overlooked in the House of Commons, as advocates and opponents of the motion manoeuvred for the moral high ground.
In an emotional speech in the House, McPherson, suggested unilateral recognition would accelerate the diplomatic process, without explaining how.
McPherson offered some horrific examples of Palestinian children dying in Gaza. But Joly later recounted a story of a Jewish Canadian killed in a kibbutz in southern Israel, protecting his fiancée. The longer the debate went on, the more frequently one side or other brought up dead babies.
The bottom line is that this is an international tragedy. No one has a monopoly on suffering or compassion.
The divisions in the Liberal caucus were apparent from speeches made in the House. Scarborough MP Salma Zahid urged MPs to vote in favour of recognizing a “free and democratic” Palestinian state, in advance of a final settlement. Hamas does not speak for the people of Gaza, she said, in defiance of the facts.
On the other side, Toronto MP Julie Dabrusin said the NDP motion was “an opportunity lost” to smooth over divisions in the country.
“There is a difference between governing a country and shouting from the sidelines.”
She said voting against the (original) motion did not mean she condones what is going on in Gaza but that the NDP proposed fixes would not solve the problems there, and could cause more.
There are good reasons why Canada’s policy in the region has been to support negotiations towards a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinian representatives who are not Hamas, offering the prospect of sovereignty and land, in return for genuine peace.
As Joly said, the government’s position is rooted in three principles: the right of Israel to exist and defend itself; the protection of civilians; and, the right of self-determination for Palestinians.
“They cannot be conducted separately or in opposition to one another,” she said.
Ambassador Moed said the only way to reach a just agreement is for both sides to recognize the other’s right to exist, but he pointed out there is not much recognition coming from the Palestinian side.
This is the real crux of the problem, missed entirely by the supporters of the NDP motion.
Israelis have long expressed willingness to concede land for peace as part of a two-state solution.
But Palestinians have been fixated on a one-state solution “from the river to the sea.” They have repeatedly refused to sign up for a two-state solution, including at Camp David in 2000, when Yasser Arafat walked away from a deal with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Canada using its limited influence to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would not have won many thanks from either side.
The Liberals did Canada — and themselves — a favour by taking it off the table.
National Post
jivison@criffel.ca
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