Ottawa wants its colonial lacky to hold long delayed elections but is demanding a leading Palestinian party be excluded. And its statement largely reflects Zionist pressure and the two-state charade.
On Saturday Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas postponed upcoming legislative and presidential elections for nearly a year. In response the foreign ministers of the UK, Australia, France and Canada said they “deeply regret the Palestinian President’s decision to postpone the Palestinian Legislative Council elections as well as the Presidential elections to September 2027.” Despite Abbas being on the 22nd year of a four-year mandate, Ottawa has put upwards of a billion dollars into propping up his compliant and corrupt PA.
While Canada/UK/Australia/France bemoan the PA subverting democracy – as if legitimate elections can be held under occupation and genocide – they simultaneously made a mockery of their stated commitment to democracy and self-determination. The four country statement notes, “Lastly, we reiterate our longstanding position that Hamas can have no role in the future governance of Palestine.”
So, they (we) are telling a long-colonized people to hold elections, but you can’t include one of the largest parties. (While Hamas is the current boogeyman, Canada’s terrorism list criminalizes most Palestinian political life, including secular leftist parties such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.)
Adding to the neocolonial absurdity, Ottawa directly subverted the last Palestinian election. After Hamas won legislative elections in 2006, Canada was the first country after Israel to impose sanctions against the Palestinians. Ottawa’s aid cut-off and refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government was designed to sow division. It helped spur fighting between Hamas and Fatah and when Hamas took control of Gaza, Israel used it to justify brutalizing Palestinians there.
In a sign of Canada’s commitment to undercutting Palestinian unity and democracy, Ottawa immediately contributed $8 million “in direct support to the new government” after Hamas officials were ousted from the unity government in June 2007. At the end of that year the Conservative government announced a five-year $300 million aid program to the Palestinians mostly for a security force to bolster Fatah against Hamas. US General Keith Dayton, in charge of organizing the 10,000-member Palestinian security force, even admitted he was strengthening Abbas’ Fatah against Hamas, telling a US audience in 2009 his force was “working against illegal Hamas activities.” Between 2007 and 2011 PA security forces arrested some 10,000 suspected Hamas supporters in the West Bank.
As I’ve written elsewhere, the broader aim of Canada’s military deployment to support Palestinian security reform was to build a force to entrench the Israeli occupation. It’s been successful. That’s why Mark Carney is unlikely to respond to Abbas postponing elections by withdrawing the just announced $20 million in new security assistance to the PA. (In 2012 when Stephan Harper’s government threatened to cut security assistance to the PA, Israel privately “implored” Ottawa not to.)
In a sign of the anti-Palestinian character of the official discussion in Canada, hardline Zionists are up in arms about Abbas postponing elections. They are complaining that the PA has failed to fulfill the absurd conditions Mark Carney placed on Canada’s recognition of Palestine to placate Zionists. Carney predicated recognition of Palestine on elections without Hamas (as well as a “demilitarized” state, which Carney has repeatedly labelled a “Zionist Palestinian state”).
Now that Abbas has once again postponed elections pro-genocide forces are criticizing Carney and seeking to revoke Canada’s recognition of Palestine.
Leaving aside that the recognition cat is out of the bag, the entire discussion is based on an outlandish, neocolonial, premise. In their statement Tuesday the four countries that recognized Palestine in short order last year reiterated that “Strengthening Palestinian governance is essential to continue building the institutional foundations of a viable two-state solution.”
But Palestinians aren’t the obstacle to their gaining sovereignty over twenty two percent of their historic lands. In a clip circulating of a recent English language election debate, representatives of all Israeli eight parties participating explicitly reject the establishment of a Palestinian state. Similarly, a Financial Times story on “What would Israel’s opposition do differently?” noted, “on one issue, the opposition has found consensus from both the left and right: there will be no Palestinian state.”
Still, Canadian officials are making demands of Palestinians as part of promoting Carney’s “Zionist Palestinian state” charade. Instead, Canada should simplify end its unique, multifaceted, support for a supremacist state committing genocide.
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