- Tweet.
- This article is originally by Middle East Monitor, Republished here under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that his country plans to recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations.
In a Friday post on X, Carney stated: “Canada supports a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.” He added that Ottawa “will work intensively in all fora to further that end, including through the participation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the UN High-Level Conference on a Two-State Solution in New York next week.
The Prime Minister also said that Canada condemns the Israeli government’s failure to prevent the rapid deterioration of the humanitarian adisaster in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron declared his intention to recognise the State of Palestine in September 2025.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly condemned the move, saying that the establishment of a Palestinian state would pose a threat to Israel’s security.
Meanwhile, the Hamas movement welcomed Macron’s intention to recognise Palestine during the UN General Assembly in September.
Hamas described the move as a positive step in the right direction towards justice for the oppressed Palestinian people and support for their legitimate right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on all of its occupied territory, with Jerusalem as its capital.
"Supporting a two-state solution" is not the same as recognizing Palestine.
Recognizing Palestine is a symbolic gesture at the moment since there's no Palestinian government that controls both the West Bank and Gaza. Generally when countries do this, the recognize the PA as the government of Palestine, but that implies that Gaza isn't part of Palestine (which nobody really thinks) and the West Bank is under occupation, so what does that even mean? I
Recognition of Palestine is just a way to protest Israel and/or the US, nothing more. It's a symbolic act, not a meaningful change in anything on the ground.
What Carney said is more sensible. Everyone reasonable wants a two-state solution, strangely it's only Netanyahu and radical pro-Palestinian groups that want a one state solution. They only differ on which ethnic group should control that one state.
Even then it's premature to talk about a long term peace before there's a ceasefire, but this is mostly about putting pressure on Israel to bring in more humanitarian aid because the US isn't doing that anymore.
Not sure what this conference will accomplish though... is any country going to commit ground troops to Gaza? We all want more humanitarian aid (and eventually a stable peaceful government) in Gaza, but how do you actually make that happen?
I agree with a lot of what you've said here but a one-state solution is not necessarily a question of "which ethnic group controls the state". The anti-apartheid, anti-genocide advocates for a one-state solution generally argue for full rights for all citizens and a secular administration, if I'm not mistaken.
Jews would still be a majority in a one state solution. What's the term for changing an area from occupied territory to be part of a country where the people are citizens? Annexation.
That's why the whole "apartheid state" thing is a silly slogan used by people who don't actually understand anything. Netanyahu wants to annex the West Bank and it seems the "apartheid state" crowd agrees that this is the best solution. But I don't think they really do agree with Netanyahu, it's just non-serious people spewing non-sense slogans. They don't understand what the word annexation means and don't care that Palestinians might want their own state apart from Israel.
Look, I'm just explaining the position as I understand it. I'll also note that there are a great many advocates for a one-state, equal-rights solution that most certainly do know what they're talking about.
Who? If you could even just point to someone describing how this would work, that would be helpful. But I've never seen anyone actually explain how this would actually work. The only one state solutions offered is Netanyahu wanting to annex territories or nutjobs that want to ethnically cleanse (or worse) Jews from the region.
Just look at the population numbers... A one state solution would have Jewish majority. Do pro-Palestinian radicals really want a one state solution with Palestinians being a minority in a state that's majority is Jewish? There's a lot of dark intentions of those that want a one state solution. Or they just don't know what they're talking about.
Ilan Pappé is one of the foremost advocates AFAIK