EDITORIAL: Carney's Palestinian statehood blunder
· Toronto Sun
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has just delayed the election that Prime Minister Mark Carney said was a key condition of Canada’s decision last year to formally recognize an independent Palestinian state.
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That election, originally scheduled for Nov. 28, has now been delayed by almost 10 months until Sept. 11, 2027.
This is hardly a surprise, given that Abbas hasn’t allowed Palestinian elections since 2006, when he lost the last one to Hamas, which was designated a terrorist organization by Canada in 2002.
That led to Hamas taking over Gaza while Abbas’ Fatah party continues to rule in the West Bank — the two components of what are supposed to form the new Palestinian state.
Abbas’ predictable decision to postpone the election demonstrates the folly of Carney and other Western leaders recognizing Palestinian statehood, prior to it meeting the conditions they said were necessary to create “a sovereign, democratic and viable State of Palestine,” living “in peace and security alongside the State of Israel.”
As Carney put it at the time, those were based on Abbas’ “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.”
Flash forward to today and there won’t be an election this year. Hamas hasn’t been disarmed and, in fact, plans to participate in next year’s election — assuming it ever actually happens — after agreeing with Abbas’ decision to delay it until September 2027.
Palestinian leaders blamed the postponement on interference by Israel — which is its standard operating procedure for failing to meet its own commitments — although what is true is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces his own election on Oct. 27, opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
Naive decision
That said, the decision by Carney and other Western leaders to put their faith in Abbas was painfully naive. He’s 90 years old and has been widely condemned as an antisemite and Holocaust denier.
In addition, polls show he has little popular support among Palestinians, with the overwhelming majority wanting him to resign because they think he is ineffective. They believe the Palestinian Authority he leads, which has received billions of dollars in foreign aid, is corrupt.