MAJUMDAR: Canada's recognition of Palestinian statehood rewards Hamas

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There is nothing principled, nothing courageous and nothing diplomatic about handing victories to terrorists.

Yet that is precisely what Mark Carney and his elite allies are doing, cloaking cowardice as statesmanship and moral relativism as progress.

Let us call it by its true name: appeasement masquerading as virtue.

By rewarding terror with statehood, Carney isn’t just reversing decades of Canadian foreign policy, he’s dismantling it. He’s telling Canadians that Oct. 7 didn’t matter – that the slaughter of innocents, the rape of women, and the abduction of children can be dismissed for a fleeting cocktail-party platitude.

This is not foreign policy. It is moral bankruptcy.

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What Carney and his cohorts advocate is not peace, it is surrender. Worse still, surrender to barbarism. Unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood amid Hamas’s horrors is not just reckless, it is dangerously naive.

It tells every hostage in Gaza’s terror tunnels: your suffering is secondary to our politics.

It tells Jewish diaspora facing antisemitic violence and mobs: you stand alone.

And it broadcasts to every terror syndicate, the lies they propagate, and the civilians they brutally subjugate: tyranny pays.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in Britain, Keir Starmer yields to his party’s anti-Israel faction, betraying Winston Churchill’s indomitable legacy. In France, Emmanuel Macron – once lauded as a centrist – caves to the mob and hands Hamas a diplomatic victory. These stewards of great nations falter at the hour of moral trial.

The same West that once stared down fascism now can’t even summon the courage to stare down its modern reincarnation of terrorism. The same France that stood for liberty and equality now offers legitimacy to rapists and hostage-takers. The same Britain that held fast through the Blitz now folds under pressure from TikTok activists.

And now Mark Carney and Anita Anand, in their fantasy world of false equivalencies, reward a 20-year dictator with good intentions, and our friends with deep suspicions.

Let’s be clear: The Palestinian Authority has not dispensed with its “pay to slay” policy, a policy that rewards terrorists and perpetuates violence with pensions funded by the West. Its leadership continues to indoctrinate children with fake history denying human dignity. It has not earned the trust that underpins Carney’s so-called “intentions.”

A glance at how things are going in the UK and France makes it clear they are hardly models to be inspired by, let alone seek to replicate, as Prime Minister Carney obsessively does.

Whether through terrorism or corruption, the Iranian-backed plan hasn’t been for coexistence – it has been eradication. Oct. 7 was not a cry for statehood, it was a declaration of war on civilization itself.

To respond to that with diplomatic handouts is naïve and dangerous. You cannot preach stability and reward savagery. You cannot condemn violence and legitimize its perpetrators. And you sure as hell can’t claim to represent the Canadian people while doing both.

Mark Carney aspires to lead this nation. But true leadership demands moral clarity, not equivalence. It means standing resolutely with allies, not sniping from European lecterns. It means upholding the rule of law over mob rule. Carney chooses appeasement over principle, acclaim over national interests, expediency over justice.

The consequences will be real on our streets and in our communities. Terrorists will be emboldened. It’s amazing that this even needs to be said – Canada should not reward rapists and murderers. Not now. Not ever.

If Carney wants to reward terrorism, he can do it without the Canadian flag draped over his shoulders.

– Shuvaloy Majumdar is a Member of Parliament for Calgary Heritage and is the foreign policy program director at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. From 2006-2010, he was based in Iraq and Afghanistan where he led the International Republican Institute (IRI).