It was necessary to the government of Canada that the unbearable images of Palestinian children, emaciated body, emaciated faces, looks made hungry by hunger, go around the world, that the postapocalyptic landscape of Gaza becomes difficult to ignore, that tens of thousands of civilians lose their lives in appalling conditions, to consider the recognition of the state of Palestine.
The gesture would have been more significant, and its deeper impact, if it had occurred at the time of the proclamation of the state of Palestine, around forty years ago. He would have met the requirements of the time.
The Palestinians proclaimed their state in 1988 in the borders of 1967 (East Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza), that is to say on a territory severely amputated with regard to the area that had given them in 1947 the resolution of the UN General Assembly. This considerable concession was accompanied by the recognition of the State of Israel. The whole had to serve as a basis for the solution of the two states.
Due to the systematic obstruction of the United States, the Canadian decision will only have value symbolic. However, it remains significantly significant. Canada acted in concert with other states, the concerted action serving as a multiplier factor.
More importantly, such an initiative has created a crack in Western passivity, a key element in the calculation of the Israeli government. This is why Netanyahu reacted by the announcement of the occupation of the city of Gaza, thereby trying to keep the terms of the debate from the two underlying states’ solution.
Passivity
The ultimate ambition of the Israeli right and extreme right is to colonize and then annex all the Palestinian territories, even if it means violating international law. Impunity requires Western passivity. Passivity perfectly embodied by the voluntary ambivalence of the United States and its allies.
The United States is officially favorable to the solution of the two states, but without ever recognizing the state of Palestine. The Israeli right and far right have accommodated this position well, because it meant the inaction of the West.
For Washington, the state of Palestine must be the subject of direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. These negotiations have never exceeded the virtual stage since the collapse of the peace process, the United States refusing to exercise the slightest pressure on Israel.
However, the Israeli right and extreme right, which want the very idea of a Palestinian state to disappear from the field of possibilities, will never engage their own free will in such negotiations. It is the logic of this calculation that the recognition of Palestine by Canada and other countries has disturbed.
Canada, the United Kingdom and France did not need to wait for horror to reach its climax before acting. The destruction of the peace process suggested the worst. They just had to pay attention to the alarm cries launched at the time by illustrious personalities like Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter. It is to the latter that time has proved right.
Yield
The current context is such gravity that it requires more vigorous actions. Two Israeli organizations, B’tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, qualified the drama in Gaza as a genocide. First importance Israeli academics, such as Historians Omer Bartov and Avi Shlaïm, or even the novelist David Grossman, make the same observation. Already, the file presented by South Africa to the International Court of Justice left no doubt about this.
Beyond its slowness and its hesitations, Canada continues to provide military equipment to Israel, according to a recent report by the Arms Embargo Now organization. Ditto for France, which also warned that it was not going to execute the arrest warrant launched by the International Criminal Tribunal against Netanyahu.
The United Kingdom is not content to deliver weapons: it provides intelligence used in Israeli military operations in Gaza. This will not fail to nourish skepticism with regard to its promise to recognize Palestine, by putting its scope into perspective.
According to the Angus Reid survey institute, 52 % of Canadians (compared to 20 %) think that Palestinians undergo a genocide and 54 % (against 20 % too) that Canada must do more so that weapons are not provided in Israel.
It is understandable, because, as Hannah Arendt noted in her reflection on the war of annihilation: “A people, a city or a group of men always presents a vision of the world that he alone can do […] If it is destroyed, it is not only a people, a city or even a certain number of men that is destroyed, but part of the common world. »»
