After months of build-up, Mark Carney and other Western leaders like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have publicly recognized the state of Palestine. No act could better represent the utter cynicism of the Western imperialists. It is an empty statement to hold back unrest at home, while doing nothing to stop Israel’s genocide—which they have all aided and abetted.
Self-determination…with conditions
The bourgeois press is treating these statements as a massive policy shift for these western governments. Headlines describe the move as a real step forward for Palestinian rights or, in the case of right-wing mouthpieces like the National Post, a concession to Hamas. The actual statement itself, however, paints a very different picture.
Carney touts the “principles of self-determination and fundamental human rights,” yet his roadmap for a free Palestinian state is not democratic or free in the slightest. For him and the other Western leaders, a “free” Palestine can only be accomplished through total demilitarization and the removal of Hamas, to be replaced with the Palestinian Authority.
If the Palestinians are stripped of their right to defend themselves against Israeli attacks, and external powers have the ability to determine who leads them, in what way are they being granted self-determination? In practice, this would only pave the way for Israel to accelerate the slaughter in Gaza and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. The people of Palestine would be foolish to accept such a deal.
These demands stand out in glaring contradiction to the West’s treatment of Israel, even as they tepidly criticize the regime’s most glaring atrocities. Do they demand that Netanyahu be removed from government for the terror he has inflicted? Have they faced any consequences for the recent drone attacks on negotiators in Qatar, a neutral country in the conflict? Is it not the IDF that needs to be demilitarized?
More importantly, these atrocities were, and always have been, carried out with money, arms and political support provided by these same Western states now claiming to support Palestinian statehood. Will any of these countries back this up by ending their arms shipments to Israel? Of course not!
The cynicism of the ruling class
These statements will have no tangible effect. On top of that, Netanyahu has used them to reinforce the siege mentality propagated within Israel, referring to them as a “prize to Hamas” and reaffirming that the Israeli regime will never allow a Palestinian state to exist. Clearly, nothing progressive can come from these token gestures.
This is the reality of capitalism. Our rulers, and international institutions like the UN, are not directed by moral ideals but by cold, hard, material interests. Israel is too important to the West’s imperialist interests in the region for them to pull support.
At the same time, however, more and more people in the West have become aware of what is going on, and Israel has become massively unpopular. Two-thirds of Canadians see Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “moral outrage,” and more than half support an arms embargo. Recognizing Palestinian statehood is nothing more than a cynical maneuver to try to get some of the heat off of their backs. Carney did the same thing when he lied about ending arms shipments to Israel.
This has always been the role of liberalism: to disguise the crimes of the ruling class with a window dressing of progressiveness.
The power of the masses
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio summed up the maneuvers of Carney and co. quite well when he said: “It really is them responding to their own domestic politics, you know, protesters in their streets and things like that.”
The fact is that the ruling class is terrified of the Palestine movement. They know that it has the potential to set off a social explosion. They are shaking in their boots watching events in Italy right now, where hundreds of thousands of workers and students have gone on strike over the Meloni government’s support for Israel.
This is the way forward in Canada: not performative, cynical statements from capitalist politicians, but militant, working-class action that can put an end to this madness.
