Mouin Rabbani
This week I was invited by the Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians (APAC) to deliver the keynote address to its tenth annual Palestine Day on The Hill. The text of my remarks below: On 21 September 2025, Canada formally recognized the State of Palestine. The Palestinian diplomat Afif Safieh often remarked that Western states appeared undecided if the crisis in the Middle East is the result of one state too few, or of one people too many. Israel of course insists there is one people too many. Over the decades it has sought to resolve this issue by way of dispossession, occupation and annexation, and now also genocide. In recognizing Palestine, Canada has decisively rejected Israel’s approach and made clear its position that there is one state too few, and that the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people must be realised in practice. Canada’s recognition of Palestine has been dismissed, and at times derided, as a purely symbolic measure that changes nothing. Formal recognition of a foreign state is of course never symbolic. Whether or not it changes anything beyond Canada’s official position is a different question. This will depend, first and foremost, upon the extent to which Canada upholds and discharges its international obligations. These are obligations, it should be noted, that Canada formally accepts. These obligations are neither general nor theoretical. They are clearly, and very precisely, spelled out in a series of International Court of Justice rulings, United Nations Security Council Resolutions, International Criminal Court decisions, and more broadly the principles of international law and its relevant instruments, such as the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. These rulings and resolutions go back many decades. Among the most significant are those issued in the past 2-3 years. In July of 2024, most pertinently, the ICJ determined that “Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful” and that “all states are under an obligation … not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence” of Israel in these territories. These are now settled matters of international law, pun intended. Any other statement about the status of Israel’s presence in these territories and how states should respond to this presence is not only just an opinion, but from a legal and political standpoint an entirely irrelevant one. At a minimum, therefore, Canada must refrain from any dealings with Israel, of any nature, whether by its government, private sector, or citizens, that enable Israel to maintain its rule over the territories it illegally occupies. Canada must seek, and Israel must provide, verifiable guarantees that any such dealings will not contribute to the maintenance of its illegal occupation. A failure to seek or to obtain such guarantees places Canada in clear violation of its obligations. In practice, this affects a very wide range of activities: arms sales and weapons deliveries; trade and investment; the participation of Canadian citizens in Israel’s armed forces and its illegal settlement enterprise; the involvement of Canadian organisations, including tax-exempt charities, in Israel’s illegal regime of occupation; and partnerships with Israeli firms, organisations, and institutions whose operations contribute to Israel’s illegal presence in the State of Palestine. These are but some of the specific obligations Canada is required to implement by virtue of its participation in the international system and recognition of its institutions. They represent the bare minimum of Canada’s obligations to not only respect international law, but also to ensure respect for it by other members of the international community. More broadly, Palestine today is not only the litmus test of humanity and the fundamental moral question of our time, but also the canary in the coalmine of the norms and values that underpin the international system, and of the institutions these norms and values have produced. A case in point is the International Criminal Court, which has come under sustained attack on account of fulfilling its own mandate and obligations. A number of its senior staff, including Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, have been sanctioned by the United States for fulfilling their professional duties. Others have been subject to Israeli threats and attempts at blackmail and bribery, and sanctioned imposed by Washington on Israel’s behalf. Against this background, permitting indicted war criminal and fugitive from international justice Benjamin Netanyahu to enter Canadian airspace to visit the government that sanctioned Judge Prost sends a wrong signal. Ultimately, this is about making strategic choices: will Canada fulfil or neglect its international obligations when it comes to Israel and Palestine? Will Ottawa continue to embrace the double standards so evident in its differing approaches to Ukraine and Palestine, or will it hold Israel to the same standard it applies to others? Does genocide still have consequences in the twenty-first century, or is the crime of crimes to be normalised because it is perpetrated by Israel? Ultimately, this is first and foremost about impunity, and the urgent priority of transforming this impunity into accountability. Absent this transformation, Canada’s recognition of Palestine will remain ink on paper. The time remaining for Canada to get on the right side of history, in not only word but also in deed, is rapidly diminishing. Canada has what it takes to do the right thing. Each of us also has a role to play and a contribution to make in ensuring that it does. And History never forgets.