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On July 30, 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada would recognize a Palestinian state. He was careful to explain that recognition was not unconditional.
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Canada’s decision, Carney said, was predicated on commitments from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to fundamentally reform Palestinian governance, hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas could play no part and demilitarize a future Palestinian state.
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These conditions never answered the most obvious objection to Canada’s policy: Why recognize a state before the institutions capable of governing it peacefully and democratically actually exist?
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Canada went ahead and did it anyway.
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There is a curious double standard at the heart of Canada’s policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel is treated as a country whose leaders make choices and must live with their consequences. Palestinians are treated as a people to whom history happens.
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Consider the typical diplomatic discussion surrounding the conflict. Israel must accept a ceasefire, restrain its military, halt settlement expansion, negotiate with its enemies, make territorial concessions and articulate a credible political horizon. Some of those demands are reasonable and others can be debated, but they all make it clear that Israel possesses agency.
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Now, consider the expectations placed on Palestinian leaders.
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Mahmoud Abbas was elected president in 2005 and has remained in office ever since, despite repeatedly promising to hold elections. Hamas spent years turning Gaza into a terrorist stronghold before launching the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust. Palestinian politics remain fractured, corruption is endemic within the Palestinian Authority and its education system continues to glorify violence and deny the Jewish people’s historical connection to the land.
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Yet the diplomatic dogma remains overwhelmingly focused on what everyone else should do for Palestinians. Israel should change its policies and tactics. Washington should exert more pressure on Israel. Western governments should recognize Palestine, the United Nations should confer greater legitimacy and donor countries should provide more assistance.
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What, precisely, are Palestinian leaders expected to do? Expecting nothing is not allyship, it’s paternalism.
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If Palestinians are entitled to sovereignty, as the Carney government believes they are, then Palestinian leaders should be responsible for building the institutions that make sovereignty viable.
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They should be responsible for whether their people vote, whether public money rewards violence, whether schools prepare children for co-existence and whether their political culture treats negotiation and compromise as diplomacy or betrayal.
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None of this absolves Israel of responsibility for its actions. It is held accountable for the decisions of its elected government because that is what it means to treat a nation as a sovereign political actor. Palestinians deserve the same standard.