RUBENSTEIN: Liberal Party's push to recognize new Palestinian state reeks of anti-semitism

If you answer 'yes' to any of the following questions, then you are undoubtedly antisemitic:Do you instinctively assume that the Israelis are the aggressors and the Palestinians the victims in the current war against Hamas, without any fundamental understanding of the issues and their history?Do you use the term 'genocide' to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza, even though you've never actually investigated the meaning of that term?Did you remain silent while real genocide was taking place in other parts of the Middle East, with over a million people being killed in wars there over the past 20 years?Do you view the terrorists who took part in the unprovoked invasion of Israel a year ago today as 'freedom fighters,' even though they murdered over 1,200 people in cold blood, raped dozens of women, beheaded babies, and are still holding over 100 hostages?Are you calling for an end to 'the occupation' even though Israel had zero presence in Gaza between 2005 and 2023?Have you ignored the fact that the Hamas Charter calls for the destruction of Israel?Do you refer to the Jews as 'colonizers,' even though their historic ties and contemporary claim to the land of Israel are overwhelming?Do you believe that Israel should 'return the land' even though no independent 'state of Palestine' has ever existed?Do you think this could all be resolved if only Israel would agree to give the Palestinians their state — even though Israel has agreed to this on multiple occasions and the Palestinians always have rejected it?This is my take on the September 24 Canadian House of Commons foreign affairs committee vote to study the quickest path to federal government recognition of a Palestinian state.This decision was made despite the objections of Conservative MPs on the committee, who argue that recognizing a Palestinian state in the absence of a negotiated agreement with Israel would be a remarkable shift in longstanding Canadian government policy. .Conversely, Liberal MP and committee member Omar Alghabra, who presented the motion before the committee, said, "This motion is an important motion for those peace-loving nations who support a two-state solution."Alghabra, a Saudi-born Syrian-Canadian politician who served as Canada's minister of transport from 2021 to 2023 has been labelled as an anti-Israel terrorism sympathizer.The Liberals' motion calls for the committee to 'support the recognition of a viable and independent State of Palestine,' and a 'two-state solution where a safe and secure state of Israel lives side by side with a safe and secure state of Palestine.'As CBC News has reported, Liberal MPs on the committee secured NDP and Bloc support for the motion in a closed-door meeting.Two weeks ago, Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong tried to introduce amendments that would have brought the motion more in line with the Canadian government's traditional position, that a two-state solution must start with a negotiated agreement with Israel."The risk with the committee adopting the motion in front of us is that it risks encouraging the government of Canada to do the same, and to recognize a Palestinian state sooner rather than later. And this would hurt Canada's interests," Chong told committee members.Chong said Canada risks losing its standing at the G7 and in NATO by undertaking such recognition. The other parties rejected his amendments.Hamas, a listed terrorist entity under Canadian law, currently controls the Gaza Strip. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has told CBC News that recognition without negotiation would amount to rewarding Hamas for its deadly attack on Israel in October of last year.On October 7, Hamas terrorists, as defined by the Government of Canada, attacked Israel and took hundreds of hostages. A brutal war has been waging in the Middle East ever since. Israel and Hamas were living under a peace agreement before the attacks, which Hamas breached.The backstory never reported by the mainstream media is that there has never been 'a viable and independent State of Palestine' or an age-old distinct cultural entity called the Palestinians.Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state; before the British Mandate, there was the Ottoman Empire, not a Palestinian state; before the Ottoman Empire, there was the Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state; before the Islamic state of the Mamluks, there was the Ayubid-Kurdish Empire, not a Palestinian state. And so on and so forth, back to the Babylonian Empire, before which there were the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, not a Palestinian state. In short, there have been dozens of states in what is now Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, but never a Palestinian one."Every Liberal on the committee voted in favour of rewarding terrorists for the October 7 massacre," wrote Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman on social media. She slammed "Liberals like Anthony Housefather," who have previously been vocal in supporting Israel, for being "silent on this.""It has been the longstanding position of Canadian governments — both Conservative and Liberal — that the recognition of Palestinian statehood and a lasting, durable peace in the Middle East can only be achieved through a negotiated agreement between Israelis and Palestinians," MP Chong wrote on social media after Tuesday's meeting.Worse, it would 'set back the cause of peace in the Middle East,' wrote Chong. 'In the aftermath of the October 7th attacks it would send a message to terrorist groups and authoritarian states that violence is an effective means to an end — such as the recognition of statehood.'Chong could have also mentioned that unlike the people recently calling themselves Palestinians, there are thousands of unique ethnic groups today — peoples with distinct languages, cultures, religions, and histories stretching back millennia — few of which have their own country.The Palestinians have no legitimate historic claim to statehood compared to age-old ethnicities, including the mainly Muslim Kurds, whose 35 to 50 million people were denied a promised state of their own in 1920. They continue to live in exploited minority status in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria with hardly a word of outrage from the outside world, including Canada, whose Liberal Party push to recognize a Palestinian state reeks of antisemitism.Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report, a retired professor of anthropology, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

RUBENSTEIN: Liberal Party's push to recognize new Palestinian state reeks of anti-semitism

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