Canada’s shifting stance on Palestinian statehood, explained

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Wednesday his government intends to recognize a Palestinian state. Here’s a closer look at why that’s happening and what it all means.

Is Palestine a country?

The name Palestine has been attached to an area of the Middle East for centuries. Britain took control of the region after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The U.K. endorsed calls by Jewish organizations to populate the area based on Jews’ ancestral ties to the Middle East. The Zionist movement emerged as a response to centuries of violent persecution of Jews in Europe, up to and including the Holocaust.

After Israel established itself as a country in 1948 in a war that displaced many Palestinians, it fought a series of battles with Arab nations over decades.

At the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied three territories claimed by Palestinians. Canada and other nations consider that to be an illegal occupation.

Israel has control over East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state. In 1947, the UN called for the city to become a neutral, international city.

The Palestinian Authority controls large parts of the West Bank through the Fatah party. Hamas, which Canada has listed as a terrorist group, has full control of Gaza.

Neither territory has held an election since 2006 and polls by the anticorruption Aman Coalition think tank have found widespread concerns about corruption in both governments.

Most of the UN’s member states — 147 of 193 — recognize a Palestinian state, despite the split leadership.

What is the two-state solution?

Canada has for decades called for a “two-state” solution — a Palestinian state existing in peace alongside Israel.

Many countries support this idea as the best way to stop the cycle of violence and occupation. But some countries, including Iran, have said Israel should cease to exist and have funded groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israel.

Israel says the Palestinian Authority has supported terrorists and has not clearly affirmed Israel’s right to exist. It says Hamas poses an existential threat to the country.

Those concerns intensified after the gruesome Hamas attack on Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, which saw the terror group and its affiliates kill 1,200 people.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed 60,000 people, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. Israel says its aim is to rout Hamas and force it to return the hostages it took in the Oct. 7 attack. Many family members of the hostages have argued that the Israeli government has other motives.

Canada says Hamas can have no role in governing a State of Palestine.

Canada and other nations have decried the spread of illegal settlements in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have violently routed Palestinians from their homes — often with the support of the Israeli government.

Why hasn’t Canada recognized a Palestinian state already?

For years, Ottawa suggested recognition would only come at the end of peace talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

But last November, the Liberals said Canada’s recognition might come sooner because of the spread of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the high death toll of Israel’s bombardment in Gaza.

In his announcement Wednesday, Carney said those factors, along with Hamas terrorism, have “steadily and gravely eroded” the path toward a two-state solution.

France vowed to recognize a Palestinian state last week, while the U.K. said it would be open to doing the same if Israel does not change its policies in Gaza. Ireland, Spain and Norway recognized Palestine in spring 2024.

What did Carney announce?

Prime Minister Carney said Wednesday that Canada intends to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

That would mean Palestine would go from having a special representative office in Ottawa, as Taiwan does, to a full embassy.

Carney said Canada’s move is “predicated on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to much-needed reforms, including … general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarize the Palestinian state.”

University of Ottawa international affairs professor Thomas Juneau said it’s not clear how Canada is assessing whether the Palestinian Authority has done enough.

“That’s the right approach, but the progress that Prime Minister Carney mentioned is extremely ambitious, and it’s also fairly vague,” he said.

“What kind of indications of progress in that direction does Canada want to see?”

Does that mean an election in Gaza?

Canada is only asking the Palestinian Authority for an election, which would take place in the West Bank. Ottawa’s aim is for the Palestinian Authority to eventually have the legitimacy and capacity it needs to govern both the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas violently ejected Fatah from Gaza in 2007 and said Thursday it “will not recognize Israel.”

Israeli government officials have discussed working with local clans as part of a possible governance structure in Gaza that excludes Hamas. Some of the clans have been implicated in gang activity in Gaza.

What does Israel say?

Israel says that recognizing a Palestinian state only rewards Hamas for its violence and will inspire further attacks. It argues its actions in Gaza have been distorted by the outside world, something it blames in part on propaganda from hostile states.

While Israel insists it has met its obligations on humanitarian aid, U.S. President Donald Trump and most major global organizations say Israel has allowed starvation to take hold in Gaza.

Israel says it’s also concerned about the Palestinian Authority supporting those who have committed violent attacks against Israel.

The Palestinian Authority’s delegation in Ottawa has said it’s up to Palestinians alone to decide how they are governed, and blames Israel for policies it says have driven people to take up arms.

Why don’t Palestinians move elsewhere?

Many Palestinians use the word Nakba or “catastrophe” to refer to the establishment of Israel and their dispossession.

Millions of Palestinians fled decades ago to refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories. Israel rejects calling these people refugees, saying they can integrate into other Arab societies.

Many Palestinians say they refuse to be moved off their land, even if they face dire living conditions in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is governing in a coalition that relies on Jewish supremacist parties that have called for the displacement of Palestinians to other countries and the full annexation of the Palestinian territories.

Trump at one point endorsed vacating Gaza in order to make the area the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has called for placing the entire population of Gaza in one city — something former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert described as “a concentration camp.”

Egypt has constructed a large barrier on its border with the Gaza Strip — in part because of concerns about the proximity of terror groups like Hamas and in part to keep Palestinians from being forcibly displaced into Egypt.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2025.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press