Conrad Black: The NDP’s Palestine Motion Was Wrong-Headed From the Start

Commentary The stormy debate in the House of Commons over the NDP’s motion to recognize a Palestinian state, ending with a profound last-minute government modification of the bill, revealed the widespread misunderstanding in Canadian official circles of the nature of the present conflict in Gaza. As originally formulated, while the NDP motion unambiguously recognized the right of Israel to exist, implicitly as a Jewish state, it ascribed no blame whatever to Hamas, which has governed Gaza for over 16 years, for the outbreak of the present war. No such motion could remotely be acceptable in the legislature of any country that authentically wishes a just resolution of the ancient conflict in the Middle East now raging in Gaza. It is not six months ago that Hamas, which Canada recognizes as a terrorist organization, violated a long-agreed ceasefire with Israel, invaded that country by land, sea, air, and tunnel, and brutally massacred approximately 1,200 Israelis, 85 percent of them civilians and many of those women, the very young, and the elderly. In many cases, women and children were violated and murdered in the most depraved and sadistic manner imaginable, with the declared objective of incurring the greatest possible revulsion in Israel and the rest of the civilized world. It was a vintage case of premeditated terrorism....