Canada joins international pressure on Israel and says it will recognize Palestine as a state

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Wednesday that his country will back recognition of Palestine as a state at the UN General Assembly scheduled for September 2025. The announcement came after a cabinet meeting devoted to the war in Gaza and followed talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who made a similar statement this week.

Carney justified the move by appealing to the suffering in Gaza, although he admitted that there are no real conditions for establishing a functioning or democratic Palestinian government. He suggested that recognition will be conditional on the Palestinian Authority convening general elections in 2026 without Hamas participation and on the future state being demilitarized.

Conditional recognition and Israel's reaction.

Although Carney presented it as a move toward a two-state solution, he also acknowledged that such a scenario is unfeasible in the short term. Israel, for its part, condemned the Canadian decision and called the gesture a dangerous concession. Israeli ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, stated that his country "will not bow to the distorted campaign of international pressure against it" and warned that imposing a "jihadist state" in the region would only legitimize Hamas violence.

Moed stressed that recognizing Palestine under the current leadership is tantamount to rewarding a terrorist organization responsible for the October 7 massacre. He reiterated that any real progress towards peace requires excluding Hamas from the process and guaranteeing Israel's security.

Trump: "That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them"

Donald Trump warned that Canada’s announcement supporting Palestinian statehood will affect trade negotiations between the two countries. “That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them,” he wrote on Truth Social."

Trump’s remarks came just hours before his ultimatum to renegotiate reciprocal tariffs, originally announced on Liberation Day and rescheduled for Friday, August 1.

If no agreement is reached, the United States will impose a 35% tariff on all Canadian goods.