Article by Rebel News staff.

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When Mark Carney announced last year that Canada would recognize a Palestinian state, it came with conditions. The Prime Minister's Office said the Palestinian Authority would "hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part." Just recently at the UN, Carney welcomed the scheduling of those elections and promised to help pay for them.

Now, they're off.

On Friday's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra pointed to a Reuters report that Palestinian Vice-President Hussein al-Sheikh wrote to France's foreign minister to say the November 28 election has been "postponed for several months." 

"So the condition's gone," Ezra said. "What now from Mark Carney? Do you unrecognize Palestine? Of course not."

The last Palestinian legislative election was in 2006, and Hamas won it. Mahmoud Abbas, now 90, is in the 22nd year of a four-year term and rules by decree.

Freedom House rates the West Bank under Abbas as "not free," with a score of 22 out of 100. Carney has said his decision rested on commitments Abbas made in a letter, but the Privy Council Office has refused to release it. "Mark Carney recognized a terrorist state on the strength of a secret letter that he won't let Canadians see," Ezra said.

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Nothing has changed on the ground, Ezra continued. Hamas remains armed and in control of Gaza. Polling from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found 53% of Palestinians called the October 7 massacre the right decision.

And the frontrunner for president, Marwan Barghouti, is serving five life sentences for murder.

Ezra also took aim at UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Initially created for about 750,000 people displaced in 1948, it now counts nearly six million because refugee status is passed down through generations, something no other refugee population receives. It employs nearly 30,000 people, more than the UN agency serving every other refugee on Earth combined. 

UN investigators concluded nine of its staff took part in the October 7 attack, and hostage Ditza Heiman was held in a UNRWA teacher's attic. Yet Canada was among the first to restore UNRWA funding, before the UN investigation had even concluded.

Meanwhile, the United States warned Carney against recognition, while China and Russia, both of which have hosted Hamas, pushed hardest for it. "When the Americans say no and Beijing and Moscow say yes, and Canada picks Beijing and Moscow, that's something that should worry us," Ezra said.

He argued the conditions were never the point. "The recognition was the point," he said. "The conditions were just the fig leaf."

 So the next time Carney says his word is his bond, on a pipeline or a budget, Ezra said, remember what his conditions on Palestine turned out to be worth. "Nothing. And he knew it when he said it, didn't he?"