Palestinian envoy says Canada 'pivotal' in Mideast peace, urges more action

“There needs to be more consistency and coherence in Canadian policy vis-a-vis Palestine and Israel,” she said Monday, in her first feature interview with mainstream media since arriving in Ottawa earlier this summer.

Abdelhady’s predecessor finished her posting last fall, just as Prime Minister Mark Carney officially recognized the State of Palestine nearly a year ago.

Carney said he took the move to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution, in which Israel and a Palestinian country can safely exist — a prospect Ottawa says has been undermined by the Israeli government and Palestinian militants such as Hamas, which Canada deems a terrorist group.

Since then, a ceasefire deal in Gaza has marginally lowered the daily violence between Israel and Hamas militants, and pulled the territory out of an official famine delegation. The United Nations says there is still a ghastly humanitarian situation, particularly for children, while Israel is taking over a growing amount of the territory. 

In that time, the UN says it’s been alarmed at a sharp uptick in extremist Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, with deadly clashes and settlers siphoning off critical water sources.

Israel has enacted a death penalty that Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand warned in March “systematically targets Palestinians.” The Liberals have also sanctioned some of the most violent settlers.

Abdelhady spoke Monday, shortly after it emerged that Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir publicly advocated for killing “30 to 40” Palestinians in Gaza each night.

“I come to Canada at perhaps the darkest chapter in the history of the Palestinian people. But I come into Canada also very hopeful,” she said.

Abdelhady sees that hope in having Canadians view various forms of violence and oppression taking place in the Middle East as being connected.

“This is ongoing, it is comprehensive, and it is systematic,” she said.

Since 1967, Israel has controlled virtually all Palestinian territory, with Israel arguing occupation and restrictions on borders are required to respond to real security threats. Canada and most countries deem the occupation of the West Bank and policies in Gaza to violate international law.

Hamas attacked Israel in 2023, when militants killed 1,200 people and filmed themselves committing what Human Rights Watch deems to be war crimes. Israel has since killed tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza through wide-scale bombing and shooting, and ramped up restrictions and raids in the West Bank while emboldening armed settlers.

Abdelhady said the logical end result of Israeli policies is to make life for Palestinians so wretched that they are forced to leave. She pointed to multiple Israeli government statements about resettling Palestinians and making their land into Israeli territory.

“It’s a system of occupation. It’s the system of apartheid. It’s system of genocide,” she said. 

She said Canada has pushed back on that by committing to a Palestinian state and helping to build institutions for when her people govern themselves.

“Canada is not submitting to the Israeli diktat of no Palestinian state, and of maligning the Palestinian government with its attacks on the Palestinian Authority and any other official Palestinian institution,” Abdelhady said of Carney’s recognition.

“His decision as regards Palestine, we believe, was pivotal … globally, it was very meaningful.”

But she said Canada needs to impose consequences on Israel, such as suspending trade agreements that are being used to import goods from occupied Palestinian territory — “stolen goods,” as she puts it — and military exports that are used against Palestinians.

Ottawa has insisted it only exports defensive arms to Israel, such as circuit boards for the Iron Dome missile defence system, saying at first it had banned “lethal goods” under a parliamentary motion that passed in March 2024. The Liberals later switched to saying the ban exempted “items used to defend civilians.”

Groups like Project Ploughshares say the language is misleading and that Canadian components are ending up in arms used against Palestinians, possibly due to Canadian exemptions on arms controls for goods sent through the U.S. 

Abdelhady said the Israeli government will keep emboldening West Bank settlers if it doesn’t face sanctions against Israel as a whole, and not just select individuals.

“This entire Israeli occupation regime — governmental, military and the settler militias — it’s one and the same,” she said. “It funds, it enables, it facilitates, it protects these settlers.”

Abdelhady’s term in Ottawa follows decades of work representing the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations, where she says American vetoes have undermined the ability to resolve and prevent conflict.

“The degradation of the (UN) by the behaviour of the United States in the Security Council and in particular, as regards Israel, has (meant) the gravitas of that organ, and the authority of that organ, has been completely undermined,” she said.

Carney’s announcement a year ago that Canada would recognize a Palestinian state included that this recognition was “predicated on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to much-needed reforms.”

Supporters and detractors have both interpreted this as Ottawa imposing conditions on statehood recognition, and not Carney outlining the general context in which he had made the decision.

Abdelhady said self-determination is an inalienable right and not something subject to conditions. She said ongoing reforms are underway, including with help from Canadian development dollars, but she said progress can only go so far when Palestinians face recurring violence.

The Israeli government has been loudly critical of Canada’s recognition of Palestine, and insists the Palestinian Authority hasn’t followed through with the promised reforms to policies it says propagate violence in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Abdelhady said her team has asked Ottawa to upgrade the Palestinian delegation from a recognized general delegation to a full embassy.

The delegation’s staff are accredited as diplomats and Abdelhady is recognized as its ambassador through an informal process involving a call between foreign ministers, instead of a formal ceremony at Rideau Hall. 

Abdelhady said full embassy designation would give more permanence to the embassy and send a message that self-determination is a right and not a privilege.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 18, 2026.