"It is time to align with human rights and international law. It is not a time to bend the knee," said the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
Protesters hold signs during a Hands Off! demonstration against President Donald Trump and U.S. tariffs in Toronto, on April 5, 2025.
(Photo: Mike Campbell/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
Jul 31, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Canada's decision to conditionally recognize Palestinian statehood "will make it very hard" to complete a trade deal with the United States' northern neighbor, prompting widespread condemnation of the president's not-so-thinly-veiled threat.
On Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Ottawa will grant formal recognition to Palestine at September's United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York if the Palestinian Authority agrees to hold an election in 2026 and implement other democratic reforms.
Asked if he had consulted the U.S. about recognizing Palestine, Carney told reporters that "we make our own independent foreign policy positions."
Carney's announcement came as Israel—which is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice—is under increasing pressure to end its 663-day, U.S.-backed war and siege on Gaza, which has killed or maimed more than 220,000 Palestinians and fueled famine.
The far-right government of Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, is also openly pursuing plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians so it can be transformed into what Trump has described as "the Riviera of the Middle East."
Critically, Carney's announcement also came amid trade deal negotiations between U.S. and Canadian officials ahead of Trump's August 1 deadline for 35% tariffs on all imported Canadian goods not covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
"More evidence there's no limit to Trump's goal to use tariff bullying to chip away at the sovereignty of other countries... on any issue at all," Canadian economist Jim Stanford said Thursday on the social media site X.
"See also his harsh tariffs on Brazil for prosecuting Trump's close friend and coup schemer Bolsonaro," he added, referring to disgraced former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is also known as the "Trump of the Tropics."
Dean Baker, a U.S. economist who co-founded the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said on X: "Looks like Trump wants us all to pay higher taxes in support of Israel's mass murder in Gaza. Can someone explain to me how this is 'America First?'"
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) said on social media that "Donald Trump has openly endorsed plans to ethnically cleanse and annex Gaza, along with his own outrageous ideas of making Canada the 51st state."
"As Canada strikes out an independent foreign policy by planning to recognize Palestinian statehood, Trump's attempt to suggest that the trade deal is in peril because Canada took a step in the right direction is just another transparent attempt at bullying from a man who changes the goal posts in every trade 'negotiation' in any case," the group continued.
"This is the time to stand strongly in support of Canadian values," NCCM added. "It is time to align with human rights and international law. It is not a time to bend the knee. Canada must push forward by imposing further sanctions on Netanyahu's government, reviewing the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, applying a full two-way arms embargo on the [Israel Defense Forces], and helping those escaping Gaza arrive in Canada."
Although Canada's government insists that it has prohibited arms transfers to Israel since January 2024, research by four groups—World Beyond War, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, and Independent Jewish Voices—revealed this week that there have been at least 47 shipments from Canadian weapons manufacturers to Israeli armaments companies between October 2023 and July 2025.
Trump and members of his administration sought to assuage anxiety over U.S. tariff whiplash by promising bigger, better deals. In April, Peter Navarro, the top White House trade adviser, vowed that Trump would hammer out "90 deals in 90 days." However, 90 days later, the U.S. has finalized deals with around half a dozen nations, with the suspension of Trump's so-called reciprocal tariffs set to expire on August 1. After that, Trump is set to impose tariffs as high as 50% on many countries.
Trump's attacks on longstanding allies have prompted calls for solidarity among Western democracies as they move to recognize Palestine.
"By trying to bully nations out of recognizing Palestine, Trump is making himself the biggest hurdle to a two-state solution and a lasting peace," British Member of Parliament Ed Davey, who leads the center-left Liberal Democrats, said on the social media site Bluesky Thursday. "The U.K. must stand strong with Canada and our allies, we should recognize the Palestinian state right now. No more delays."
Earlier this week, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain stands poised to formally recognize Palestine at September's UNGA if Israel does not take "substantive" steps to end its war on Gaza, allow aid into the strip, and renounce annexation of the illegally occupied West Bank. Trump signaled that he would not object to U.K. recognition of Palestine.
Around 150 of 193 U.N. member states already recognize Palestine, and this week France and Malta also said they would do so at the UNGA. On Thursday, Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said that his government "is considering recognition of the Palestinian state."
There have been increased calls for Canada to find ways to lessen its dependence on the U.S.
"Clearly, August 1 is barely the beginning of this struggle for Canada's heart and soul, never mind a 'deadline,'" Stanford asserted. "Regardless of what happens this week, Canada must charge ahead on this epic mission to rebuild an economy that can survive independently of the U.S."
In a bid to gain some independence from their increasingly unreliable neighbor, Canada and Mexico are working to establish a new land and sea trade corridor that would completely bypass the United States, an initiative projected to cost the U.S. economy at least tens of billions of lost dollars, according to PPR Mundial. In addition to utilizing diverse modes of transport, including rail and maritime connections, the bilateral proposal is expected to incorporate advanced digital technologies including blockchain to manage customs and other formalities.
Canada’s Complicity Laid Bare
We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period.
— Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, March 20 2024
It was a cynical lie. Now we have the evidence.
A damning new report from the Arms Embargo Now coalition traces hundreds of shipments of Canadian-made weapons and military tech that continued to reach Israel during its ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza.
Bullets. Explosives. Aircraft parts. High‑end surveillance and targeting systems. All from here — from factories in Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, the GTA, Halifax — to the runways and ports in Israel that feed Israel’s war machine.
Most of us already understood this was happening. Individual contracts and bits of evidence kept slipping through the cracks. But every time they did, the government would play whack-a-mole. This report ends that game. We now have ironclad evidence that Canadian weapons never stopped flowing to Israel. It shows a sustained, ongoing pipeline that continues to this day. It also exposes how the government systematically deceived Canadians about arming Israel.
In the frantic first three months after October 7th, the Trudeau government quietly approved a record-breaking number of export permits to Israel. Then you — and tens of thousands of people like you across the country — roared in protest. The pressure worked. By March 2024, then Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced a “pause” on new permits. She publicly insisted that no more arms would reach Gaza.
However Joly’s “pause” froze only new licences, leaving every previous permit untouched. Ottawa tried to soothe the public, claiming the ongoing shipments were only for “non-lethal” or “defensive” goods (i.e. Iron Dome parts, bullet-proof vests). In reality, a steady stream of lethal cargo kept moving: bullets, explosives, aircraft and helicopter parts, F-35 targeting tech. All funnelled from 21 suppliers in seven Canadian cities to Israeli arms companies like Elbit Systems.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t some bureaucratic oversight. It is a calculated breach of the Export and Import Permits Act, the Arms Trade Treaty, and the ICJ’s warning not to aid genocide.
Ottawa’s claim that it was no longer arming Israel served as a diplomatic fig leaf: soothing words that hid uninterrupted weapons shipments. This report rips that fig leaf away. The government must now own its complicity and decide — end the exports, or stand exposed before the world.
This report also shows something else: the power of civil society. A small group of researchers — activists with day jobs, family responsibilities, and limited resources — spent hundreds of hours digging through tax records, shipping manifests, flight records, and obscure government PDFs. They followed the paper trail and uncovered the reality that our government was trying to hide.
In the UK, a similar report created a political scandal that is still reverberating. This Canadian report is arguably even more damning and the potential impact is enormous—if we seize this moment.
On Tuesday, CJPME, Independent Jewish Voices, World Beyond War, and the Palestinian Youth Movement held a press conference in Parliament to share the findings. You can watch the recording of the press conference here.
Genocide is Psychopathy
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a particular group. When it is your country, your troops, your government and its officials committing genocide, many people will stubbornly refuse to acknowledge such a fact. Such is the propagandic effect of patriotism that it erodes critical thought processes and even causes people to overlook extreme evil.
On 28 July 2025, NPR wrote, “Two prominent Israeli rights groups on Monday said their country is committing genocide in Gaza, the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations against Israel during nearly 22 months of war.”
The genocide is undeniable as Afkār noted, “Since October 7, 2023, Israeli cabinet ministers, political figures, military officers and media pundits have openly and endlessly incited for the destruction of Gaza and its Palestinian inhabitants.”
Moreover, Israel is trying to spin this genocide as a necessary transfer of the Gazan population: “In recent months, Israel has shifted its messaging on Gaza, acknowledging that it has rendered the territory unlivable and is pushing for the removal of its surviving population. ”
What explains the thinking that leads to the carrying out of such a hideous crime?
Psychopathy is a personality disorder rooted in a lack of empathy and remorse, manipulation, and antisocial behavior. That clearly describes people committing genocide and people aiding and abetting genocide.
Thus, people perpetuating or enabling the commission of a genocide fit the definition of psychopaths.
It is undeniable that Israeli Jews are committing genocide in Palestine. Their prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is therefore a genocidaire and a psychopath, as well as the many supportive establishment types in Israel. (For more on this read Hamid Dabashi’s After Savagery) The genocide of Gazans has much support among Jewish Israelis. This begs the question of whether psychopathology is widespread among Israeli Jews?
And, when a state or agency knowingly aids and abets Israeli Jews in committing genocide against the Palestinians, then such complicit governments and responsible authorities ought also to be considered genocidaires and psychopaths. Legally, as well:
… one can be held liable for aiding and abetting genocide, even if one does not share the specific genocidal intent of the principal perpetrator.
The Rome Statute contains a provision about criminal responsibility that is not found in either of the U.N. ad hoc tribunal statutes or the Genocide Convention but which further illuminates the mens rea of genocide. Under Article 30 of the Rome Statute, “knowledge” and “intent” are the two components of mens rea. A person has “intent” when the person “means to engage in the conduct” and “means to cause that consequence or is aware that it will occur in the ordinary course of events.” (Grant Dawson and Rachel Boynton, “Reconciling Complicity in Genocide and Aiding and Abetting Genocide in the Jurisprudence of the United Nations Ad Hoc Tribunals,” Harvard Human Rights Journal, 21, 2008: 250.)
Consequently, Israel is not alone in executing its genocide of Palestinians. Countries are called upon to “Stop Arming Israel and Abetting Its Crimes.” Among those governments supplying armaments to Israel are the US and Europeans (“How top arms exporters have responded to the war in Gaza,” and that “European countries use 3rd-party countries to keep arming Israel: British journalist,” “Australia,” “Report suggests arms still flow from Canada to Israel despite denials,” “Infrastructure of genocide: the case confronting Dutch support for Israel’s war machine,” etc) giving political cover, the companies seeking profit from the genocide. Hence, their actions reveal them to be genocidaires.
Many of the common people in many of these countries are opposing the genocide-supporting stance of their governments; for example, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, even in the US, and worldwide. The leaders are out of touch with masses of their citizens.
Therefore, Canada’s Mark Carney, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, and others are joining avowed Zionists Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. Are Netanyahu and Trump really the people other country’s “leaders” should follow in making common cause to wipe Palestinians off the map?
Why is this psychopathy exhibited as a common trait among many Western government heads?
Worse, it seems to point to there being something inherently malevolent in the so-called democratic systems of these countries, such that it promotes psychopaths into leadership positions.
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