Canada’s PM Calls for ‘Zionist Palestinian State’ as Condition for Recognition

Ottawa (Quds News Network)- Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has stirred global outrage after stating that a Palestinian state must be Zionist as a condition to recognition. He made the comments during an interview with CNN at the NATO Summit.

“What is needed is a Zionist Palestinian state that recognizes the right of Israel to exist; not just to exist, but to prosper and not live in fear,” Carney said.

His remarks sparked anger among Palestinian rights advocates and human rights experts. Zionism is not a neutral political concept, but a settler-colonial ideology that has driven the violent displacement of Palestinians for over 75 years.

Zionism has long been tied to policies that exclude and erase the Indigenous Palestinian population. Through land seizures, military campaigns, home demolitions, and discriminatory laws, Israel has imposed Zionist rule across historic Palestine.

Historians like Ilan Pappé describe Israel’s 1948 founding as an act of ethnic cleansing. More than 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their land.

In 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, which explicitly defined Zionism as “a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Although the resolution was repealed in 1991 under political pressure, many scholars and rights groups continue to see Zionism as rooted in apartheid logic and racial supremacy.

Carney’s call for a “Zionist Palestinian state” has also been criticized for aligning with increasingly extreme Israeli rhetoric. Several Israeli officials have recently issued open calls for the expulsion or extermination of Palestinians.

In May, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that “there is no such thing as the Palestinian people,” and argued for full Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has repeatedly declared that “the Arabs must leave if they do not accept Jewish rule.”

These statements follow Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has killed over 56,000 people, most of them women and children. Human rights groups accuse Israel of using starvation, mass displacement, and indiscriminate bombing as tools of ethnic cleansing.