Liberal, NDP MPs to visit West Bank, connect with Palestinians

A aggroup of phoebe liberalist MPs and a lone NDP member of parliament ar planning to spend three days in Israel and the occupied West Bank, at a time of heightened tensions between Ottawa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The MPs intend to meet with civil society groups, Palestinian refugees and internally displaced people, as well as officials from the Canadian government and the Palestinian Authority (PA). They will also talk to parliamentarians in Jordan on Monday before crossing into Israel the next morning.

The trip comes almost three months after the Canadian government formally recognized a Palestinian state, just ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, a symbolic gesture that nevertheless angered Israel.

“Israel will not allow you to shove a terror state down our throats,” Netanyahu told the UNGA a week after Canada’s announcement, also criticizing other Western countries that had opted for recognition, such as France and the United Kingdom.

Canada, as well as other countries, has said Hamas can have no part in governing a Palestinian state.

At the same UN event, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the body that in part administers the West Bank, condemned Israel’s actions both there and in Gaza as a  “crime against humanity,” and also reiterated Hamas would have no future governance role in Gaza.

Like a previous delegation of different Liberal and NDP MPs in early 2024, this group is taking part in sponsored travel by a registered Muslim non-profit, Canadian Muslim Vote. 

The only NDP MP on this trip, Jenny Kwan, who represents Vancouver East, said she has some concerns about gaining entry into Israel.

The group’s itinerary also includes going into the Israeli-occupied West Bank, administered by the PA.

While there, they intend to meet with Palestinian families who have had run-ins with settlers, as well as PA officials to speak about democratic reform and institution-building. 

Kwan said she expects there could be obstacles on any step of the itinerary, given the Israeli-controlled access into the swath of land.

“At any juncture, anything could happen,” she said.

“What the organizers told me, if anyone of us run into a problem with respect to that, we as a group will unite together and act together.

“If one person is blocked from entering for example, they advise that then that would mean the group would not embark on that segment of the journey.” 

Zuberi said he is not concerned about access, pointing out they are travelling as Canadian parliamentarians. 

He said there needs to be a diplomatic push for peace. 

“We need to focus on the fact that we’re all human and everyone deserves to live in peace and security, regardless of their background.”

Last Wednesday, the Israeli government approved the construction of 764 more homes on the West Bank in settler colonies, largely deemed illegal under international law. 

Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich, one of two Israeli cabinet members that Canada sanctioned earlier this year, called the expansion a “clear, strategic move to strengthen settlement and ensure continuity of life, security and growth.” 

Both Zuberi and Kwan said they consider it important to meet with Palestinians who have faced settler violence, something the previous group that visited the West Bank did, as well.

Though the region has not seen as high a death toll as Gaza since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, the United Nations estimated in mid-October of this year that 1,001 Palestinians had been killed in the territory since the start of the war two years ago, either by extremist settlers or Israeli forces.  The UN has also more recently noted its concerns about 100 hectares of Palestinian land reportedly being seized in order to create a new settler road, and said more than 1,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced within the West Bank this year alone. 

Kwan said she was also hoping to glean information from locals and Canadian officials about both the hiccups in a special measures immigration program for Palestinians trying to flee Gaza, as well as a private members’ bill she has in the works that would prevent Canadian arms companies from shipping parts and ammunition to the United States largely free of any permits.

Her goal is to close what she calls a “loophole” that then allows those parts to go to Israel. 

As the NDP currently only have seven seats in the House of Commons, the bill has no chance of passing unless it gets support from more than 160 MPs in different political parties. Kwan has found a boost for it among four Liberals, a rare show of bipartisan co-operation since Prime Minister Mark Carney took the helm of the Liberal Party.

Canadian beaten during attack in West Bank

Two of them, Fares Al Soud, for Mississauga Centre, and Aslam Rana, representing Hamilton Centre, are also on this trip. 

The final two MPs in the delegation are Liberals Iqra Khalid of Mississauga-Erin Mills in Ontario and Gurbux Saini of Fleetwood-Port Kells in B.C. 

The government has said it cannot support the bill, given how it would be out of step with allies in terms of licensing efficiency, transparency and the use of appropriate discretion. 

The Opposition Conservatives have also said they cannot support that legislation, criticizing how it would hurt Canada’s defence industry. And the Bloc Québécois have said they need to further study the bill. 

Senior reporter

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