CSRDN Condemns Prime Minister's Statement on Palestine

Cision Canada

04-07-2025

This press release has been shared with Prime Minister Mark Carney, and all Members of Parliament.
OAKVILLE, ON, July 4, 2025 /CNW/ - On June 24, during a CNN interview with Christiane Amanpour at the NATO summit in The Hague, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney made a deeply disturbing statement. He claimed that Palestinians must "become Zionists" if they wish to have their human rights respected.
Canadians in Support of Refugees in Dire Need, United for Peace – Canadian Interfaith Coalition, Canadian, Muslim Public Affairs Council, Canadian Muslim Healthcare Network, Justice For All, and United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine Israel of the United Church of Canada condemn Prime Minister Mark Carney for his appalling remarks made during a CNN interview on June 24, where he asserted that Palestinians must "become Zionists" to have their human rights respected. Such a statement is both morally reprehensible and a flagrant violation of international law and Canadian democratic values.
Such a remark is not only morally indefensible, but it also violates the very principles of international law and the foundational values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It suggests that the oppressed must embrace the ideology of their oppressors to be deemed worthy of dignity — a position as unjust as it is dangerous.
Zionist Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), its leadership face arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Leading international human rights organizations—including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and various UN bodies—have concluded that Israel is practicing apartheid, as defined under international law.
These findings are based on extensive documentation of Israeli laws, policies, and practices that differentiate between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens - Muslim, Druze and Christian citizens make up 25% of the population - in key areas such as land ownership, residency, family reunification, access to education and public services, and political participation.
This dual legal and policy regime upholds Jewish supremacy in law and practice, entrenched further by the 2018 Nation-State Law, which constitutionally enshrined Jewish exclusivity in state identity and self-determination, while failing to recognize equality for non-Jewish citizens.
Zionist Israel's ongoing military occupation, systemic discrimination, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and defiance of international law — including the ICJ's provisional measures and ongoing ICC investigations into war crimes — represent not only a grave regional injustice, but a global threat to human rights and international order. These actions echo the darkest chapters of apartheid South Africa and demand not appeasement, but urgent global accountability.
To suggest that Palestinians must adopt Zionism — the very ideology underpinning their dispossession — is to demand subjugation from a people under siege. It is to ignore their right to resist oppression, the erasure of their culture and history, and to legitimize a regime built on religious and racial supremacy.
In the listed above organizations' view, by endorsing Zionist ideology in this context, Carney not only betrays Canada's obligations under international law, but also undermines the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. His comments embolden racism and supremacism, both at home and abroad, and stand in stark contrast to Canada's professed commitments to justice, equality, and the rule of law.
Canada must stand with the oppressed — not the oppressor. A principled stance on human rights demands not the erasure of Palestinian identity, but the end of Israeli apartheid, occupation, and war crimes. Justice requires that we support the Palestinian people's right to self-determination — not demand their submission.