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Palestine Delays Elections & Hamas Wants In: PM Carney’s Preconditions Predictably Failed · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Every Tuesday morning at this time, it is time for
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Litke's Got a Take with John Litke. Good morning, John.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Gene.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Well, it's report card time. A year ago, you wrote
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: a column warning everyone that Prime Minister Carney's Palestinian statehood
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: plan was a complete charade built on hollow promises. Well,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: today you're taking a victory lap. And why is that?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Well, Gene, I hate to say I told you so,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: but I mean, I told you so. I'll take the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: victory lap over Canadian foreign policy. It's been a disaster
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: and the receipts don't lie. I called out this recognition
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: of Palestine as a performative charade, as you said. Prime
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Minister Carney traded away our absolute highest diplomatic leverage up
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  Speaker 2: front for a worthless promise on a worthless piece of paper,
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  Speaker 2: betting the House. on the word of an autocrat who
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: hasn't held elections in twenty years expecting democratic miracles but
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  Speaker 2: predictably every one of the preconditions that the government set
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: has blown up and we can talk about those in
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: a second but first I just want to stress how
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  Speaker 2: bad this is for Canadian foreign policy to be bested
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  Speaker 2: by a disputed country governed by terrorists but this is
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  Speaker 2: a country, Canada, and a government that has been thanked
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: publicly by Hamas, a terrorist organization, not once, not twice,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: but three times. A government that cut its anti-Semitism envoy
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: for an all-faith group, which has someone on it who
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: formerly supported a terrorist organization. They stayed silent on a
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: synagogue shooting, and which even inadvertently, they ended up funding
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: arts content, this government that celebrated the depravity that was
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: October the 7th. So, I mean, it's absolutely vile, but
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  Speaker 2: it's not surprising that this all fell apart like a
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  Speaker 2: house of cards.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Carney, if I remember correctly, swore up and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: down to Canadians that this recognition was strictly predicated on
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  Speaker 1: the Palestinian Authority reforming its governance, holding general elections, specifically
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: where Hamas did not play any part, demilitarizing. I mean,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we could go on and on and on and on.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: So bring out the receipts. What actually happened, John?
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I got the receipts, and there's three of them,
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  Speaker 2: and they are damning, Gene. First, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Abbas just issued a decree last week pushing those promised
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: 2026 elections to next year, ironically, on September 11th. Governance
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  Speaker 2: by perpetual deferral is a dictatorship's favorite tool, quite frankly.
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  Speaker 2: Second receipt. Karni swore that Hamas would play no role
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: in these elections. Instead, they are publicly welcoming this election delay,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: and there are reports that they are going to be
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: running candidates as independent through proxy lists of candidates to
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: slip right into power through the back or side door.
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  Speaker 2: Total institutional failure. And the third receipt, the U.S. State
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Department has recently confirmed that the Palestinian Authority paid out
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: $ 156 million in pay-for-slay taxes stipends last year. That is
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: money paid to the family of terrorists who kill Jews.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: It's a pay-for-slay program. They said they'd get rid of it,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: but they didn't end the program. They just deployed linguistic gymnastics,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: rebranded it, and then they have re-implemented it. It's tragic.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Yikes is right. Listen, I think Carney traded away our
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: biggest diplomatic chip, official statehood. Based on a promise. And
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that was big. Now, I'm trying to remember,
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  Speaker 1: didn't he claim that he had a signed letter from
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: a boss guaranteeing all these reforms?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he sold us, Gene, on these direct commitments from
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  Speaker 2: Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in a secret letter.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: But the moment that the journalist asked the Privy Council's
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: office to see that letter, it was locked away behind
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic secrecy. I mean, Mehdi Muradi, who is an Iranian-Canadian
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: journalist who writes about Canada's national security, he did a
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and he nailed it. He said,'
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: A promise is not a premise.' A premise is a
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  Speaker 2: solid foundation. A promise, it's just hot air from a
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: regime trying to secure something. I mean, heck, even former
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Liberal Justice Minister Erwin Kotler explicitly warned that recognizing a
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: state without strict enforcement mechanisms would actively decrease the chances
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  Speaker 2: of peace. Carney fell for the dictator playbook, which is dodge, delay,
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  Speaker 2: and deflect. And Canada and other Western governments that went
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  Speaker 2: along with this look like absolute rubes.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we weren't the only ones to recognize them back
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  Speaker 1: in September 2025. France did, the UK did. So are
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  Speaker 1: we all rolling over and playing dead on these broken
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  Speaker 1: promises the same way Canada is? I mean, nobody's saying
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: anything publicly about this. I mean, you and I are
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the only ones talking about it today.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd think that Ottawa would have found a backbone,
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  Speaker 2: but instead last week they doubled down, providing $ 100 million
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: more of our tax money to supposedly train West Bank
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  Speaker 2: police in the Palestinian Authority. I don't know. It's wild
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  Speaker 2: that we're rewarding broken promises. And in fact, I actually
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: just got back from Conservative leader Pierre Pauliev's scrum in
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Windsor at the riverfront. He's heading over to Detroit to
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: talk about tariffs. But he told me directly on the
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  Speaker 2: record when I asked him about this very issue of
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: a Palestinian statehood, and he said a conservative government would
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: not give aid to a regime that breaks its promises.
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  Speaker 2: He said it's ridiculous to send our tax dollars to
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  Speaker 2: a dictatorial regime on the central conditions for statehood because,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: quite frankly, Gene, if someone violates a contract, you don't
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: reward them with prizes. But at least the French have
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: said something a little bit. The French foreign minister did
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: say that this was the worst disservice to the Palestinian people.
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  Speaker 2: And they put out a foreign ministry statement saying that, oh,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: we're a little upset and we might have to pull
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: back some of our aid. Meanwhile, though, the United Kingdom
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: and Canada, we haven't heard anything about this. And quite frankly,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, our government is acting like three monkeys right
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  Speaker 2: now with see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
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  Speaker 2: And Canadians deserve better. Palestinians deserve better. And everyone in
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  Speaker 2: the region deserves better, quite frankly.
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  Speaker 1: So do we cut them off?
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  Speaker 2: I say so, yeah. Cut them off until they, you know,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: abide by the preconditions that they agreed to, quite frankly.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, listen, we can keep delaying things and obfuscating things,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: but the fact of the matter is, and the problem is,
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  Speaker 2: is we gave away our leverage with this situation. We
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  Speaker 2: recognize them. What are we going to do now? Take
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: away the recognition? That doesn't happen in the modern world.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And that's why, you know, Jewish organizations and people who
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: are concerned about this file... We're screaming when this was happening, going,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: don't do this right now. You're literally rewarding the actions
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: of October the 7th. But we were told, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 2: that's not the case. There will be preconditions. It won't
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  Speaker 2: just happen overnight. Well, it happened overnight. The preconditions have
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  Speaker 2: been violated, and we're left here standing going, I told
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  Speaker 2: you so.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, bottom line, Litke's got to take. Where does this
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  Speaker 1: failure leave Canadian foreign policy on the world stage as
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  Speaker 1: of right now today?
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  Speaker 2: Currently right now, Canadian foreign policy on the world stage
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  Speaker 2: is completely irrelevant, Gene. We are playing minor league foreign
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: policy in a major league world. You can't build credible
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: statecraft on unverified promises from non-democratic regimes. PM Carney surrendered
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: our most valuable diplomatic chip, granting that statehood for a
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  Speaker 2: fleeting PR headline domestically, only to be made to look
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the fool internationally. And in the process, he stripped Canadians
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: of any actual leverage to shape the Middle East. and
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: actively exported social division and Jew hatred right onto our
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  Speaker 2: Canadian streets here at home. So now, instead of showing
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: an ounce of principled leadership and admitting that the strategy
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: has failed completely, Ottawa has thrown another $ 100 million of
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: our taxpayer money at the UN to paper over a
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: total collapse of Canadian foreign policy. It's depressing, it's bleak,
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  Speaker 2: and it's entirely this government.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Litke's got a take, and another good one today. We'll
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  Speaker 1: talk to you later this week.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Gene.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: There he goes, John Litke.