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Source: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/aviva-klompas-palestinians-deserve-the-dignity-of-accountability
Palestinians Deserve the Dignity of Accountability
(National Post-Canada) Aviva Klompas - There is a curious double standard at the heart of Canada's policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel is treated as a country whose leaders make choices and must live with their consequences. Palestinians are treated as a people to whom history happens. The diplomatic dogma remains overwhelmingly focused on what everyone else should do for Palestinians. Israel should change its policies and tactics. Washington should exert more pressure on Israel. Western governments should recognize Palestine. What, precisely, are Palestinian leaders expected to do? Expecting nothing is paternalism. If Palestinians are entitled to sovereignty, as the Canadian government believes, then Palestinian leaders should be responsible for building the institutions that make sovereignty viable. They should be responsible for whether their people vote, whether public money rewards violence, whether schools prepare children for co-existence and whether their political culture treats negotiation and compromise as diplomacy or betrayal. Foreign governments cannot manufacture a viable Palestinian state by removing the expectations placed on the people who would govern it. Ottawa granted one of the Palestinians' most important diplomatic objectives before the reforms it deemed essential to statehood had been adopted. The message was that Palestinian leaders could receive the benefits of statehood before demonstrating their willingness or ability to assume its responsibilities. The international community speaks about Palestinian dignity and self-determination. But treating Palestinians with dignity means recognizing they are not victims of forces beyond their control, but a people whose leaders make choices about war and peace, democracy and authoritarianism, education and incitement. Nor should Hamas's continued armed presence in Gaza be treated as an unfortunate fact that everyone else must accommodate. Its leaders made choices, its members committed atrocities, and its continued brutality carries consequences for the society in which it operates. The writer, speechwriter for former Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor (2013-15), is CEO and cofounder of Boundless, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting antisemitism.