Zionist Palestinian State? - A Dangerous Double Standard

By Tazeen Hasan

Canadians are shocked to hear PM Mark Carney’s statement suggesting that a two-state solution can only happen if the Palestinian state is a “Zionist” one. Such a remark is not only bewildering—it is profoundly unjust, deeply offensive, and reveals the persistent moral double standard that Western leaders apply to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What does it mean to demand that a colonized, dispossessed, and brutalized population must embrace the very ideology that has been used to justify their ongoing oppression? Zionism, as a political ideology, underpins the establishment and expansion of a Jewish ethno-nationalist state in historic Palestine. To impose this framework on Palestinians—whose land has been fragmented, whose people have been expelled, and whose aspirations have been violently suppressed—is akin to asking South Africans to endorse apartheid as a condition for their liberation.

No other people seeking self-determination have been told they must accept the worldview of their occupier. Did Canada require Indigenous peoples to become colonialists in order to reclaim their rights? Were Irish nationalists told to embrace British imperialism? Would the world have required Black South Africans to adopt white nationalist ideology before dismantling apartheid? Carney’s expectation that Palestinians adopt Zionism in exchange for freedom is not only ahistorical—it is morally repugnant.

This disturbing suggestion reflects a broader Western pattern: Palestinians are subjected to impossible moral tests while Israel is allowed to act with near impunity. Even as Israel stands accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice, continues to bomb refugee camps, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure, and expands illegal settlements, it remains a welcome partner. Meanwhile, Palestinians—under siege, occupation, and exile—must prove they are peaceful, secular, democratic, and now, apparently, Zionist?

This is not diplomacy; it is ideological coercion. It is a form of victim-blaming that seeks to erase Palestinian political agency and rewrite the terms of justice.

International law is clear: all peoples have the right to self-determination, free from external domination and without ideological preconditions. Palestinians are entitled to their own identity, political philosophy, and vision for statehood—just as Israelis are. To demand ideological conformity as the price of statehood is to deny the very foundation of freedom.

Canadians expect better from our leaders. We pride ourselves on standing for human rights, international law, and decolonization. We must not betray those values by endorsing frameworks that privilege one group’s supremacy over another’s existence. If Prime Minister Carney truly supports a two-state solution, he must first recognize that peace requires justice—not ideological assimilation.

Palestinians do not need to become Zionists. They need to be free.