I think the pluses are, as I mentioned earlier, that it is then not a question of when negotiations happen and it is not a question of what we are negotiating, whether a state or something else: It is that we are negotiating.
There is a State of Palestine. It is widely recognized. The question will be what that looks like, and it will be those final status issues that will be left to negotiations.
In terms of minuses—I think this is also something I brought up in my testimony—we don't want it to just be a symbolic move. We want to make sure that other actions follow, and that is also why I talked about not only moves that we can take to strengthen the Palestinian Authority but also about things that we should be asking Israel to do, because, as you said, we can support the State of Israel and realize that the government is working to the detriment of that state.
There are clear actions that have to come along with this recognition. You are right, and I agree with you. On unilaterally recognizing the State of Palestine, I think that there is no reason it should not be done by Canada or to think that it will not have benefits, so we should move forward with it.
For the Jewish community, the thing that I first want to say is that with all due respect, we are not the story here; the story is about millions of stateless Palestinians who have been waiting for so long for justice and to be treated as a sovereign people in their ancestral homeland. It should be us, Jewish Zionists, first and foremost, who recognize that. That is our story. We should have more empathy than anyone for the fact that they want it.
I think the only way that we are the story, the only way in which the Canadian Jewish community is a story, is that it is incumbent upon me and my colleagues here at the table to not fearmonger among the Jewish community and to not create nightmare scenarios of what recognition will mean but instead explain to our community why this is beneficial and how this is getting us to a two-state solution, since we know that the majority of our community supports a two-state solution.
Other than that, the focus really does need to be on Palestinians.