Jewish and pro Israel advocacy organizations in Canada have responded cautiously to the news. Some groups argued that Israel has a legitimate right to control access to Judea and Samaria, especially for foreign officials whose visits may be politically motivated. Others urged both governments to resolve the matter quietly to avoid further diplomatic friction.
“This is ultimately about sovereignty and security,” said a representative of a Canadian Jewish organization. “Israel faces unique challenges, and decisions about who enters sensitive areas are not made lightly.”
At the same time, parliamentary observers in Canada noted that denied access can complicate lawmakers’ efforts to assess foreign policy issues firsthand. “Parliamentarians often rely on site visits to inform their work,” said a former Canadian diplomat. “When access is denied, it tends to escalate into a political issue rather than remaining a technical one.”
Click image or link to read the article - https://thej.ca/2025/12/17/israel-bars-canadian-members-of-parliament-from-entering-judea-and-samaria/
Retired U.S. diplomat Charles Shapiro, who served as ambassador to Venezuela under then-President George W. Bush, told The Hill Times that the strategy “captures the ethos of the Trump administration,” particularly its more isolationist wing.
Former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro says the strategy is ‘full of Trump administration bugaboos’ on immigration and accusations of ‘civilizational decline’ in Europe. Photograph courtesy of LinkedIn
“This strategy is full of the Trump administration’s bugaboos on mass migration and ‘civilizational decline’ in Europe, and it essentially looks at the world as three competing power centres,” Shapiro explained.
However, while the strategy seeks to divide the world between the U.S., Russia, and China, Shapiro notes that the document is “vaguely critical” of China, but offers no criticism of Russia and “completely sells out NATO.”
“It just sort of ignores the rest of the world, except as the objects of action by those three powers and just dumps on the Europeans,” Shapiro said.
Lloyd Axworthy, who served as foreign affairs minister to then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien, previously told The Hill Times he believes the strategy threatens to make Canada “a vassal state” and “needs to be put on the reading list” of every MP.
Axworthy said that the security strategy illustrates that “the United States no longer has a commitment to collaborative, co-operative multilateralism,” and has basically adopted an “our-way-or-the-highway approach in the Western Hemisphere.”
NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s national security critic, described the strategy as “a break from the liberal internationalist script” and “the clearest articulation yet of an old imperial impulse dressed up as ‘flexible realism.’”
“By openly reviving a Trump-branded Monroe Doctrine, Washington is no longer pretending that the Western Hemisphere is a community of sovereign nations,” Kwan wrote in a statement to The Hill Times. “It is declaring a hierarchy, and Canada is firmly placed in the category of subordinate territory whose primary function is to enable U.S. power projection. We cannot and will not stand for it … Canadians expect us to respond aggressively, in kind, in support of the national interest.”
Click image or link to read the full news story - https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2025/12/17/a-disturbing-sign-for-allies-trump-national-security-strategy-raises-red-flags-as-ottawa-works-on-canadas-response/486034/
Six Canadian MPs were denied entry to the West Bank on Tuesday by Israeli authorities, prompting Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand to publicly voice her disapproval of their treatment.
The NDP and Liberal MPs, part of a delegation of about 30 Canadians on a fact-finding visit, were prevented from entering the West Bank at the Israeli border crossing with Jordan.
Ottawa had given Israeli officials prior notification of the visit, and the MPs’ electronic travel authorizations had been approved, according to Jenny Kwan, an NDP MP who was part of the visiting group.
Ms. Anand said Canada has raised its objections with Israel about the treatment of the group.
“These are parliamentarians who were simply seeking to visit in a professional way, and my understanding is that denying their entry, with that objective in mind, is not in keeping with the bilateral relationship that we have shared with Israel over the course of a number of decades,” she said in an interview.
Ms. Kwan issued a statement saying: “Electronic travel authorizations to enter the West Bank were initially approved but were subsequently revoked on the day of our arrival. Israeli authorities cited ‘public security, public safety, or public order considerations’ as the basis for the denial.”
She said that during the trip to Jordan there had been meetings with Palestinians as well as the Canadian ambassador there. The delegation also met families living in refugee camps and with organizations delivering humanitarian assistance.
“I categorically reject the assertion that elected officials and civil society organizations engaging in humanitarian and fact-finding work pose any risk to public safety, security, or public order,” she added.
Ms. Kwan said the trip was organized to deepen delegates’ understanding by speaking to Muslim, Jewish and Christian families about their experiences.
“The use of security and public order narratives to limit legitimate fact-finding work is completely unacceptable,” she said.
Click image or link to read the full news story - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-canadian-mps-denied-entry-west-bank-israel/
A delegation of 30 Canadians, including six MPs, was on its way to meet with displaced Palestinians when they were denied entry into the occupied West Bank by Israeli border agents. David Akin looks at what the group is saying about why it was turned away, and the reaction.
Click image or link to watch the news video - https://globalnews.ca/video/11580973/israel-denies-canadian-delegation-including-mps-from-entering-west-bank/
OTTAWA — A GTA MP says she was shoved repeatedly by Israeli border agents in what another MP described as “angry” and “aggressive” behaviour when they were denied entry into the West Bank as part of a Canadian delegation Tuesday.
The incident prompted Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand to object to the “mistreatment of these Canadians,” while Israeli authorities — who control entry into the Palestinian territory — confirmed they are reviewing the incident.
Iqra Khalid, the Liberal MP for Mississauga—Erin Mills, told the Star by phone from Jordan that she was one of six parliamentarians in a group of about 30 people who were held for several hours at a border crossing, despite having already obtained electronic visas. Khalid said one of the delegates travelling with them was being questioned by several officers, and so she approached to “make sure she was OK.”
When asked to back away, Khalid said she took a couple steps back but kept a close watch on what was happening.
“An Israeli officer came up to me, to my face, and started yelling, telling me to go away,” Khalid said.
Then Khalid said the officer “shoved me into the wall,” prompting her to tell him not to touch her.
Khalid said the officer responded “I will touch you as much as I want” and then pushed her again, before another officer joined in to shove her back into an open area of the room.
“I got pushed with enough force that I almost fell backwards,” she said. “I got caught by a delegate, and a couple more delegates came and took me away before the situation escalated further.”
Anand said Global Affairs Canada was in contact with the travelling delegation.
Click image or link to read the full news story - https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/canadian-delegation-including-6-mps-say-they-were-treated-roughly-denied-entry-into-west-bank/article_aa2bba9a-4e75-42e1-8d5d-188dd836c172.html
The Canadian delegation’s trip to the West Bank was sponsored by The Canadian-Muslim Vote, a registered charity that seeks to foster political participation within Canadian Muslim communities.
The Canadian-Muslim Vote sponsored a similar trip last year which saw Liberal MPs Salma Zahid and Shafqat Ali, as well as NDP MP Heather McPherson and former NDP MPs Matthew Green and Lindsay Mathyssen visit Jordan and the West Bank.
The West Bank was chosen as the destination for the 2025 trip because of “increasing concerns around settler expansion and settler violence” in the region, Ghayyur said.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, settlers in the West Bank attacked Palestinian communities over 1,600 times this year as of Dec. 5, an average of five per day. The current olive harvest season was marked by “widespread settler violence” targeting farmers, trees and agriculture infrastructure, the UN agency said.
The “accelerated settlement building across the West Bank” and “settler violence against Palestinians” were among the reasons Prime Minister Mark Carney gave for his decision to formally recognize the State of Palestine in September.
Click image or link to read the full news story - https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/politics-government/canada-delegation-west-bank-denied-entry-21-gtha-11633418
B.C. NDP MP Jenny Kwan said Global Affairs Canada was made aware of the trip well in advance and informed the Israeli authorities that the delegation intended to cross into the occupied West Bank.
“I certainly hope that the Canadian government will follow up,” Kwan said from Jordan. “It should come as no surprise that we were coming and why we were all going.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand posted to X Tuesday that Canada has expressed its “objections regarding the mistreatment of these Canadians while attempting to cross.”
Click image or link to read and watch the news story - https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/really-unfortunate-six-mps-denied-entry-to-west-bank-by-israeli-officials/
A Canadian lawmaker who was denied entry to the occupied West Bank, alongside fellow politicians and civil society leaders, has dismissed Israel’s claims that the delegation posed a threat to public safety.
Jenny Kwan, a Canadian MP with the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), questioned whether Canada’s recognition of an independent Palestinian state earlier this year contributed to Israel’s decision to block the group.
“How is it that members of parliament are a public safety concern?” she said in an interview with Al Jazeera. “How is it that civil society organisations who are doing humanitarian work… [are] a security concern?”
Kwan and five other MPs were among 30 Canadian delegates denied entry to the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday after Israel deemed them a risk to public safety.
The delegation, organised by nonprofit group The Canadian-Muslim Vote, was turned back to Jordan at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing, which connects Jordan with the West Bank and is controlled by Israel on the Palestinian side, after an hours-long security check.
Kwan said another female MP in the group was “manhandled” by Israeli border agents while attempting to keep an eye on a delegate who was being taken for additional interrogation.
“She was shoved – not once, not twice, but multiple times – by border agents there,” Kwan said. “A member of parliament was handled in that way – If you were just an everyday person, what else could have happened?”
Click image or link to read the news story - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/16/canadian-mp-blocked-from-west-bank-rejects-israels-safety-concern-claims
B.C. NDP MP Jenny Kwan told Global News she witnessed the shoving incident. Other delegation members said they were aware of the incident but didn’t say if they saw it themselves.
“The real question is why were we being denied?” Kwan said from Amman. “As members of Parliament, we were never told the reasons why we were being denied. We were just simply denied. And then the rest of the delegation, they just received a standard form that was exactly the same for all of them. No one talked to them about why they were being denied.”
MPs said they were not presented with the form that other delegation members say they were given that mentioned public safety risks.