Adam Katz: Canada has interests in the Middle East. It’s time Ottawa defined them

In September, Canada’s diplomats will begin their yearly descent to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. As has been the case recently, many of the topics on the docket will concern Israel, the war in Iran and recent developments in the Middle East. Canada’s record at the United Nations raises questions about whether Ottawa has a clear strategy for dealing with the region, or simply responds to the diplomatic pressures of the moment. If recent years are any indication, Ottawa will once again call for peace, restraint and de-escalation.

But foreign policy cannot consist of asking everyone to behave better.

The current government wants a seat at the table, a voice in international affairs and a reputation as a country capable of exerting influence beyond our borders. But before that can happen, Canada needs to decide what it actually wants in the Middle East, who its allies are, what threats it considers unacceptable and what kind of international order it intends to defend. Canada clearly understands that the international order is worth defending in Europe. Why should Canada be any less willing to defend it in the Middle East?

Put simply, Canada needs a better Middle East policy: one based not on reacting to the latest crisis, but on clearly defined Canadian interests and a willingness to act on them.

That need for a coherent policy is not simply a matter of Canada’s reputation abroad. It is increasingly a matter of what happens at home.

It is easy for Canadians to think of the Middle East as a distant region whose conflicts have little bearing on daily life at home. But the events of the past three years have demonstrated otherwise, with consequences ranging from higher energy prices, trade disruption and rising radicalization and extremism that has increasingly manifested in Canadian communities.

The dramatic rise in antisemitism since October 7 is perhaps the clearest example. Canadian Jews have watched developments thousands of kilometres away reverberate through their own communities, schools and institutions. Students have seen how quickly conflicts abroad are translated into rhetoric, protests and hostility at home. Canadian foreign policy language, therefore, can no longer afford to ignore events occurring abroad as if they don’t have very real consequences at home.

If events in the Middle East can so quickly reverberate through Canadian society, then how Canada responds to developments in the region matters. Yet Ottawa’s response often ends where its strategy should begin.

Canada’s approach to the Middle East increasingly resembles a cycle rather than a coherent strategy. When the United States and Iran went to war in 2026, Ottawa condemned Iranian attacks and called for civilian protection, but also urged all parties to return to negotiations and pursue a diplomatic resolution. When France and Britain moved toward recognizing a Palestinian state in 2025, Canada followed, calling its decision part of a “co-ordinated international effort.” In each case, Canada had a position on the immediate event. What remained less clear was the strategy connecting those positions.

The result is that our government has become proficient at responding to developments without articulating what it actually wants to achieve. Is the goal security, prosperity and stronger alliances, or simply avoiding the costs of choosing?

It is in this gap between rhetoric and strategy that the current government’s approach falls short. Ottawa has increasingly emphasized the language of balance and de-escalation without clearly articulating what Canadian interests require beyond the immediate crisis, even when the parties involved have fundamentally different objectives. That language does more than obscure Canada’s interests. It also shapes how Canadians understand conflicts, which, in the case of the 2023-26 Gaza war, shifted attention away from inconvenient truths like who instigated the violence and Israel’s goals compared to Hamas,’ to a simple demand that the fighting stop. Whether Hamas heeds the call or not seems to matter little.

Canada is often clearer about what it wants the parties involved to stop doing than what it wants the region to look like when the crisis is over. That ambiguity may be politically convenient, but it is no substitute for strategy.

If de-escalation cannot be the strategy itself, then Canada needs to decide what outcome it is actually trying to achieve. What do we want the Middle East to look like five or ten years from now?

A Canadian strategy should aim for a region where states can co-exist securely, rather than one dependent on statements and condemnations.

Answering those questions requires Canada to recognize what kind of international order it wants to preserve. The challenge to that order is not theoretical. In the Middle East, it has a name: Iran. Canada’s prosperity and security are inseparable from the Western order: democratic government, the rule of law, free commerce, international alliances and institutions that, however imperfectly, provide a framework for states to resolve disputes without resorting to force.

Iran and the network of terrorist organizations it supports represent a fundamentally different vision of regional order. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis have demonstrated that they are willing to use violence to advance political objectives, while Tehran has pursued the capacity to become a nuclear power. Canada therefore has to decide not only what it opposes, but what it is prepared to defend.

Canada should not be neutral between those seeking to preserve the international order and those seeking to undermine it. If Canada is serious about supporting states that share its interests, one country should be an obvious part of that calculation: Israel. Israel’s importance to Canada extends well beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has developed precisely the kinds of technologies Canada increasingly needs: defence technology, cybersecurity, startups and security innovation. As Canada struggles with stagnant productivity and an economy in need of greater innovation there is a considerable economic interest in deepening relationships with a country whose economy continues to grow despite war and uncertainty. There is a security interest as well. Canada’s co-operation with Israel can strengthen our capacity to confront threats that increasingly cross into our national borders.

But recognizing Israel as a strategic partner is only one part of what a better Canadian Middle East policy would require. The more important question is whether Ottawa is prepared to act on its interests when doing so requires taking a position.

That choice will not always be comfortable. At the United Nations, in diplomatic negotiations and in moments of crisis, Canada will sometimes find itself in the minority. That is not necessarily a failure of diplomacy. Sometimes, it is evidence that Canada has decided what it stands for.

Canada should not be afraid to stand with its allies simply because doing so may put it at odds with other countries. Ottawa should begin by making its Middle East policy explicit: identify its allies, define the threats it will oppose and align its votes, alliances and diplomatic decisions accordingly. Middle powers do not earn influence by being agreeable to everyone. They earn it by having something worth saying and the conviction to act on it.

National Post

Adam Katz is a political science and history student at the University of Manitoba.