No one theory in international relations can fully describe the complicated actions and motivations formulating a state’s foreign policy. Yet the paradigm that best describes the approach taken by Western governments, such as Canada, when supporting peace building between Israel and the Palestinians is neoliberalism. They did this by sponsoring an Oslo Peace Process with Palestinian development aid in a development for peace model built upon precepts of cooperation and free market trade. That approach to peace building failed though because Israel and the Palestinians never altered their behaviour, remaining mired in a state of violence. Still, Western states continue to provide aid funding based upon the precepts of this model after more than twenty years of failure following the 1993 Oslo Accord. The unique contribution of this research study is to provide insight into why these peace building efforts failed to take hold through an analysis of development aid projects from one Western country, Canada, for a period from 2001 to 2012. Specifically this is done through an account of the experiences of project coordinators from Canadian organisations that ran human rights and poverty reduction projects in that time. By taking the neoliberal paradigm into account, when assessing their experiences we gain insight into the factors that led to Oslo’s undoing, at least via Canada as a sponsor of the Peace Process. In this case failure is built upon a combination of degrees of naivety by aid practitioners and measures taken by Canadian elites to undermine Canadian development aid projects for Palestinians. In particular, from 1993 onward the Canadian government offered unswerving support to Israel, to the point where Canada was either contributing directly to Israeli settler colonialism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or else helping to obscure it. Altogether this suggests at a theoretical level that, in spite of employing a strongly neoliberal foreign policy adopting progressive principles such as international law, human rights and cooperation, Canada in reality takes a foreign policy track that favours special or national interests, as well as favoured state allies, all at the expense of cooperation in world affairs or the rights of people being oppressed by an ally. The Canadian case suggests that the progressive elements in neoliberalism might only be applied selectively and not universally by a state, depending on its government’s perceptions of its self-interests.

This thesis is a study of the attitude of the Canadian Government towards the organization and operation of international institutions rather than a study of the policies pursued in them. Special emphasis is laid, upon two basic problems: the broad institutional framework of international society, dealt with in Part I, and the relationship of great and small states, the theme of part II. Each Part is prefaced by a brief analytical chapter (Chapters IX and VIII). Apart from the introductory chapter, the thesis is almost entirely confined to the period from the outbreak of war in 1939 to the immediate aftermath of the invasion of South Korea in 1950. The opening chapter traces the development of Canadian policy towards international institutions from the early days after Confederation to the post- war period. During the inter-war years, the primary appeal of tie League of Nations to Canada was as a means of asserting her international status. At the same time, she was most reluctant to assume international responsibilities, particularly obligations to impose automatic military sanctions against an aggressor. Early in the Second World War, her attitude began to change, and she earns to accept not only the principle of collective security but also the need to play her full part in it. The Canadian Government was also determined to ensure that, in the reconstruction of international government, the fullest attention was paid to the question of removing the underlying economic and social causes of war.

This dissertation assesses the historical engagement of Canadian state and society with the Palestine problem. Canada’s contemporary position on the pro-Israel edge of the spectrum of world politics raises questions about long-term patterns of change and continuity in Canadian politics concerning the Middle East. Liberal patriotic historical narration of Canadian foreign policy conventionally invokes what Lester B. Pearson referred to as ‘the broad and active internationalism’ with which Canadian officials approached the world in the years after World War II. Moderate voices within the contemporary Canadian mainstream typically counterpose this history to a narrow support for Israel that pits Canada against a majority of the world community. This dissertation argues that contemporary political opposition in Canada needs to find other historical precedents to build upon. The established liberal internationalist framing obscures the formative influence upon Canadian foreign policy of a racialized politics of empire. The development of Canadian politics within the framework of the British Empire, and the domestic structures of racial power that formally endured into the twentieth century, need to be taken into account if the historical evolution of Canadian external affairs policy on Palestine – as more generally – is to be understood. Historical and political analysis structured around the assertion of national innocence undercuts the kind of understanding of the past that can inform constructive engagement with the problems of the present. As against the pervasive theme of fair-minded Canadian innocence, this dissertation finds that the implication of both the Canadian government and Canadian civil society in the denial of Palestinian rights has deep historical roots. It is critical to look not only at the scope of internationalist tendencies within Canadian political history, but also at their exclusionist boundaries. In so doing, this study positions Canada within wider Western structures of support for Israel against Palestinian and neighbouring Arab societies.