It’s more than a bit late, but as they say, better late … Canada, along with Great Britain and Australia are officially recognizing a Palestinian state. A number of European nations are expected to follow. Spain, Norway and Ireland recognized a state of Palestine last year. France will also propose a plan, developed with Saudi Arabia, to secure peace in Gaza and provide a road map for rebuilding.

All this is about 80 years overdue. The Israelis gained a state recognized by Canada in 1948 and were admitted into the United Nations the following year. The Palestinians are still waiting.

They have been told by Western nations that if they wait patiently and behave themselves, they too will get a state. But only on Israel’s conditions. We have ingenuously supported a 2-state solution to be negotiated between the two sides, one side having all the leverage—controlling most of the land and possessing a nuclear-equipped army backed by the world’s most powerful nation—and the other side having none. In other words, the Palestinians were to negotiate on their knees, accepting any crumbs Israel might offer because they had no choice.

That’s the position we Canadians have been supporting over the generations. As a fair-minded people, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, keeping in mind that it is the Palestinians who are a stateless, occupied people oppressed by a nuclear-armed regional superpower, not the Israelis. We have followed a false equivalence, acting as if there were two equal sides. There are not. The Israelis have been oppressing and dispossessing Palestinians, not Palestinians the Israelis.

The result of the hypocrisy has been a miserable failure, for the Palestinians obviously, but also for the Israelis. It has brought the rise of a jihadist Hamas and the continued oppression of the Palestinians along with the relentless theft of their land. The Israelis, despite military dominance in the region, are still not secure. It is past time to do justice for a much beleaguered people while allowing their oppressors some peace.

What, one wonders, does Israel have in mind for the Palestinians? Do they intend to continue subjugating a hostile population as large as their own? There is no security in that. Or do they intend another Nakba, another ethnic cleansing, a Biblical solution so to speak? According to Prime Minister Carney, “It is now the avowed policy of the current Israeli government that there will be no Palestinian state.”

If we believe there should be, then recognition of one is a start. But only a start. Israel will have to be pressured to do the right thing, for the Palestinians and for themselves.

Recognition, while it may be only symbolic, nonetheless grants the Palestinians greater diplomatic standing and the potential for treaty-making. And with 150 or so countries now recognizing a Palestinian state, the diplomatic force is growing.

Many Palestinians fear the recognition comes too late to achieve a 2-state solution. Certainly Israel is doing everything in its power to prevent it. Perhaps it’s time to seriously consider the Canadian solution: two peoples, one country, equal rights. It isn’t easy, as we know, but we’ve made it work, creating one of the finest countries ever. And I’m sure the Arabs and the Jews are as clever as we are.

But whatever the solution, it is generations overdue. Recognition may at least get the world started on a solution.