Merve Gül Aydoğan Ağlarcı
09 September 2026•Update: 09 September 2026
Canadian Muslim organizations and a leading human rights advocate on Wednesday welcomed Ottawa’s decision to join 11 countries in the long “overdue” but “monumental” move to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Ahmad Al Qadi, Government Affairs and Public Policy Officer at the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), said at a news conference in Ottawa that the organization was “here to welcome the government’s announcement on a categorical ban on products emerging from illegal Israeli settlements.”
“Although this step should have been taken long ago, September 8th, 2026, will mark a monumental day in Canada’s history,” he said.
Al Qadi said future generations of Canadians “will use this date as a precedent for Canada’s commitment to upholding values of human rights, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, values that the Prime Minister (Mark Carney) spelled out clearly during his Davos address.”
He added that the ban “demonstrates that, indeed, as the Prime Minister stated, Canada is not powerless,” and it has “the capacity to build a new world order that respects these values.”
Al Qadi thanked Carney and Foreign Minister Anita Anand on behalf of the NCCM for advancing the ban, stressing that “Canadian businesses operating internationally have a duty to respect human rights and ensure that activities do not contribute to adverse impacts.”
Imam Sikander Hashmi, executive director of the Canadian Council of Imams, said Canada’s trade policy “should not help sustain the dispossession and abuse of another people,” calling the ban “overdue.”
He said Islamic teachings do not bar business dealings based on ethnicity or religion, noting that Prophet Muhammad “conducted business with Jewish people and others.”
“Honest and respectful trade can benefit everyone. It can build relationships and bring communities together,” said Hashmi, adding that “trade that sustains injustice demands a different response,” and “refusing to support dispossession is a matter of basic fairness and human dignity.”
Amira Elghawaby, a human rights advocate and Canada’s former special representative on combatting Islamophobia, said the decision was “grounded in clear principles of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention and numerous other United Nations resolutions and international court findings.”
She said the move by Canada and its allies sends “an unmistakable signal” that they “refuse to be complicit in the violation of international law,” describing it as “the mainstream of international law finally being enforced through policy.”
Citing public opinion, Elghawaby said that “far more Canadians oppose illegal settlements than support them, and far more Canadians support banning settlement products than oppose that step.”
“Canada’s responsibilities do not end at our borders,” she said, adding that upholding international law “consistently and without exception is how a country like ours earns the right to speak about human rights at all.”
12 countries announce measures on illegal Israeli settlements
The foreign ministers of the 12 countries announced in a statement Tuesday that they would impose or consider trade restrictions on goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The countries said Israel’s actions in the West Bank were undermining prospects for a two-state solution and stressed the need to preserve the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.
Israel subsequently announced that it would close the UK’s consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, which serves Palestinians, in response to the measures.
