The Foreign Affairs Minister is seeking to patch things up with MBS. What took so long?
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly speaks to media in the Foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on March 1.Expectations were low when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Mélanie Joly as Foreign Affairs Minister a little more than two years ago. As the fifth person in six years to hold the job, and with no experience in international relations, it almost seemed as if Ms. Joly had been set up to fail.
It was not. Constructive diplomacy often requires holding your nose and checking your moral superiority complex. If anything, the move was reflective of Ms. Joly’s efforts to get the rest of the world to take Canada seriously again. If there is ever to be a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will require Saudi Arabia’s support. Before the, Saudi Arabia had been poised to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. The Gaza war and the suffering it has wrought have made that much more difficult now. It nevertheless remains a precondition to peace and countering Iranian efforts to sow chaos in the region.