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“Dozens of world leaders gathered at the United Nations on Monday to embrace a Palestinian state… President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize Palestine statehood at a meeting he convened with Saudi Arabia… Macron’s July pledge on recognition set the latest push in motion, with Britain, Canada and Australia later saying they would follow, and eventually doing so on Sunday…
“Ahead of this week's U.N. General Assembly, Luxembourg, Malta, Belgium and Monaco on Monday also joined the more than three-quarters of the 193 U.N. members who already recognize a Palestinian state.” Reuters
Here’s our previous coverage of Palestinian statehood. The Flip Side
The left supports recognition, and urges European states to go further.
“Wouldn’t it be a better first step for France to announce concrete sanctions against Israel? Netanyahu is under an international arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, yet he was allowed to use French airspace when travelling to the US in July. While the EU has announced its 19th package of restrictive measures against Russia over the ‘war of aggression against Ukraine’, it has, to this day, imposed no sanctions whatsoever on Israel.”
Rokhaya Diallo, The Guardian
“The British government should stop selling Israel [weapons and impose economic sanctions]… A year ago, Britain suspended a few dozen arms export licenses to Israel. Yet this included massive carve-outs… Spain’s center-left government, which recognized Palestine last year, has already imposed an arms embargo and shut off Spanish ports and airspace to the IDF’s suppliers. That the British government has not even gone this far shows its unwillingness to put meaningful economic pressure on Israel.”
David Broder, Jacobin Magazine
Some argue, “One of the most absurd arguments by Israel and its supporters is that this recognition by leading Western countries is a reward for terror. Palestinians for a century have been yearning for the right of self-determination…
“Israel has unilaterally ended all negotiations with Palestinians since 2014 and has repeatedly refused offers made by Palestine’s President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been publicly opposed to Hamas and its methods for years… In 2012, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recognize it as a non-member state. The only obstacle to full U.N. membership remains the U.S.”
Daoud Kuttab, New Republic
“I was an IDF soldier in the mid-1990s. At the time, most Palestinians believed that the Oslo Accords would lead to national liberation in the form of a Palestinian state. In that context, Hamas was a marginal player. Just as the peace process of the 1990s was a threat to Hamas, so too can international recognition of Palestinian statehood marginalize it today…
“Recognition would also fix the dynamics of future negotiations. For 30 years, the foundation of the peace process included a profound imbalance: Israel is a sovereign state, while Palestinians are treated as petitioners for the right to self-determination. That asymmetry supported the logic of endless ‘interim’ measures that ended up entrenching the occupation rather than resolving it.”
Hadar Susskind, The Hill
The right opposes recognition, arguing that it rewards Hamas’s aggression.
The right opposes recognition, arguing that it rewards Hamas’s aggression.
“‘Why are all these countries recognizing Palestine now?’ Hamas Politburo member Ghazi Hamad asked on Al Jazeera. ‘The fruits of Oct. 7’—the 2023 massacre that he vows to repeat—’are what caused the world to open its eyes to the Palestinian cause.’ Slaughter Jews, hold hostages long enough, use enough Gazans as human shields, and you get your own state…
“Why not demand that steps toward peace come first rather than settle for Palestinian Authority ‘commitments’ that may never be delivered? Why not condition recognition on the release of all hostages and exile of Hamas? That would make Hamas’s rejectionism the obstacle to a Palestinian victory instead of its midwife…
“U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said recognition is meant to ‘revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution.’ His deputy David Lammy added that ‘we are some significant distance from two states.’ All of which makes it puzzling that they are committing the U.K. to the claim that the second state already exists. Recognizing the state is intended as safe diplomatic theater for their Western domestic audiences.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“The incredible foolishness of this initiative is crystallized in the fact that the British government is preparing to impose sanctions on the entity it just recognized because, in contravention of all the principles to which the civilized world is beholden, it turns out that the Palestinian ‘state’ is run by terrorists… If London was being consistent, it would extend those sanctions [for Hamas] to the whole of the Palestinian Authority…
“Canada, too, insists that the Palestinian Authority must undergo ‘much-needed reforms.’ It should ‘fundamentally reform its governance,’ ‘hold general elections’ next year, and ‘demilitarize the Palestinian state.’ Indeed, ‘Hamas can play no part’ in any future Palestinian government. What mechanisms does Ottawa propose to realize these objectives now that it has recognized the statehood of an entity that has met none of them?…
“[Moreover] The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are distinct and noncontiguous geographic territories. They are governed by mutually antagonistic sects that are not above going to war with one another when they get the chance. They have discrete foreign policies and divergent relations with regional actors. They have unique economies and divergent social contracts… Nothing about this status quo suggests that the Palestinian territories are ripe for statehood.”
Noah Rothman, National Review
