Britain, Canada, Australia, and Portugal this week announced their countries’ recognition of a Palestinian state, with France to follow. But what does this mean in practice, and why should this be opposed?
We’ve selected some of the best commentary from the British, Canadian, and Australian media, as well as some analysis from legal experts.
The Times of London:
Hamas is a virulent force that seeks not peace with Israel but the destruction of Israel. It does not follow, however, that western governments’ recognising a state of Palestine either advances the goal of a two-state solution or diminishes Hamas’s influence. Most Israelis will interpret Britain’s decision as a reward for Hamas’s terrorism rather than a means of thwarting it. Hamas itself declares it a vindication. Israel’s voters will feel embattled rather than reassured. That will make more difficult the task of a negotiated peace.
Further, Britain’s decision will have scant benefits for Palestinians. On the contrary, the Palestinian Authority has been enfeebled and brought to the point of financial collapse during the war initiated by Hamas in 2023. It is unpopular and far from competent to take on the administrative tasks of statehood. Israelis are not being paranoid in fearing the vacuum will be filled by Hamas.
The Telegraph:
The premature and unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state is one of the gravest errors in British foreign policy of the past 50 years. It is a shameful moment for this Government and country, and a fundamental rupture with our past approach.
A two-state solution has long been desired in Britain, and used to be supported in Israel too. The prerequisites were extensive: recognition was to be part of an effective package when a new dispensation could be found. Peace and agreed borders would come first. Crucially, Palestinian elites would accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in defensible borders. Palestinians would cease to be refugees claiming a “right to return” to Israel, and in return have an independent state as a permanent home, with trade deals, aid and global recognition following. Crucially, attempts to negotiate this outcome stumbled on the intransigence of a Palestinian elite that hated Israel more than it loved the idea of its own nation.
As a result these steps have not happened. The ultimate diplomatic prize, recognition, is now being squandered with nothing gained in return. Moreover, there is no prospect whatsoever that Israel and the United States will allow a terror organisation fanatically dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state to claim the trappings of statehood in any meaningful sense. If peace is ever realised in the Middle East, it will have nothing to do with Sir Keir’s cakeist foreign policy.
Daily Mail:
The use of hostages as a weapon of war has been the tactic of tyrants and psychopaths down the ages. Under international law it ranks as both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
As a human rights lawyer, Sir Keir Starmer should be the first to denounce this loathsome practice. Instead, he is effectively rewarding it.
By recognising an imaginary Palestinian ‘state’ yesterday, he was playing into the hands of Hamas, the terror group whose primary aim is to wipe Israel off the map.
International recognition of Palestine is viewed by its leaders as no more than a first step towards that goal. Sir Keir speaks of a ‘two-state’ solution. What they want is a one-state solution – an Islamic state with no Jews.
Hamas began this latest war by massacring nearly 1,200 Israelis and abducting some 250 more. Almost two years on, up to 48 of those hostages remain entombed in tunnels and bunkers under Gaza.
With his usual sanctimony Sir Keir says recognising Palestine is a ‘moral duty’. But what could be a greater moral duty than securing the release of these starved and brutalised captives from their subterranean dungeons?
Recognition of Palestinian state divides Australia from US, The Australian:
When the history of the present time is written, the recognition of Palestinian statehood by Australia, Britain and Canada in a co-ordinated foreign policy change will be the great irrelevance. As Russia ratchets up warlike pressure over the skies of Europe and China bears down harder in the Asia-Pacific, little will be different in Gaza by the end of the week. After some high-minded speeches in New York early in the week, including from Anthony Albanese, Gazans will be leaderless, still under Hamas’s brutal control, the Israeli hostages will still be in captivity, and conditions will remain appalling. In a joint statement on Sunday, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Penny Wong said: “Today’s act of recognition reflects Australia’s longstanding commitment to a two-state solution, which has always been the only path to enduring peace and security for the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples.” But a workable two-state solution is no closer.
There is no Palestine, National Post (Canada):
Under international law, those borders still need to be negotiated, which presents a problem for the countries now trying to claim Palestine as a state. The 1933 Montevideo Convention defines a state as having four primary characteristics: “(a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”
While the Palestinian territories have a permanent population and a limited ability to engage in foreign relations, they don’t have a defined territory. Nor do they have a real government: the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, deeply unpopular and on the verge of bankruptcy; while Gaza is controlled by a terrorist organization that virtually everyone agrees cannot play a role in a future Palestinian state.
Nevertheless, Carney and his ilk are attempting to conjure a state out of thin air, before Hamas has relinquished control over Gaza and before its borders have been settled. It’s a foolhardy and ahistoric move that contradicts 80 years of Canadian foreign policy and will do nothing to further the goal of peace in the Middle East.
Palestine recognition would reward terrorism and contradict international law, Irwin Cotler & Orde Kittrie, National Post (Canada):
Canada has long prided itself as a leading proponent of international law. Yet, recognition under the current circumstances would contradict the longstanding international legal frameworks for recognizing statehood and for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The international legal criteria for statehood require that a nascent state have a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) a government with effective control over that population and territory; and d) capacity to enter into relations with other states.
The European Council (EC) added several additional non-binding criteria in its 1991 guidelines for recognizing new states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. These include prospective states providing their citizens “the rule of law, democracy, and human rights.”
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which the three Western countries plan to recognize, has had no control over the Gazan part of its territory since 2007 when Hamas seized power there in a bloody coup. Gaza contains over 40 per cent of the purported Palestinian state’s population. The PA thus lacks the capacity to ensure the Palestinian population abides by any agreements it enters into with other states.
As for the EC criteria, PA President Mahmoud Abbas is currently in the twentieth year of the single four-year term to which he was elected in 2005 (subsequent presidential elections have been cancelled). In addition, the respected Freedom House has for years given both the PA and the Hamas regimes worse scores for political rights and civil liberties than nearly any other government on earth.
The Carney government’s approach is more constructive than that of France (unconditional recognition) and the U.K. (which perversely pledged to recognize unless Israel agrees to a unilateral ceasefire). All three governments should withhold recognition at least until Carney’s commitments and demands have been met.
One of us (Irwin Cotler) has personally met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his aides many times over the years. They have repeatedly promised that they would abolish the pay-for-slay program and move towards demilitarization and deradicalization. Regrettably, those promises have largely gone unfulfilled.
The long-established “land for peace” legal framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, established by UN Security Council Resolution 242 and the Oslo Accords, provides that Palestinian statehood can only come as part of a negotiated solution to the conflict, in which Israel receives peace in return. Recognizing Palestine as a state under the current circumstances would torpedo that framework.
Hamas is emboldened to continue holding hostages and obstructing a ceasefire, and the PA has no incentive to take concrete steps towards peace when Western leaders recognize Palestinian statehood without Israel receiving peace in return.
Hamas sees Keir Starmer’s Palestine statement as vindication for murder, Matthew Syed, The Times of London:
An interesting word, that: “recognise”. As I write these words, I am unclear about the borders of this state, its government, how it will operate, or what we are supposed to make of the fact that hostages within this putative jurisdiction are still being held in horrific conditions.
This, by the way, was the Hamas response to Sir Keir Starmer’s statement, perhaps the greatest evocation of glee from within the terrorist group in months. “The fruits of October 7 are what caused the entire world to open its eyes to the Palestinian issue — and they are moving towards it with force,” Ghazi Hamad, a senior operative, said. “That is, that the Palestinian people are a people who deserve a country. The initiative by several countries to recognise a Palestinian state is one of the fruits of October 7. We have proven that victory over Israel is not impossible, and our weapons are a symbol of Palestinian honour.”
So there you have it: Hamas regards the British policy as an explicit vindication of mass murder, of gaining by killing. And it isn’t just this group of psychopaths who see it in these terms. Security insiders tell me that other jihadi networks also regard official British policy as an exoneration of terrorism as they busily recruit across the Middle East via propaganda pumped out daily over social media. One might call it appeasement, although I am not sure this quite does justice to the strategic and moral pusillanimity of what we’re seeing, not just from the British government but the French, Canadians and more.
British and French Recognition of Palestine Will Reward Terrorism, Endanger European Security, Orde Kittrie, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Palestine meets fewer of the international legal criteria for statehood than do those and other separation-seeking European regions. The legal criteria, set forth in the Montevideo Convention, reflect customary international law and thus are binding on all states. The Montevideo criteria require a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) a government with effective control over that population and territory; and d) a capacity to enter into relations with other states.
The European Council (EC) added several additional non-binding criteria in its 1991 guidelines for recognizing new states in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. These include potential states providing their citizens “the rule of law, democracy, and human rights.”
The Palestinian Authority (PA), the entity Macron and Starmer plan to recognize, is far from qualifying for statehood according to the Montevideo criteria. It has had no control over the Gazan part of its territory since 2007, when Hamas seized power there in a bloody coup. Over 40 percent of the proposed Palestinian state’s population resides in Gaza. The PA thus lacks the capacity to ensure Palestine’s population abides by any agreements the PA makes with other states.
As for the EC criteria, PA President Mahmoud Abbas is currently in the twentieth year of the single four-year term to which he was elected in 2005 (he has cancelled all presidential elections since then). In addition, Freedom House, the respected human rights watchdog, has for years scored both the PA and the Hamas regimes worse for political rights and civil liberties than nearly every other government on the planet.
Further reading: UKLFI’s Comments on UK Government’s proposal to recognise Palestine as a State
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