Recognizing a Palestinian state now will complicate future peace efforts, experts warn
Amid a flurry of recent global headlines declaring an all-out famine in the Gaza Strip, the leaders of France, Britain and Canada, as well as some other countries, declared their intentions to formally recognize a Palestinian state as a way of ending the nearly two-year war.
Yet, the announcements — a direct response to global headlines and shocking photographs of allegedly starving children — may become hollow statements after the Israeli government on Friday said it would expand the military operation in Gaza as the only way to defeat Hamas, the designated Palestinian terror group whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel sparked the devastating war, and restore peace.
Recognition of a Palestinian state by a growing number of states could come as soon as next month’s United Nations General Assembly. Yet with Hamas still present in Gaza and still holding at least 50 hostages, and with the other Palestinian leadership, the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, weak and corrupt, will that recognition undermine efforts to reach both a short- and long-term solution to the decades-old intractable conflict?
"I assume there is a combination of considerations here — some related to foreign policy, others to domestic politics — but the basis is still the naive belief that a Palestinian state is the right way to solve the conflict," Meir Ben Shabbat, Israel’s former national security advisor who now heads the Misgav Institute for National Security, told Fox News Digital.
Ben Shabbat, who led the National Security Council from 2017 to 2021, said that from the perspective of French President Emmanuel Macron, "the initiative itself is what matters, not its content or chances of success."
"It’s doubtful whether he has considered the consequences this might have, even within the Palestinian camp itself," Ben Shabbat said.
Last week, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas political bureau official based in Qatar, told Qatari news network Al Jazeera that international recognition of a Palestinian state was "one of the fruits of the Oct. 7 attack."
"Why are all these countries recognizing Palestine now?" he said, according to a translation from Arabic by non-profit organization MEMRI. "The overall outcome of Oct. 7 forced the world to open its eyes to the Palestinian cause and to act forcefully in this respect. (They recognize now) that the Palestinian people deserve freedom and their own state."
Israeli leaders have warned that recognizing a Palestinian state at this juncture would be a clear reward for terrorism, and it will certainly do little to strengthen the position — or popularity — of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been accused of corruption and who has refused to hold democratic elections for 20 years.
International recognition of a Palestinian state is also unlikely to change the reality on the ground in Gaza or the West Bank, both of which have changed physically and demographically since initial plans for a two-state solution were drafted as part of the Oslo Accords some 32 years ago.
"In practical terms, the effects of unilateral recognition are quite limited," Ben Shabbat said. "The recognition does not address borders, and, in fact, most of the world has already recognized a Palestinian state when it was accepted as a U.N. observer state (in 2012)."
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"The main impact of these declarations is psychological —the momentum they might generate and the foundation they lay for potential future practical decisions," he said.
Gayil Talshir, a political scientist and expert on Israeli trends and public opinion from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the steps to recognize a Palestinian state were "just empty declarations" that could actually end up "worsening the situation."
"It's a reaction to images instead of thinking about diplomacy and the process of how to make a real change," she said.
By contrast, the "New York Declaration" issued last week by the Arab League, which called on Hamas to release all the hostages, disarm and end its rule of Gaza forges a more promising path to peace, she said.
"What is the political imagination that stands behind the French declaration of support of Palestine if it doesn't say that Hamas should not be part of such a state or that the Palestinian Authority, which is completely corrupt, should not be part of it," said Talshir.
"A declaration may feel very righteous for France and Canada and the rest of these states, but it actually complicates the situation further and maybe even distances an option that could materialize in the future," she added. "instead of building a process in which you have international supervision over Gaza and maybe also over the occupied Palestinian territories and gradually build Palestinian capabilities of self rule, they are just standing with Hamas against Israel."
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Among some Palestinians, too, the idea of statehood, while welcomed, feels far out of reach.
"Practically speaking, I can’t see this will happen anytime soon. It has to happen through long-term negotiations," said Huda Abu Arqoub, a Palestinian peace-building activist, referring to the idea of a Palestinian state coming to life.
"For Palestinians watching what is happening in Gaza, something inside us has died. And with that kind of despair, we just don't have the luxury right now to think of the day after or of a two-state solution.
"Once this war is out of the picture, maybe we can breathe, maybe we can regroup, maybe we will be open to having other solutions rather than just the Oslo-based solution," said Abu Arqoub, who acts as an advisor on peace to the European Union and some Arab states, including Saudi Arabia.
Instead of an international community "just taking sides," she added, "there must be a transitional period for Palestinians to regain some sort of trust in the system, in the two-state solution, and to give us a choice whether we want to be part of a political entity that runs for elections or not."