Premature recognition of Palestinian state rewards terror, not peace: Ivo Vegter
Key topics:
France, UK, and Canada push to recognise Palestinian statehood
Hamas still refuses peace, hostages' release, and disarmament
Recognition risks rewarding terrorism, undermining liberal values
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By Ivo Vegter*
First France, then the UK, and then Canada promised to formally recognise the Palestinian state in September. This is terrible policy.
For once, I agree with US President Donald Trump.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognise Palestine as a state at the next United Nations General Assembly meeting in September. The intent is to place diplomatic pressure on Israel to bring the war in Gaza to a rapid conclusion and improve the delivery of aid to the territory’s civilians.
UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer followed suit, at the behest of his own party and a third of that country’s parliamentarians. He said the UK would recognise a Palestinian State unless Israel took “substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza”, the BBC reported.
Other conditions that he expects Israel to meet are agreeing to a ceasefire, committing to a long-term sustainable peace that delivers a two-state solution, and allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid.
“Why doesn’t Israel just agree to a long-term sustainable peace?” the idealistic child asked his father.
Starmer added, almost as an afterthought, that Hamas must release all hostages, agree to a ceasefire, disarm and accept they will play no part in the future government of Gaza.
Not to be outdone, Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, made the same commitment after meeting with the West Bank’s dictator since 2005, Mahmoud Abbas. He, too, said Hamas could have no role in a future election and needed to release the remaining Israeli hostages, while the Palestinian state he envisions must be demilitarised.
While these announcements were meant to establish leverage against Israel to make peace, neither Hamas nor Al Fatah has said whether they would agree to Macron, Starmer and Carney’s demands.
Trump was fairly non-committal when asked about it, but said, “You could make a case that you’re rewarding Hamas if you do that. I don’t think they should be rewarded. I’m not in that camp.”
Needless to say, that is also Israel’s position. Under its present government, it won’t even agree to a two-state solution unless and until the terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians stop, permanently.
Appeasement
That life for civilians in Gaza is awful right now is clear. It is hard to discern exactly how bad it is, or to what extent Israel is realistically able to improve the humanitarian situation.
It is often thwarted by Hamas, a crafty opponent that has UN relief agencies in its pocket and masterfully exploits the emotions of the media and the global public, even at the cost of the civilians on whose behalf it is supposed to govern.
What is not hard to discern, however, is that Hamas has always been in a position to end the Gaza war overnight. All it had to do was release the remaining Israeli hostages and lay down its weapons.
Much can be said about how Israel has prosecuted the war against Hamas, but both that the war had to be fought, and much of how it had to be fought, can only be attributed to Hamas. It started the war, fought from inside and under civilian facilities, used civilians as human shields, manipulated the media for public relations purposes, and throughout it all had the power to end it.
To promise to recognise Gaza now, when Hamas has still not surrendered, has still not accepted that it will play no future role in governing Gaza, and has still not surrendered all the hostages, is perverse.
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It suggests to Hamas that its strategy, of a bloody massacre of innocent civilians, taking a large number of mostly civilians hostage, and then prolonging the conflict with Israel, will be rewarded with recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Recognition
Many countries recognise the sovereignty of the State of Palestine, which was first declared in 1988 by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
The UN wants all its members to follow the 146 who already do so.
Importantly, however, none of the G7 member nations, who not only are among the world’s most developed countries, but also share values of pluralism, liberal democracy, and representative government, have done so to date. They are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.
Of those, three – France, the UK and the US – are also permanent members of the UN Security Council, alongside China and Russia.
Among the broader G20, ten member countries have recognised the State of Palestine: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey. Nine of the G20 countries, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and the US have not. (The 20th and 21st members are the European Union and the African Union, which do not conduct independent foreign relations.)
The countries that do not yet recognise the State of Palestine premise their foreign policies on the principles of peaceful relations between sovereign nations governed according to liberal democratic principles. That means that it would be inappropriate of them to recognise the State of Palestine under the present circumstances.
No peace
Hamas has never forsworn violence, and has never acknowledged the right of Israel to exist. It isn’t about to change that now, especially not if France, the UK and Canada range themselves against Israel.
According to its revised charter, it seeks a Palestinian state “which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naquarah (Rosh HaNikra, on the Lebanese border) in the north to Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat) in the south.”
It does not seek a two-state solution, and it does not seek peace.
At the same time, while the focus has been on Gaza these last few years, Al Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, has also not given up violence, nor permitted democratic elections.
As I’ve written before, it is hugely unpopular where it governs, and it isn’t any more committed to peace than Hamas.
It still operates an active armed wing. It still pays the families of terrorists who die in attacks on Israeli civilians, and still grants pensions to terrorists who are imprisoned for their crimes. It still considers the entire region, Israel included, to belong to the Palestinians.
Two-state solution
Israel’s repeated attempts to negotiate with a viable Palestinian Authority to achieve a two-state solution, like the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, failed. Israel’s more recent policy of appeasement to ‘shrink’ the conflict, trying to establish a sustainable two-state reality by supporting the Palestinian economy, also failed.
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The 7 October 2023 attack demonstrated that Israel will never be able to live safely alongside a Palestinian state governed by Hamas, and the same can be said of Al Fatah.
There’s a reason the neighbouring Arab countries, like Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, have never been willing to accommodate Palestinian refugees. Egypt and Jordan never even wanted their own territories back after Israel occupied them during the defensive war of 1967.
Palestinians have a record of bringing violence and political instability wherever they go. Even Iran only supports Palestinian groups on the grounds that they’re backing an enemy of their enemy (Israel).
Foolhardy
Absent any credible government for the Palestinian regions – government that is subject to regular democratic elections, is committed to the establishment of a two-state solution, can demonstrate its intent to live in peace alongside both Israel and other countries in the region, and is able to deliver basic services to the people – it is foolhardy of the liberal democratic nations of the world to formally recognise the State of Palestine.
It would, as Trump rightly says, reward Hamas for attacking civilians, taking hostages, and firing rockets into Israel. It would reward Hamas for refusing to release the remaining hostages and refusing to lay down its arms. And it would hamper Israel in its quest to defeat Hamas for good.
A solution to the Palestinian question will take a lot more than simply recognising the Palestinian state and mouthing platitudes about a “two-state solution”. That bird has flown. It simply is not feasible to return to the starry-eyed idealism of 30 years ago.
Any solution to the crisis must start with the Palestinian people themselves. Until they are free from violent and dictatorial rulers who are sworn to Israel’s destruction and eternal jihad, a sovereign State of Palestine at peace with Israel will never exist.
Recognising such a state, just to establish some leverage against Israel, is foolishly naïve. If you want leverage, don’t threaten to shoot your liberal-democratic principles in the foot.
*Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist, columnist and speaker who loves debunking myths and misconceptions, and addresses topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets.
This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission