“True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” posted France’s President Emmanuel Macron on his X/Twitter account on July 24, “I have decided that France will recognize the state of Palestine. I will make this solemn announcement at the United Nations General Assembly next September.”
With that statement, France became the first major Western and G7 country to go beyond merely proposing the two-state solution as the only way of resolving the perennial Israel-Palestine dispute. Macron’s move is intended to signal support for some kind of renewed peace process leading to that result. It was also aimed at encouraging other nations to follow suit.
Three decided to do so, two of them G7 nations – the UK and Canada. Malta, the third, declared its intention unequivocally, but the UK announcement was framed in the form of a disingenuous ultimatum to Israel. Treating recognition as a sort of punishment for non-compliance, Starmer announced that it would take place unless Israel fulfilled a range of demands framed so that they could not possibly be met in the course of a few weeks.
What were the demands? That “the Israeli government take substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution. And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank.”
Starmer imposed no conditions on Hamas. He merely demanded, with no means of enforcing his demands, that “they must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.”
Of course, exactly the opposite occurred. Starmer’s announcement was taken by Hamas as a sign that ceasefire negotiations were no longer necessary. It broke them off at once, ensuring that at least one of Starmer’s demands on the Israeli government could not possibly be met.
The differences between countries' announcements
Canada's announcement was hedged with conditions imposed on the Palestinian Authority. Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that recognition would be conditional on the PA undertaking democratic reforms, agreeing to elections in 2026 excluding Hamas, and demilitarization. Whether this meant that Canadian recognition would not go ahead if these demands were not accepted by the PA was left unclear.
The UK’s announcement has not gone unchallenged. On July 31, no fewer than 40 peers in the House of Lords, many of them senior legal figures, wrote to Lord Hermer, the UK attorney-general. They point out that the Montevideo Convention of 1933 specifies that a recognized state must have a defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.
Palestine, say the peers, does not satisfy these requirements. Its borders are disputed; there is no single functioning government; and since the main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, are in dispute with each other, it cannot possibly enter into relations with other states.
The letter, referring to Hermer’s own statements on the importance of upholding international law, continues: “You have said that a selective, ‘pick and mix’ approach to international law will lead to its disintegration, and that the criteria set out in international law should not be manipulated for reasons of political expediency. Accordingly, we expect you to demonstrate this commitment by explaining to the public and to the government that recognition of Palestine would be contrary to the principles governing recognition of states in international law.”
Lord Hermer is unlikely to disclose the rationale behind his advice to the prime minister. If he did, it is likely to run along these lines: Legal recognition of a state de jure would mean accepting that it meets the Montevideo Convention conditions of statehood, while political recognition de facto, which could be described as symbolic, reflects support for a cause or a political resolution rather than a legal fact.
Support for Palestinian self-determination
Most recognitions of Palestine – and some 140 nations have done so – are not legal affirmations of full statehood under international law, but political support for Palestinian self-determination and a two-state solution. Palestine is perceived by many, perhaps most, as a state-in-waiting for a future partner to resolve the dispute once and for all.
An elephant dominates this room. All those many nations insistent that the only practicable way forward is the two-state solution – many even postulating that this has long been the supreme aim of many Palestinians, denied them by an intransigent Israel – are deliberately blind to the fact that the Palestinian Fatah leadership has rejected specific two-state offers on multiple occasions, while Hamas, its followers, and a majority of Palestinian opinion according to the latest poll, explicitly oppose the concept altogether.
Among the opportunities missed were the UN Partition Plan of 1947, accepted by the Jewish leadership but rejected by the Arab High Command. Some Arab opinion, including that of PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself, regards that as a major miscalculation. In 2011, during a TV interview, Abbas said: “It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole...”
The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, had they been carried through, were widely regarded as a step toward establishing an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories. At the Camp David Summit in 2000, Israel’s then-prime minister, Ehud Barak, offered a Palestinian state covering roughly 92% of the West Bank together with all of Gaza.
Contiguity within the putative state would have been achieved by way of land swaps. Yasser Arafat rejected the plan, and the breakdown of the talks was followed by the Second Intifada, which effectively ended the Oslo process.
In man-to-man talks with Abbas in 2008, then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert offered 94% of the West Bank, land swaps, shared Jerusalem, and even an international trusteeship over holy sites. Abbas did not accept.
US secretary of state John Kerry led talks in 2014 on a two-state plan based on the boundaries of June 4, 1967. Abbas walked away.
As for Hamas and its followers, a two-state solution is entirely rejected. Hamas’s 2017 revised charter, while accepting a Palestinian state within 1967 borders as a “national consensus,” still refuses to recognize Israel or renounce armed struggle. To quote: “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
Given all this, the conundrum is in trying to understand what France, the UK, and Canada believe can be achieved from a symbolic recognition of the non-state of Palestine – and how their relentless advocacy of a two-state solution rejected by most Palestinians is intended to advance matters.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.