Recognizing Palestine is the right move, but it came at the wrong time - opinion

These longstanding allies and trading partners of Israel are telling the Jewish state they disapprove of its conduct of the war in Gaza, the ensuing humanitarian crisis, and the treatment of West Bank Palestinians.

I don’t doubt the three democracies’ support for the two-state solution is genuine, but demographics and domestic politics may also play a role. Each has a growing Muslim population far larger than its dwindling Jewish population. Pew Research reports that both the UK and France no longer have Christian majorities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “strongly condemned” the diplomatic move as “appeasement” that “rewards terror.” Hamas seems to agree that their years of terrorism are being rewarded.

Hamas, indifferent to the civilian suffering it ignited among Palestinians, celebrates the political damage to Israel from the pictures of the devastation, carnage, and hunger in Gaza.

One unintended consequence of the impending diplomatic moves is that both sides may interpret it as reason to more aggressively pursue the battle.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on Fox Radio, called the move a PR victory for Hamas, which gives it the leverage to “keep this [war] going.”

“There can be no Palestinian state unless Israel agrees to it,” he said, adding that can be enforced with a US veto in the UN Security Council, where four permanent members now back recognition.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, support for the two-state approach has virtually disappeared in Israel. Rebuilding confidence that peace is possible will take a long time and a whole new government.

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert believes the two-state solution remains the best solution to the conflict. He proposed such a plan to the Palestinians in 2008, but it was rejected without a counteroffer. He says the effort should be revived, with a reformed Palestinian Authority the only legitimate partner. It cannot be imposed from the outside.

It is counterproductive to treat recognition of Palestinian statehood as a reward for Hamas or punishment for Israel, he said.

The conflict in Gaza is “a needless war with no achievable goals, led by a government with no political vision for ‘the day after,’” Olmert said. “Millions of Israelis oppose the policies of this government, the starvation. We are not fighting the Palestinians; we are fighting Hamas.”

The PA is weak, corrupt, and sorely in need of a major overhaul and new leadership. Olmert wants to see the Arab countries deploy a security force in Gaza to prevent further Hamas attacks on Israel while a rebuilt PA assumes civil power.

Moves by France, Britain, and Canada are more out of frustration and revulsion at what they consider Israel’s vengeful war against Palestinian civilians and its devastation of much of Gaza, than any evidence that the PA is capable of governing, or that Israel is ready for any serious peace negotiations.

To Israel’s extremist government, the diplomatic recognition says: “We’re right, the whole world is against us, so it doesn’t matter what we do. We’re fighting terrorists and they’re helping our enemies.”

US President Donald Trump is getting impatient with another “endless war,” especially one that he said he would end on Day One of his administration. He seems moved by the human catastrophe and blasted Netanyahu’s denial that there is “real starvation” in Gaza as “a boldfaced lie.”

It is an unusual reprimand, and it may sting the prime minister, but Bibi answers to a higher authority: the Kahanist-fascist wing of his coalition. They’ve threatened to bring down the government if he stops the war before they’re ready.

Those extreme religious and nationalist parties are demanding reoccupation and settlement of Gaza while the Palestinian population “voluntarily” flees.

In another move that may prolong the fighting, Israel is now arming some Palestinian clans in Gaza as rivals to Hamas, presumably expecting they could take over the enclave.

That idea was tried in the West Bank in the 1970s and 1980s, backing the Village Leagues to counter the PLO. It failed. The local population considered them collaborators. When they sought an alternative to the incompetent, abusive, and corrupt PLO, they found Hamas.

“Israel’s real enemies,” Olmert has said, are not in Gaza but are the young, religious Jewish settlers of “the violent, murderous terrorist militias that are gradually taking control of the West Bank” and waging “war on Israel’s civil, security, and military order.”

Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was an opportunity for Palestinians to show the world, especially the Israelis, that they were ready to run a democratic state, be good neighbors, and live in peace. Instead, they turned the enclave into a launching pad for terror against Israel.

“Had they chosen the other path, perhaps that would have pushed Israel to also give up the West Bank and end the occupation years ago,” Israeli author and peace activist David Grossman wrote.

Britain, France, and Canada may want to show their support for the two-state solution, their sympathy for the victims of this war, and send a stern message to Israel. But they must ask themselves whether this tactic will tell both combatants that there is more to be gained by pursuing this war than ending it.