The threat by France, England, Canada, Australia, and other American allies to “recognize” a nonexistent Palestinian “state” has incentivized Hamas to reject US peace deals and has thus endangered the lives of the 20 living hostages.
As Marco Rubio put it:
“Talks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognize the Palestinian state…So those messages, while largely symbolic in their minds, actually have made it harder to get peace and harder to achieve a deal with Hamas.”
I’m in Israel to meet with Israeli leaders and to try to visit Gaza. After several meetings, I have been confirmed in my strong belief that the decision by these countries to recognize “Palestine” has emboldened Hamas to persist in its refusal to release the hostages in exchange for a ceasefire.
Both US President Donald Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff have placed the blame squarely at the feet of Hamas for rejecting US proposals to end the current impasse.
Why should Hamas make a deal requiring it to make sacrifices in its bargaining position, when it is being promised the “gold ring” — recognition of statehood — for doing nothing?
Polls show that Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank, would vote overwhelmingly to be governed by Hamas rather than the Palestinian Authority if free elections were held. This would be even more certain if Hamas were credited with securing a state — something the PA could not accomplish over the many years it has been in power.
Even if Hamas itself cares more about destroying Israel than having a Palestinian state recognized, they would gain much from having secured recognition.
Recognition rewards Hamas for terrorism
Recognition of statehood now would be widely and correctly seen as rewarding Hamas for its massacres of October 7, and it would send a loud message to terrorist groups around the world that terrorism is more effective than negotiation.
It will encourage more Oct 7s — as Hamas has already promised — not only against Israel, but against other nations that are threatened by terrorists with grievances, which includes most democracies.
Recognizing a Palestinian state without even conditioning such recognition on the release of the hostages will ensure continuing belligerence in Gaza. Hamas doesn’t care how many Gazans are killed.
To the contrary, they believe their cause benefits from the death of martyrs. That is why they use civilians as human shields and prohibit them from seeking shelter in the tunnels that protect their terrorists from Israeli bombings.
It is these immoral tactics — prohibited by the laws of war — that are rewarded and incentivized by giving Hamas what it wants: credit for achieving statehood without giving up anything: a major quid without quo.
No wonder Trump, the master of quid pro quo deal-making, is opposed to giving the Palestinians something for nothing. This is especially troubling, since the Palestinian leadership has turned down offers of statehood in return for real peace on numerous occasions.
As former president Bill Clinton recently put it: “The only time Yasser Arafat didn’t tell me the truth was when he promised he was going to accept the peace deal that we had worked out. Which would have given the Palestinians a state in 96% of the West Bank and 4% of Israel, and they got to choose where the 4% of Israel was. So they would have the effect of the same land of all the West Bank. They would have a capital in East Jerusalem… all this was offered including…a capital in East Jerusalem and two of the four quadrants of the old city of Jerusalem confirmed by the Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and his cabinet, and they said no, and I think part of it is that Hamas did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians. They wanted to kill Israelis and make Israel uninhabitable.”
What benefits — other than virtue signaling to their left wing and Muslim domestic constituents — do these countries expect to achieve by the hollow act of recognition? It will only make it harder for positions on both sides.
The Palestinians will be encouraged to persist in the terrorist tactics that produced recognition, and the Israeli right wing will demand annexation of the disputed territories that would comprise the theoretically recognized “state”— a “state” without recognized borders and without a recognized governing authority.
It is a recipe for anarchy, terrorism, and Islamic extremism with no counterbalancing benefits. It will make a two-state solution more difficult to achieve because a Hamas-controlled state would never recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, and Israel would never recognize a “state that was created — invented — without direct negotiations and reciprocal commitments.
So the virtue signaling and electoral pandering of these hypocritical governments will surely backfire and cause more deaths and suffering on both sides.
It is fitting that these phony recognitions will be announced from the podium of the UN general assembly— the same forum that declared Zionism to be form of racism, that welcomed a Palestinian terrorist leader wielding a gun, that platformed Holocaust denying Iranians, and that has served as the modern day version of the notoriously antisemitic Der Stermer of Nazi Germany.
Following the decision to equate Zionism with racism, the Israeli representative to the UN ascended the podium and tore up the text of the resolution. Several years later, it was rescinded.
The false equation did little harm aside from damaging the credibility of the UN. It won’t be as easy to rescind the dangerous recognitions that will tarnish the UN this September — and will risk the lives of Israelis, especially hostages, and Palestinians.
Shame on France, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries that will have the blood of innocent people on their hands.
