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When Recognition Becomes Evasion: Europe's Palestinian Statehood Campaign

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Aviram Bellaishe - The European countries currently leading the move to recognize a Palestinian state - France, Spain, Ireland, Norway - are not doing so in a rational political process, but due to domestic political pressure: tumultuous demonstrations, a public arena dominated by Muslim voices, and militant campuses. France has 6.8 million Muslims (10% of the population); 2.5-3 million Muslims live in Spain; Germany's Muslim population is 5.5 million. Unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state has become an act of domestic appeasement. It is motivated by the need to appear moral, but ignores the destructive consequences - for Israel's security, regional stability, and for the future of the Palestinians themselves. The Western attempt to differentiate between the "jihadist terrorist" and the PLO-type "nationalist fighter" reflects a fundamental failure to understand the conflict. Both have the same underlying strategy: an ongoing struggle whose ultimate goal is not an accord but the destruction of the Zionist enemy. Even if Hamas temporarily disarms, is exiled, or is "distanced from the arena," its ethos will continue to thrive: in the mosques, the textbooks, the local police force, the discourse of the street. The struggle will not end. The budgets of both the PA and Hamas are based mainly on external aid. There is no effective taxation, independent central bank, or orderly economic policy. A state that is established in such a condition will be a completely dependent entity - not an independent, sovereign one. It will be both a terror state and an institutionally failed state that will soon become a plaything of external or internal forces. As long as the Palestinian educational, religious, and media systems propagate a discourse of hate, supremacy, and victimhood, no society can be built when its language is one of perpetual conflict. The writer, Senior Director for Security, Diplomacy, and Communications at the Jerusalem Center, has served in senior government positions for over 25 years.
2025-04-29 00:00:00
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