Alan Kessel
The Hill, Aug. 8, 2025
“… recognition is not a throwaway gesture. Once granted, it is almost impossible to reverse.”
The geopolitics of the Middle East is shifting quickly, and not for the better. What began as a solo act of French diplomatic theatre has now become a chorus of ill-considered posturing.
Within weeks of Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that France will recognize a Palestinian state in September, the United Kingdom and Canada have each signaled that they are considering following suit, albeit in their own ways.
This is not a movement toward peace. It is a movement toward rewarding terror, undermining international law and weakening the leverage needed to resolve this conflict responsibly.
Palestinian self-determination is a legitimate aspiration, but recognition of statehood is not a symbolic gesture to be handed out of impatience. It is a formal legal act with irreversible consequences.
Under the Montevideo Convention of 1933, statehood requires a permanent population, defined territory, a functioning government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. None of these elements exist in any coherent form today.
The Palestinian Authority barely controls parts of the West Bank, while Hamas, a designated terrorist organization by Canada, the U.K., the European Union and the U.S., controls Gaza with violence and impunity. To call this a “state” is to willfully ignore both law and reality.
The timing could not be more reckless. Recognition now will be read by Hamas as vindication of its Oct. 7 massacre. It will embolden the group, harden its demands and make the already fragile hostage negotiations even more perilous.
Those remaining captives, innocent people torn from their homes, are being used as bargaining chips. To reward their kidnappers with the trappings of statehood sends the worst possible signal: that terrorism works. ….SOURCE