Every September, thousands of diplomats and hundreds of heads of state trek to New York City for annual United Nations General Assembly meetings. Starting this Tuesday, speeches will be made, major diplomatic initiatives will be announced and foreign policy analysts will get together to decry the U.N.’s incapacity to end some of the world’s worst conflicts.
French President Emmanuel Macron and some of his partners in Europe, however, aren’t waiting for the U.N. to gavel in before making diplomatic news. In July, Macron stated that France would recognize Palestine as an independent state. United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese followed in Macron’s footsteps over the weekend. “The hope for a two-state solution is fading, but we cannot let that light go out,” Starmer said in a video announcing London’s decision.
These moves come fewer than 10 days after the U.N. General Assembly approved by a vote of 142-10 the so-called New York Declaration, a seven-page plan that aims to end the nearly three-year-long war in Gaza, form a technocratic Palestinian administration there and establish “tangible, timebound and irreversible steps” leading to a secure Israel living in peace with the state of Palestine. This, coupled with the organization of a special conference on a two-state solution, is as much about getting the Palestinian question back on the international agenda as it is about actually resolving the world’s most intractable dispute.
It certainly looks as if there’s diplomatic momentum here. Yet what we’re seeing is essentially a diplomatic mirage. Despite the renewed attention from Europe’s most significant powers, a resolution to the Israeli-Hamas conflict, let alone the establishment of a Palestinian state, is so far into the distance that you can’t even see it. Countries can formally recognize Palestine all they want, but it’s the facts on the ground that will determine success or failure.
More Top Picks Ratings
Nothing that’s occurring today can give anybody but the most delusional optimist any confidence that the Middle East’s longest crisis will end anytime soon.
Gaza, of course, is the most pressing problem in this regard. The war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack against Israel is no closer to ending today than it was earlier in the year, when President Donald Trump helped Joe Biden’s outgoing administration hammer out a seven-week ceasefire and hostage release agreement.
Successive attempts at ending the war through a permanent truce, the release of the hostages, an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and the rebuilding of the territory have died on the table. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose political survival hinges on people who view a ceasefire accord with Hamas as a dangerous capitulation, has chosen to double down on military force despite the Trump administration’s reported impatience with the war.
As I wrote this column, tens of thousands of Israeli troops were invading Gaza City in a bid to squash what the Israeli government alleges is Hamas’ last major hideout. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians, many of whom have been displaced as many as six times, now have another choice to make: Move to the south, where the humanitarian situation is just as horrendous, or stay in Gaza City and risk getting killed by shelling.
The West Bank, the other territory that would make up the rest of a hypothetical Palestinian state, isn’t exactly in a great place. Since Netanyahu returned to the prime minister’s office in December 2022, his far-right government has announced a flurry of checkpoints, land seizures and settlement expansion plans whose express purpose is to make the emergence of a contiguous, viable Palestinian state even more difficult. Indeed, in August, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised plans to build even more settlements near Jerusalem as a way to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” altogether. Palestinians in the West Bank view French, British and Canadian attempts at recognizing Palestine as at best a symbolic measure — and they are absolutely right.
The Palestinians aren’t doing themselves any favors either. The Palestinian Authority (PA), which was set up after the Bill Clinton-era Oslo Accords to provide a measure of self-governance on the road to full statehood, is utterly discredited to the people it’s supposed to serve. Many Palestinians view the PA as a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation. Others see it as a corrupt, bloated, dysfunctional machine whose leadership is about as decrepit as the Palestinian economy.
There’s something to this interpretation; PA President Mahmoud Abbas has held the position for more than 20 years and has a habit of scheduling, then canceling, Palestinian legislative and presidential elections. According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 81% of Palestinians want Abbas to resign, and only 19% are satisfied with his tenure.
No announcement made at the United Nations this week is going to fix this mess. Europe’s growing frustration and anguish with the current situation are understandable, but feelings don’t count for much. On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict writ large, Europe is akin to the bystander in the bleachers screaming at the players. Netanyahu has complete contempt for Europe’s leaders, and the Palestinians, leaderless and listless, won’t be able to translate weighty declarations made in New York into tangible action plans unless Israel buys into them. Israel has no intention of doing so and may even retaliate with outright annexation of parts of the West Bank, a move that would exacerbate the very problem the West hopes to solve.
The one person who can perhaps influence Netanyahu’s calculus is Trump. But don’t hold your breath.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the baiduhai.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].