By Fatma Zehra Solmaz
ISTANBUL (AA) – Sunday marked a significant milestone in the Palestinian quest for statehood, as four major powers – the UK, Canada, Australia and Portugal – formally announced their recognition of Palestine.
The declarations came just before the UN General Assembly convenes in New York on Tuesday, where several additional nations – including France, Malta, Luxembourg and Belgium – are expected to follow suit.
The growing wave of recognition has been welcomed across much of the international community, viewed as part of a wider push to halt Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza. Yet analysts caution that while these symbolic moves carry weight diplomatically, recognition alone will not bring meaningful change for Palestinians facing daily realities of occupation and siege.
“The Israeli occupation is an incredibly aggressive and violent one. So, the question isn’t simply do we recognize that there’s a people that deserve the right of self-determination in terms of a state – the question is how do we stop the ongoing aggression and war crimes being perpetrated against those people by the occupier,” said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank.
Given the UK’s historical role in Palestine, Hellyer emphasized that its decision to extend recognition is “very symbolic.”
“The concern I think that many have is that this recognition would not be followed by actual policy steps on the ground to ensure that the occupation of the state of Palestine ends,” he told Anadolu.
The expert asserted that countries have various other tools at their disposal to ramp up pressure on Israel.
“These include trade embargoes. These include the ending of military-to-military relations. There is actually quite a long list of different types of sanctions that could be implemented if the UK and other European states chose to do so.”
However, Hellyer emphasized the role of the US in any efforts to rein in Israel: “I think the biggest problem relates to the fact that the most effective leverage point would come from the US, which is hitherto unwilling to use any of that leverage.”
Washington’s stance in support of Israel is also a deterring factor for European nations, he explained.
“The concern of European states, including the UK, is that if they were to go too far outside of the lines that the US has drawn, it would cause damage in terms of relations between the US and the UK, the US and the EU, and European states more generally, at a time when they feel that they really need the US for their own security architecture.”
- West sees Gaza as a ‘PR debacle’
Palestinian researcher Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, questioned the reasons for the shift in European and other Western capitals.
In his view, Western nations and leaders are now “trying to recuse themselves to avoid having their blood-soaked hands being very implicated” in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Until now, unfortunately, the main focus of most Western leaders was dealing with Gaza as a crisis to be managed … as a PR debacle or reputational damage to be whitewashed and handled, rather than what it is – a crime against humanity of the gravest magnitude under international law,” Shehada told Anadolu.
He also sees domestic pressure as a factor, particularly as public support for Palestine has soared in European nations, where hundreds of thousands of people have regularly turned out for mass demonstrations.
Many governments, including the UK and Germany, have responded with crackdowns on protests and stricter laws that critics say aim to deter shows of support for the Palestinian cause.
“When you see the recognition of Palestine, they are using it to save face and as a headline-grabbing gesture to win some credit domestically.”
On the overall prospects for Palestine’s future, Shehada asserted that “no state will be created out of symbolic recognition.”
“Recognition is … a very important symbolic gesture and a very important first step,” he said, adding that this realization is driving the fierce reaction seen so far from a “very terrified” Israel.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the recognition decisions as “nothing but a reward for jihadist Hamas,” while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that “a Palestinian state will not be established.”
He also threatened to ramp up illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank as a means to block any path to a Palestinian state.
“Israel is dealing with this recognition with immense backlash, although it’s entirely symbolic, because it’s a stepping stone towards the next question,” said Shehada.
“Now that you recognize Palestine, how are you going to advance Palestinian statehood? That discussion is one that Israel doesn’t want to have because it exposes two things – it exposes Israel to more sanctions, pressure, isolation, boycotts … and it exposes which party in this conflict is the one that does not want any solution whatsoever.”