So, the UK recognises a Palestinian State, along with 140+ other countries. No matter Palestinians have been denied a unification process which would rightly give them a prototype government; no matter our negligence means they have little, if anything, left to govern; no matter they have no institutional infrastructure left; no matter their neighbour-from-hell, Israel, assumes the right to deny its reality. And no matter the truth that a ‘two-State solution’ is a convenient way for international brokers to avoid confronting a ‘single-State solution’ – the only, truly democratic, civilised way to resolve this conflict.
It is barely worth repeating what many commentators are saying, that recognition of a State of Palestine is naked of concrete action to make sense of the aspiration; and what a few commentators say is merely a strategy to disarm critics. ‘We’ve recognised...what more do you want...?!’. Besides, making a reality of a Palestinian State is a task the international community has repeatedly shown it is incapable of even getting out of your chair for. It would require, at a minimum, radical political change in Israel, including managing the demographic time-bomb of a burgeoning ultra-religious population (with fertility rates of almost four times that of the secular population). Yet, there is no significant ideological Opposition in Israel to invest in. The Left-Wing – to some degree an inheritance of the Bund – was overwhelmed early in Israel’s history, by the Right-Wing Zionist movement, and survives as political detritus. Without political change away from the biblical extremism we currently see, we could barely even contemplate the essential displacement of settler towns on the West Bank, and the colossal challenge of reconstructing Gaza. And without political change, we could barely contemplate the survival of Israel as the State it is, even now.
Of course, we must support Palestinian State recognition. It restores a sliver of dignity to Palestinians so ruthlessly gouged out by Netanyahu and his hospital-ward of unhinged psychopaths. But, for me, I support it with disappointment, for it snuffs out the dim candlelight of a possibility of a properly multi-cultural, multi-faith society in Israel – a ‘Single State solution’. In any event, a separate Palestinian State would only ever be a mercilessly policed vassal of its Israeli martial overlords.
The Israeli Nation State Law, passed and amended in 2022 states unashamedly: “The realization of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish People.” This makes Arabs and Palestinians (and all non-Jews for that matter) second-class citizens, at a stroke. Once the West Bank is annexed to Israel – as it most likely will be – no Palestinian in that territory will enjoy the right to Palestinian statehood. The West will be outraged at annexation – just as it was when East Jerusalem was annexed – but will do little to prevent it. Some Arab States have declared West Bank annexation to be a ‘red-line’ which Israel must not cross. But while Israel enjoys overwhelming air superiority – partially bolstered by UK shipments of aircraft spare parts – they are Israel’s warlords who set red lines – as Qatar recently discovered, to its humiliation.
Having said this, Israel is a fragmented society – not least represented by its ghetto-ised school system which separates Arab from ‘Jew’, religious from secular Jews, and even State religious schools from (Haredi) super-religious schools. The country is also notoriously racist against Mizrahi Jews (essentially, Jewish Arabs), and African Jews (largely from the Tigray region of Ethiopia) - and we even have Itamar Ben Gvir, one of Netanyahu’s most prominent ministers, who was criminally convicted of inciting racism. But that fragmentation, itself, allows for the continued dominance of religious and Right-Wing groups with their insistence on militarism. Israel is in a doom-loop.
Meanwhile, ‘recognition’ of a Palestinian State is an utterance, not an action.
”Parole, parole, parole...” goes the Italian song of the lover, bored with the inaction of her partner. ‘Words, words, words...’