I argue in this Commentary:

🟥 Alarmingly, the new wave of the nominal statehood recognition does not recognize the Palestinians themselves: the people and their individual and collective rights.
🟨 The new wave of recognitions of the State of Palestine is largely driven by a desire to address political guilt and impotence over the silence – and in some cases complicity – in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but so far does not carry with it a true commitment or plan to make that state a reality.
🟩 Declaring a state – without steps to address its land and its people – is a continuation of the “statehood opium” approach which keeps an obsolete framework alive and allows involved actors to boast about their commitment to “peace and justice” while the celebrated nominal state is pounded by Israel into a mere mirage and hallucination, or until major segments of the Palestinian people are erased.
🟦 Declarations could signal a fresh start. But these declarations will ring true when we see serious sanctions on Israel, when the rulings of the international courts and the conclusions of the UN reports are taken seriously, when Israel pays for its actions, and when Palestinian choices are respected, when a meaningful Palestinian democracy is not denied, and when Palestinians are able to claim political agency and draw the contours of their future.
🟧 The ways and avenues to first hold Israel and its allies accountable are clear and straightforward. And by not doing that, those governments, driving their actions by political guilt, are doubling down directly or indirectly either on their complicity or failures. On both occasions, they are causing harm, not only to the Palestinians and their quest for freedom, but to the very meaning of peace. Before they recognize Palestine, they need to recognize the Palestinians.

Click Here to Read the Commentary, 24 September 2025

Click Here to Read the Commentary in French via Agence Media Palestine