Palestinian statehood condemned by Israeli officials brings a ‘glimmer of hope’ for some Palestinians
While the Palestinians and a large part of the Arab and Muslim worlds welcomed the decision of several European countries to recognize the Palestinian state, Israeli politicians through the political spectrum reacted with anger and spoke of reprisals.
“You will give a huge price to terrorism,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recorded address published on Sunday evening, while countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia began to express their commitments to the Palestinian State. “It will not happen. There will be no Palestinian state west of Jordan. ”
France officially recognized the Palestinian state at a United Nations meeting on Monday.
State thanks were “a diplomatic disaster”, the head of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, a longtime opponent from Netanyahu, published on Sunday on X. He added that it was “a harmful stage” and a “reward for terror”.
Although rapidly evolving diplomatic events are mainly symbolic, resentment through the political class of Israel shows how two years the Jewish state is in its war with Hamas which has turned a large part of the Middle East.
The Trump administration has also warned of possible repercussions for countries that take measures against Israel, including France. But European leaders defended their decisions, calling them a strike against Hamas rather than a commitment to support that Israeli leaders called a potential “terrorist state”.
“Recognition of Palestine is a categorical disavowal of Hamas, and he isolated it definitively,” said French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noel Barrot, on the French channel TF1. “This confirms those among the Palestinians who have chosen to give up violence and terrorism.”
Netanyahu said his government’s response would not have come before his return from the United States. Friday, his trip will include an address at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and a meeting with President Donald Trump.
The choices of Netanyahu, reported by the Israeli local media, range from a saving ascent to more drastic movements that could threaten the hard partnerships of Israel with its Arab and Muslim neighbors.
The Prime Minister faces a substantial pressure from his right -wing ideological flank, in particular the hard online ministers of his government, to retaliate by annexing the entire occupied West Bank.
But the United Arab Emirates, one of a handful of Arab nations that have diplomatic relations with Israel, have already warned Israel earlier this month that the annexation would be a “red line”.
The United Arab Emirates did not specify the action that could take, but the officials told Reuters that they planned to demode the diplomatic links of the United Arab Emirates with Israel, potentially damaging Abraham’s agreements in the United States, one of the most important diplomatic victories of Israel in recent memory.
British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper told the BBC that she had warned the Israelis against the annexation of all or part of the West Bank.
Unless you take control of the West Bank in its entirety, senior Israeli officials have also discussed the possibility of providing more territory of the West Bank now governed by the Palestinians under full Israeli control, according to the country’s media.
Israel can also decide to close the French consulate in Jerusalem, which tends to face the problems related to Palestinians, according to reports. Israeli leaders concentrate their indignation on France, because it was the first in a series of Western countries to announce that it would recognize a Palestinian state last summer.
For the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, the decisions were greeted by joy and relief – a sign that the West is finally ready to treat Palestinians as equal.
“It is a beginning, or a glimmer of hope for the Palestinian people,” said Fawzi Nour Al-Deen, a person inappropriate from northern Gaza. “We are a people who deserves to have a state.”
But for others, the high and abstract diplomacy which takes place in New York has felt a world far from the suffering in the enclave struck in famine where more than 65,000 people died in almost two years of war with Israel, which began with the terrorist attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 hosts.
“Where’s the state?” In the street? Or in tents? What state is it [they] Recognize? “Said Mohammed al-Yazigi, a person moved to the center of Gaza. Leave him to God.
