THE LURE OF PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD

In the past few weeks, several Western countries have announced that they intend to recognize a Palestinian state. France led the way. On July 26, President Emmanuel Macron, in a letter posted on X, announced that France would recognize a Palestinian state when the UN General Assembly meets in September. Three days later, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that his country too would extend recognition in September at the UN, unless Israel agreed to a cease fire, withdrew from Gaza, and halted West Bank settlements.  The next day, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a similar statement. Australia quickly followed suit. At the same time, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that his country would make a formal decision in September. There is no doubt what that decision will be.

Each of these governments believes that recognizing a Palestinian state will advance the cause of peace in the Middle East. Each is wrong.

Recognition of a Palestinian state is not some novel cause. Before the recent cascade of Western nations to adopt that policy, recognition had already garnered global support. More than three quarters (147 out of 193) of UN members endorsed Palestinian statehood. But that was to be expected. The UN has long history of anti-Israel sentiment. The late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban once observed that if an Arab state introduced a resolution in the General Assembly declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, the resolution would pass by a vote of 164 to 13, with 26 abstentions.

What is novel is the fact that the countries now supporting Palestinian statehood are among the 13 that Eban had in mind when he made his acidic observation.

The immediate impact of the announcements was the exact opposite of what the announcers had intended. Rather than paving the way to peace, the recognition announcements scuttled ongoing negotiations with Hamas over a ceasefire and hostage release. Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that talks fell apart on the same day France’s Macron make his announcement.  By declaring that they would bestow recognition in September, the Western nations guaranteed that Hamas would make no concessions before then. Instead, they would hold firm and wait, so that they could take credit later.

But as bad as the immediate fallout from the announcements has been, the long term consequences are likely to be worse. Those clamoring for a Palestinian state apparently have no idea how that state will affect the Middle East because they have no idea what the Palestinians want.

Granted, assessing Palestinian opinion is a challenging task. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are currently administered by corrupt authoritarian rulers: the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.  There is a war going on in Gaza and sporadic violence in the West Bank.  Under these circumstances, Palestinians may be reluctant to express their true opinions.

But we can still get an idea about Palestinian sentiment due to the work of The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a think tank based in Ramallah. The Center has been conducting public opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza since the mid-1990s. It is funded by the European Union and the Ford Foundation. It may not be a perfect source of data on current Palestinian sentiment, but one is unlikely to find a better one.

Its last major survey was conducted in May. Its sample size was 1270 people, of whom 830 were interviewed face-to-face in the West Bank (in 83 residential locations) and 440 in the Gaza Strip (in 44 locations).

The survey offers a grim picture of a future Palestinian state. Among its findings:

• When asked if Hamas had committed the atrocities seen in the videos shown by international media, such as killing women and children in their homes, an overwhelming majority (87%) said Hamas did not commit such atrocities. Only 9% said it did.
• When asked if they support or oppose the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza in order to stop the war, an overwhelming majority (77%) oppose. Only 18% support disarming Hamas to stop the war.
• When asked if they support or oppose the eviction of Hamas military leaders from Gaza as a precondition for stopping the war, 65% said they oppose it. Only 31% support eviction.
• When asked if they support the recent demonstrations in Gaza demanding that Hamas abandon control of the Strip, 67% said they oppose those demonstrations. Only 28% support them.
• When asked whom they would support for the presidency of a Palestinian state if the choice came down to a competition between Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Khalid Mishal of Hamas, 68% favored the Hamas candidate. Only 25% favored Abbas.

One might assume that these pro-Hamas sentiments reflected in the survey result from the widespread destruction wreaked on Gaza. But the survey shows that pro-Hamas sentiment is actually stronger in the West Bank than in Gaza. For example, more West Bank respondents (85%) oppose disarming Hamas than Gazan respondents do (64%). More West Bank respondents (59%) believe that Hamas made the correct decision in launching its October 7 attack than Gazan respondents do (38%). And while 48% of Gazan respondents support the anti-Hamas demonstrations, only 14% of West Bank respondents do.

The Western nations now favoring recognition have stressed their opposition to any role for Hamas in a future Palestinian government. But the same nations supposedly favor self-determination. If the Palestinian people themselves are going to have a say in the new state, they will likely insist that Hamas have a role. And if the West Bank Palestinians get to decide, that role is likely to be a controlling one.

That explains why Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah Party — who assumed office as President of the PA in 2005, and is now in the 20^th year of his 4-year term – has refused to allow elections. He realizes that if elections were held, Fatah would lose and Hamas would win.

The Western advocates of statehood have never explained how they can square their belief in self-determination for the Palestinians with their opposition to a role for Hamas, a role which a majority of Palestinians appear to favor. Until they can do so, they should not expect Israel – which suffered so grievously from Hamas’s depredations in October 2023 – to accept their position. Why would any nation accept the creation of a neighboring state if that state were likely to be led by a movement committed to its destruction?

Meanwhile, France, the UK, Canada, Australia, and any other advocates of statehood, might make better use of their energy by focusing on more deserving stateless peoples. For example, the Kurds and Tibetans.

Unlike Hamas, the Kurds do not publicly call for the extermination of the Turks, Syrians, Iraqis, and Iranians who govern their ancestral lands. The Tibetans do not call for the extermination of the Chinese. Perhaps if they did, they would win the attention and sympathy of these new, morally dubious converts to the cause of Palestinian statehood.