France, UK back off of Palestinian statehood recognition

Recognizing a Palestinian state will actually increase terror: producing exactly the opposite of the UK and France’s stated goals, while also endangering Israelis and the Western world in general.

Last month the United Kingdom and France announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state at a Saudi/France sponsored conference scheduled to take place in New York from June 17-20. After several weeks of diligent work on our part and on the part of relevant Israeli officials, both the UK and now France have changed their positions, and will not be recognizing a Palestinian state this June.

Photo: A Palestinian demonstrator in Gaza via AP.

Using OSINT, Dark Web and Deep Web research, we compiled a detailed report proving that Palestinians see statehood recognition as a reward for the October 7 massacre and as direct encouragement (from Europe) to repeat such massacres again and again. Though experts have long suspected this to be true, we are unique in providing detailed proof directly from Arab sources, in their own words.

Why was this effective? European countries generally believe that statehood is the key to peace, based largely on the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, which ended decades of conflict. However, when Spain, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia recognized a Palestinian state in May, 2024, reactions throughout the Arab world were both shocking and disturbing.

The conclusion of our work was to prove that recognizing a Palestinian state will actually produce exactly the opposite of the UK and France’s stated goals, while also endangering Israelis and the Western world in general.

How we did it. In addition to our published article, we also produced a more detailed, official report for relevant government officials. (If you are a government official, a journalist, or otherwise feel that our report would be useful, feel free to contact us.) Shortly after receiving our findings and proof last month, the UK stepped back its position, clarifying that it supports Palestinian statehood recognition only as part of a negotiated agreement with Israel.

Nonetheless, we still had a long road ahead of us: with France remaining determined to recognize a Palestinian state, and lobbying other countries to do the same. Meanwhile, French officials continued to fiercely criticize Israel’s self defense, both minimizing the role of the Hamas terror organization and leveling unfounded accusations against Israel.

Just this week, France changed its position, stating that Palestinian statehood will not be part of the upcoming conference. One senior French diplomat explained that the summit “is meant to help Israel,” and added that its vision includes a demand for the release of hostages and an explicit call for Hamas to be disarmed.

Why it matters. A common refrain we hear in Israeli and Jewish conversations is “you can’t recognize something that doesn’t exist,” (a reference to the fact that Palestinian society does not fit many of the standard requirements for statehood). However, as we saw in May, 2024, governments can choose to officially recognize anything at all, whether or not doing so makes technical or logical sense.

Furthermore, the statehood recognitions last year triggered increased Palestinian and Arab world support for Hamas, for terror organizations in general, and for the idea of carrying out future massacres: all of which creates immediate danger for Israelis and global Jewish communities, as well as long term dangers for all of Western civilization.

Israeli government officials frequently thank us for our work, noting that we provide specific insights, technical details and also legal analysis that they are not provided by their offices. U.S. and European officials take strong interest in our work, often demonstrating greater openness and curiosity than one might expect, particularly with respect to our specific proofs and the well researched basis behind our findings.

The result? From time to time, such as this week, our work forms a critical part of a wider effort that produces real world results for Israel and the Jewish people.