UK/France to recognize Palestinian state: understood as reward for October 7 massacre

European countries are sending a dangerous message: support for the October 7 massacre, and encouragement to carry out even more bloodshed. And for the first time we have proof.

(*Note: This article is excerpted from a more detailed official report by RealityCheckResearch.org. If you are a government official, journalist, or otherwise feel the full report would be useful to you, please feel free to contact us.)

Foreign secretary of the United Kingdom David Lammy confirmed last week that the UK is in talks with France to recognize a Palestinian state. Palestinian thought leaders, publications and speakers throughout the Arab world see this as a reward for the horrific massacre of October 7, 2023, and an inducement to increase rather than decrease the level of violence and terrorism.  While Israel has long contended that this is the case, for the first time, we are able to provide proof: from Palestinian thought leaders in their own words.

Photos: British Foreign Secretary David Lammy from “10 Downing Street” via Wikimedia Commons and French President Emmanuel Macron from “Number 10” via Wikimedia commons.

Many European nations believe that recognizing Palestinian statehood will bring an end to war and terrorism, and will result in widespread peace. This flawed notion is based in part on European memory of negotiating the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, which ended decades of conflict. Indeed, even Israel and the United States adopted similar historical views during the Oslo peace process of the 1990s. Yet this analogy is flawed, as can be seen from events of the past year.

In May of 2024, Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognized a Palestinian state, followed shortly thereafter by Slovenia. Palestinian society, and the Arab world at large, declared this recognition to be a successful result of the October 7 massacre against Israel, and an indication that such massacres are the appropriate direction for Palestinian society. 

For example:

Then Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh boasted that, “Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa [the October 7 massacre] raised the Palestinian cause to an unprecedented level” and that it “opened the door to recognition of the Palestinian state.” 

Palestinian public opinion generally follows the Hamas view: As of March, 2024, 71% of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank support the October 7, 2023 massacre, while 75% believe it revived international attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and could lead to increased recognition of Palestinian statehood. They weren’t wrong: just two months later, Spain, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia officially recognized a Palestinian state.

Palestinian views of October 7 massacre:

Graphic: Palestinian views on the October 7 massacre. Polling by the EU and Ford foundation funded Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, March 2024.

Palestinian public opinion is also reflected by thought leaders throughout Palestinian society and the Arab world at large.

Dr. Mahmoud Samir Al-Rantisi, writing in Al Sharq, a major Arabic newspaper out of Qatar, echoes a commonly held belief that unilateral recognition through massacre is preferable to peace talks because it will result in “liberating” all “Palestinian lands” from Israel, rather than having to settle for a mere “two state solution.” By way of support for this prediction, Al-Rantisi cites the May 2024 recognition of Palestinian statehood by several European countries, and he (accurately) notes that, “[the] Spanish Deputy Prime Minister clearly announced that the Palestinians will regain their land from the river to the sea [a reference to the entirety of Israel] and will liberate their country and return to it.”

Alghad TV, a London based Arab language television network broadcasting to the Middle East and North Africa, credits the October 7th massacre as bringing about Palestinian statehood via “blood and martyrs.”

Popular news site Arab21 credits the October 7 massacre (which it calls “the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa”) for “[bringing] the Palestinian cause back to the international stage after years of international silence” including “recognition of the State of Palestine…an event that has been absent from current generations.”  

Al Jazeera describes the recognition of Palestinian statehood as a sign of the “disintegration of the European position supporting Israel,” stating that “the acceptance of the Palestinian state is not only due to what happened during the Al-Aqsa Intifada [the October 7th massacre]...rather, there is a desire among the world's countries to punish the entity [Israel].”

Popular news site “Palestinian Information Center” credits European recognition of a Palestinian state to the October 7 massacre, which it refers to as “the blessed Flood of Al Aqsa,” noting “the Flood of Al Aqsa alone turned the scales and restored the Palestinian cause to the top of the agenda of the unjust world.”  

PIC included similar quotes by numerous Palestinian thought leaders, among them Majid Al-Zir, CEO of the Brussels-based “Palestinian Council for Political Relations” and president of the General Assembly of the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad, as well as writers and political analysts Yasser Al-Zaatara, Ibrahim Al-Madhoun and Hazem Ayad.

Zaatar emphasized that credit goes to the Hamas terror organization and not to the “catastrophic” official leadership of the Palestinian Authority which has “abandoned future generations,” while Ayad described the international recognition as a “step towards comprehensive war of liberation.”

These views are nothing new.

The 1990s saw widespread Israeli and Palestinian support for the Oslo peace process but there was a critical difference between the two sides: whereas Israelis envisioned the peace process as bringing an end to the conflict, both Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat as well as over 72% of Palestinians did not.

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Yitchzak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the Oslo accords alongside U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1993. Photo via Timeless Moon.

To this day, according to Arab research sources,  74.7% of Palestinians desire a Palestinian-only state that entirely supplants Israel, while 72% support the October 7 massacre. For its part, the Palestinian Authority government (the presumptive leader of a future Palestinian state) has publicly committed to spending at least 2.8 million dollars per month out of its national budget as a cash reward to the individuals (including the terror operatives) who carried out the October 7 massacre. 

Photo: A Palestinian demonstrator in Gaza via Associated Press.

In short, the prevailing opinion within the Arab world, including within Palestinian society, is that recognition of a Palestinian state is a reward for the October 7 massacre. European countries are therefore sending a dangerous message: one that Palestinian society understands to be not only support for the October 7 massacre, but also encouragement to carry out even more bloodshed in the future.