French, British, and Canadian recognition of Palestine won’t do much to end Hamas’ presence in Gaza.
“We need an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and massive humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza,” French leader Emmanuel Macron declared in announcing that France will recognize a Palestinian state next month—an announcement that British prime minister Keir Starmer and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney quickly echoed.
“We must,” Macron went on, “also ensure the demilitarization of Hamas, secure and rebuild Gaza. And finally, we must build the State of Palestine, guarantee its viability, and ensure that by accepting its demilitarization and fully recognizing Israel, it contributes to the security of all in the region.”
Fine sentiments all. But, like similar ones intoned by Western leaders for decades, they skirt the obvious hurdles that make their objective so elusive, thereby turning the announcements into little more than moral grandstanding.
Worse, their words will embolden Hamas, planting the seeds for more war between Israel and Gaza and condemning the people of Gaza—the very people on whose behalf these leaders profess to speak—to more suffering from committed terrorists who care far more about killing Jews than enriching Gazans.
French, British, and Canadian recognition of a new state of Palestine assumes that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which runs the West Bank, will once again run Gaza, which it ran until 2007, when Hamas ousted it in a violent coup. How shall the PA reassume control? Macron and company don’t seem to have any good answers.
“We must,” the French president said, “ensure the demilitarization of Hamas.” Note the passive tense. Who will do the demilitarizing? Will Paris send troops to dislodge Hamas from Gaza? Will London or Ottawa? Will any nation or combination of nations do so? Macron doesn’t say, since it’s easier to avoid that thorny issue than confront it head-on.
Will Hamas “disarm” itself and “play no role in the future of governance in Palestine,” as Carney insists, “must” happen? That’s inconceivable. Lest anyone needed a refresher course about Hamas, Ghazi Hamad, a senior official with the group, told Al Jazeera over the weekend: “Our weapons equal our cause.”
Moreover, with Palestinian recognition on the horizon, Hamas feels vindicated. A Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, put it like this: “Why are all these countries recognizing Palestine now? The overall outcome of October 7 forced the world to open its eyes to the Palestinian cause, and to act forcefully in this respect.” In other words, Hamas believes that it was the slaughter that the group perpetrated nearly two years ago that spurred action in key European capitals.
Hamas also feels emboldened. Yes, Israel has killed many of its fighters and destroyed much of its weaponry and tunnel network. However, the group believes October 7 was a victory on which to build. “Through October 7,” Hamad said, “we proved that defeating Israel is not as difficult as people had thought.”
Rather than confront this cold reality, Macron and company would rather sidestep it. Now that PA president Mahmoud Abbas has finally condemned the slaughter of October 7, called for Hamas to release its remaining hostages, promised that the group will play no role in governing a future Palestine, and pledged to reform the PA and hold presidential and parliamentary elections within a year, the three leaders have decided they have a partner with whom to turn the “two-state solution” into a reality.
Middle East watchers would find lots of reasons to question Abbas’ promises. It took him 20 months to condemn the slaughter. The PA has long been a corrupt autocracy, and Abbas is serving the twenty-first year of a four-year term because he hasn’t allowed a presidential election since his own victory at the polls in 2005.
But even if Abbas proved true to his word, the PA cannot oust Hamas from Gaza, nor can it oust Hamas’s terror partner, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, without the help of outside forces that neither Paris nor any other nation has promised to provide.
Abbas has said he is “ready to invite Arab and international forces to be deployed as part of a stabilisation/protection mission with a Security Council mandate.” But whether any nation would sacrifice its soldiers for a cause outside its borders and oust a barbaric group that vows to mount more October 7-like attacks from Gaza remains very much an open question.
So, next month, France, Britain, and Canada will join the nearly 150 other nations that already have recognized a Palestinian state. And then? The PA will still run the West Bank. An emboldened Hamas will still run Gaza. The people of Gaza will remain under the thumb of a tyrannical force that promises only more war and bloodshed. And the leaders of France, Britain, and Canada will take pride in their delusional platitudes.
For those who see the region clearly and want to confront the very real hurdles to a two-state solution, it’s hard to chalk up their pronouncements as anything but a step backwards.
About the Author: Lawrence J. Haas
Lawrence J. Haas is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and the author of, among other books, Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World.
Image: Anas-Mohammed / Shutterstock.com.
