Mouin Rabbani is a non-resident fellow at DAWN. He is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies.
Multiple Western states have advanced a renewed push to recognize the state of Palestine, including France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, reigniting a unique but fraught path for Palestinian self-determination. But what does recognition truly achieve? Is it a genuine push in support of Palestine, or merely another symbolic but false promise?
Non-Resident DAWN Fellow Mouin Rabani shares his thoughts on the subject of Western recognition of Palestine in the first of Democracy in Exile's "Key Questions" series, highlighting major points of focus moving forward amid rapidly advancing ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Why are major Western states recognizing Palestine, and why did they do this at the U.N. General Assembly?
Palestine declared statehood on Nov. 15, 1988. Most of the international community recognized the state of Palestine soon thereafter. Until 2024, when Norway, Ireland and Spain—later joined by Slovenia—recognized Palestinian statehood, only one Western state, Sweden, had taken this step. That was in 2014, almost a quarter century after most of the international community had done so.
The obvious question is, why now? There are two or three primary reasons.
Israel's conduct and statements transformed the official positions of Western governments into an untenable charade. These positions had always been little more than smoke and mirrors, but Israel served to make them visibly untenable.
- Mouin Rabbani
First, Israel's conduct and statements transformed the official positions of Western governments into an untenable charade. These positions had always been little more than smoke and mirrors, but Israel served to make them visibly untenable. For several decades, most Western states adopted a policy of formally supporting a two-state settlement to the question of Palestine while doing nothing to materially promote this policy while enabling Israel to consign it to irrelevance.
Confronted with a situation where Israel has reduced the Gaza Strip to rubble; openly proclaims its intention to expel the entire population of that territory; publicly debates not whether, but how, to annex the West Bank; and is currently led by the country's longest-serving leader—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahyu—who repeatedly proclaims that Israel will never consent to the establishment of a Palestinian state with the full support of his governing coalition and political opposition, Western states needed to respond with more than a repetition of official policy.
Their options were limited to symbolic moves like recognition of Palestinian statehood, concrete policy measures, such as economic sanctions and an arms embargo, or a combination of the two. Ultimately, they chose symbolism over substance, with the clear intention of preserving business as usual while pretending otherwise.
The second factor is the enormous shift in Western public opinion resulting from the Gaza genocide and the popular mobilization in many countries demanding that governments introduce concrete policy changes that begin dealing with Israel pursuant to the same criteria that would be applied to any other state under similar circumstances. A key motivation behind recognition was to mollify public opinion—if not to de-mobilize popular opposition—to divert its energy away from demands for real change.
In this context, it is important to recognize that this moment represents the first time since the emergence of the Zionist movement during the late 19th century that Western governments have adopted a policy in support of Palestinian rights in response to popular demand from their own citizens. In previous cases, they did so to improve relations with Arab governments or out of exasperation with Israel, but never because they felt a need to mollify public opinion. It signals that the pressure is producing results and needs to be not only maintained but increased.
The third factor is that these governments are seeking to demonstrate a degree of independence from Washington in response to the Trump administration's policies of contempt and disdain for traditional allies. However, this explanation is the weakest of the three.
Several states did make their announcements at the UNGA in the face of overt and covert American threats. Others did so shortly before. The goal was maximum visibility, especially in the context of last year's International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion determining the continued Israeli control of the territories occupied in 1967 is unlawful. That decision imposed a series of obligations on U.N. members to cease all support for that illegal occupation. However, those moves ultimately reflect a response to internal factors in Western states and Israel's actions more than merely decoupling from Washington.
If no additional measures are taken to put meat on this skeleton and align recognition with implementation of their obligations as specified in the ICJ advisory opinion, these states will be parties to annexation—not statehood.
- Mouin Rabbani
What does recognition of Palestine on the part of major Western states realistically mean for Palestinians today?
In and of itself, nothing. However, some argue that because Israel is now deemed to impose an illegal occupation of the entire territory of a formally recognized state while openly proclaiming its intent to annex that territory, the situation is now akin to the 1990 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
The fact that two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, G7 members, and several additional members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) now recognize Palestine is not insignificant. Still, results depend on what happens next. If no additional measures are taken to put meat on this skeleton and align recognition with implementation of their obligations as specified in the ICJ advisory opinion, these states will be parties to annexation—not statehood.
What additional steps need to be taken to make recognition meaningful?
Conventional wisdom holds that only the United States can influence Israel to change its policies. Yet, while American influence in the context of its unconditional support for Israel at all levels is incomparably greater than that of any other state or the rest of them combined, world leaders are not powerless.
For example, Israel's largest trading partner is not the United States, but the European Union. The European market constitutes the most important factor ensuring Israel's settlement enterprise has been and remains viable. However, if Europe concludes decades of debate regarding its dealings with products produced in illegal Israeli settlements—banning them wholesale from access to EU markets—the impact would be immediate and significant.
The EU and other Western states could also begin applying their obligations under UNSC Resolution 2334 to distinguish their dealings between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Most Israeli corporations and institutions are active beyond the Green Line—the 1949 armistice line separating Israel and the OPT—meaning the move would affect the entire Israeli economy. It would make abrogation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement almost superfluous.
Then, there is the arms trade. Even U.S. weapons provided to Israel, like the F-35, cannot fly without parts produced in the EU, Britain, Canada and other Western states. Conversely, Europe can stop sustaining the Israeli arms industry with purchases and contracts.
Additionally, expelling Israel from global sports federations—like Russia in 2022 after its illegal invasion of Ukraine—would shatter Israel's self-image as an integral part of the West and, particularly, Europe.
Most important, however, is to stop applying a double standard to Israel and to begin dealing with it according to the same criteria applied to every other sovereign state. EU member states hold each other, and even themselves, more accountable than they do Israel. Herein lies the root of the problem: ending Israel's blanket, total impunity and replacing it with accountability and consequences, not least because Gaza now constitutes a genocide.
Does recognition have an impact on the genocide in Gaza? How so?
Recognition alone will have no impact on the genocide, unless it is embedded in a campaign to compel Israel to live by the same rules as the rest of the world. Unprecedented increases in arms supplies to a state that for two years has been conducting a live-streamed genocide, supplemented with Western intelligence to assist the genocidal regime's targeting and intelligence collection, is not only morally obscene—it is a depraved policy.
If Western states recognizing Palestine want to confront the famine and genocide in Gaza, they can successfully do so independent of Washington. However, in their view, they are not prepared to jeopardize U.S. relations merely because Israel is slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinian children. They have bigger fish to fry, like trade and Ukraine.
What should these states be considering or focusing on in terms of the Israeli-U.S. response to recognition? Is the so-called "ceasefire" plan that Trump recently presented a distraction meant to blunt the recognition drive?
The Trump proposal, if it results in an agreement or a partial agreement, is designed to ensnare the Palestinians into an endless process that will never culminate in anything remotely approaching the realization of their inalienable rights—first and foremost the right to self-determination. The Trump-Netanyahu proposal currently being discussed, in its present form, is enough to make one nostalgic for the Oslo Accords.
We are now at a fork in the road. One leads to a recalibration of Israeli domination and control over the Palestinian people, much as Oslo did in response to the 1987-1993 uprising. The other seeks to transcend these dynamics and replace them with an entirely different agenda, based on rights, accountability and ensuring the double standard Israel has enjoyed for decades—and the resulting impunity in its dealings with the Palestinian people—comes to an end.
The movement in the early 1990s was much smaller than it is today. It largely demobilized in response to Oslo, given the promises of peace. It is incomparably larger in 2025, and if it maintains and amplifies the pressure, it can achieve real results and ensure recognition is not reduced to meaningless political theatre and grandstanding by a few Western leaders.
