Which Palestinian State Have Ireland, Spain, and Norway Recognized?

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

 

In coordination, the governments of Ireland, Spain, and Norway announced on Wednesday that they would unilaterally recognize the legitimacy of the state of Palestine beginning next week. In concert with their announcements, these European countries called on Israel to abandon its goal of neutralizing Hamas in the Gaza Strip and submit to the prospect of future terrorist massacres.

 

The announcement is a victory for transnational terrorism and an incentive for non-state actors to engage in future acts of barbarism. “The Palestinians have gotten more international recognition since Oct. 7th than the entire 10 [years] before,” George Mason University professor Eugene Kontorovich observed. “Killing Jews has high returns.” But beyond this gesture’s moral vacuity, it is legally and practically incomprehensible.

 

Precisely which Palestinian state have these European governments recognized? Is it the one in the West Bank, which is governed by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and maintains an economy and foreign policy more closely tethered to the Arab world’s Sunni states? Or is it the Hamas-led government in Gaza, which had no functioning economy even prior to the 10/7 attacks and is more closely aligned with Iran and its proxies? What legal fiction have these European governments concocted that allows them to paper over the irresolvable divisions — divisions fueled by mutual bloodshed — between the sovereign entities presiding over these two noncontiguous territories? Did they even bother to envision one?

 

It’s no coincidence that this maneuver comes at a time when the Israeli people are less amenable to a two-state resolution to the conflict with the Palestinian territories (plural) than at any point in recent memory. On the eve of the 10/7 massacre, Israelis were roughly split on whether they favored or opposed a Palestinian state. That outlook reflected Israeli politics, which had become divided over the utility of its repeated offers of sovereignty to the Palestinian Authority — each of which was rejected by their Palestinian counterparts.

 

Understandably, Israelis have soured on the prospect of extending sovereignty to the Palestinian territories in the wake of their murder, rape, immolation, and captivity at the hands of a terrorist death cult. The governments of Ireland, Spain, and Norway chose this moment to impose an undesirable political outcome on Israel because it is the point at which it will prove maximally irritating for the Israelis. This announcement, therefore, doesn’t make peace more likely but less. Permanent-status issues have long been defined as subject to bilateral agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority. “These same agreements are the legal basis for the existence of the Palestinian Authority,” the American Jewish Committee notes. “Seemingly, undermining the contours of those agreements will dissolve the PA.”

 

Undermining the peace process doesn’t advance Palestinian interests, but it might irritate the Israelis. And that seems to be the only value proposition for Europe here — the catharsis afforded by the chance to jam their collective thumb in Israeli eyes.

 

But the Israelis shouldn’t be overly upset by this maneuver. If, all of a sudden, a Palestinian state was born into existence, it may afford Jerusalem even more latitude in its war of self-defense. The Europeans have made no distinctions between the disparate sovereignties governing the Palestinian territories, so why should the Israelis? If the 10/7 attack was instigated by a hostile sovereign power, Israel is within its rights as defined in the law of armed conflict to neutralize both the armed forces (uniformed and irregular alike) loyal to that hostile government and the infrastructure on which that regime relies.

 

We need only substitute “Israel” with “Ukraine” for that to become obvious. These European powers are not hostile toward Ukraine’s efforts to beat back Russian aggression. Indeed, Norway’s government chafes at the restrictions imposed on Ukraine’s defenders by the Western governments who fear the prospect of direct conflict with Russia. If Israel was attacked not by a stateless amalgam of terrorists but the armed forces loyal to a sovereign state, Jerusalem is obliged by Article 51 of the United Nations charter to deploy retaliatory force against the organs of that regime as well as preemptive force against it if it believes future attacks are imminent and preventable. The laws of war governing interstate conflict are far more clear-cut than the murky conventions that dictate best practices in a conflict with non-state actors taking place in legally nebulous geographies. Did these European governments think any of this through?

 

Probably not. This maneuver is the geopolitical equivalent of a temper tantrum. Its sole purpose is to communicate the displeasure these European governments have experienced watching the Israeli people defend themselves against the genocidaires on their borders. It is likely to appeal only to those who are so similarly overcome with emotion that they’ve subordinated their rational faculties to their pique. That’s a big audience, but it has no constituency in the internationally recognized, legally sovereign state of Israel. And that’s all that really matters.