Palestine Is a State of Mind

By Seth Mandel

Thursday, June 06, 2024

 

One of the great drawbacks of the pro-Palestinian support structure in the West is that it has almost nothing to do with Palestinians. It is, instead, entirely constructed around hating Israel. The attention the Palestinians receive from their Western activists is precisely correlated with the level of blame that can be pinned upon the Jewish state.

 

Even the “resistance by any means” mantra furthers this dynamic. What can be done for the Palestinians and their society? Only the destruction of Israel. Until that happens, the “pro-Palestinians” are conveniently absolved of improving anyone’s life. That’s the beauty of making it all about “the occupation.” Root causes require pulling up the roots.

 

But now we have an example of how this applies not just to anti-Zionist activists but to national governments. It is a museum-worthy display of the West’s Israel-obsessed worldview.

 

You may remember in late May, when the governments of Spain, Ireland, and Norway jointly announced that they were recognizing “Palestine.” The Europeans have been under increasing pressure to DO SOMETHING about Israel’s continued pursuit of Hamas leaders and the Israeli hostages they hold. By that they mean: find a way to hurt the Israelis.

 

But the tangible ways to do so would be insane. Should they switch from the American side to the Iranian side in this conflict? Government leaders wanted to show their citizens that they were being heard, but you can’t just go around breaking apart the Western alliance over anti-Zionist hysteria. (I mean, you can, but it’s a line even Europeans prefer not to cross.) So they “recognized a Palestinian state.”

 

The only real effect a move like this might have was to shatter any remaining hope for many of the hostages by encouraging Hamas to see Israel as increasingly isolated and likely to be blamed for the failure of any deal. And that’s exactly what happened.

 

None of this is good for the Palestinians themselves, of course. It prolongs the war and increases the likelihood of Gazans having to live under the totalitarian monsters that caused all this destruction.

 

But recognizing a sovereign nation comes with a few side dishes, one of which is some official demonstration of diplomatic relations. Spain asked, “Who wants to be our diplomatic presence in Ramallah?” And the answer came back: literally no one. According to Spanish news outlets, picked up by JNS:

 

The Spanish government’s plan to open an embassy in Ramallah has hit a snag as Spanish diplomats based in Israel are refusing to move to the city, according to Spanish media.

 

The diplomats, currently located in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, cited safety and quality of life concerns, according to Spanish news site OKDiario.

 

Right, see, the thing is… Palestine is not a state. It doesn’t have state-level institutions and it isn’t up to even behaving, on the surface, like a state. Because it isn’t one.

 

Many Palestinians aspire to establish a state called Palestine. (Though not Hamas.) But as of now, those are only aspirations. Maybe you can fool the Spanish and Irish and Norwegian publics, but you can’t fool the guy you send to Ramallah as the ambassador to Palestine.

 

After Spain recognized Palestine, the Israeli Foreign Ministry called its bluff, forbidding Spain’s Jerusalem consulate from acting as an embassy to Palestine. Spain has consular services in Tel Aviv that Palestinians will have access to, but why should they have to go to another country for it? After all, they’re a state now, right? “It is absurd to recognize Palestine and not open an embassy that certifies it,” complained figures in the Spanish Foreign Ministry.

 

Well, this whole thing is absurd. And the Foreign Ministry no doubt has plenty of people who take foreign affairs seriously and their government has made them look like fools. Because this isn’t high-school Model UN. They have recognized a country with no diplomatic presence and no borders. One might be tempted to conclude that these European countries are humiliating themselves on the world stage. Perhaps the Palestinians can now argue that at the very least, they are as much a real state as Spain. Unfortunately, that’s not going to change much.