A State of Fantasy

By Abe Greenwald

Thursday, September 25, 2025

 

When you recognize a nonexistent state, don’t be surprised if you get a nonexistent response. Only children and the mentally ill are stirred by make-believe. This week, in proclaiming the existence of a Palestinian state, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, and Saudi Arabia have either entered the playground or the asylum. In either case, their imaginary land has little effect on adult reality, and the Trump administration recognizes as much.

 

Politico notes that Trump officials “have chosen to treat recognition as an activist show, rather than a menace that must be thwarted by expending diplomatic and political capital.” That seems right, as American leaders also don’t respond when a new nation is declared in a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

 

If I were a Gazan who yearned for genuine statehood, however, I’d be far more alarmed by the recognition stunt. When heads of state join hands and leap into fantasyland, it’s an admission of their real-world failure. They’ve given no indication of how Hamas is to be dethroned short of military action, and they have no bright ideas about how the hostages are to be released. You only need a plan if you have an actual goal. For these governments, the goal was recognition itself. 

 

The fictitious Palestine is meant to supplant the prospect of a real one. It’s true, to a degree, that the announcement “rewards” Hamas. But “placates” or “humors” are more apt verbs here. I somehow don’t think that the architects of October 7 envisioned a pretend Palestinian state to arise in the minds of a few impotent leaders while the real Gaza is all but re-occupied by Israel.

 

Recognition doesn’t put pressure on anyone to do anything. And that’s the point. It’s meant to relieve pressure on leaders whose anti-Israel constituents are demanding action. Britain and France are steadily Islamizing. That’s a real-world problem for Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron. Instead of addressing it, they’re establishing themselves as the great statesmen of virtual reality. In the end, this won’t save them or their countries. It’s not clear, at this point, that anything will. Donald Trump was not wrong when he said at the UN on Tuesday that many U.S.-allied nations are being overrun by unassimilated immigrants and “going to hell.” One can’t blame Starmer and Macron for trying to make the trip a little more comfortable.      

 

None of it matters to the future of Gaza because the only force shaping the facts on the ground there is Israel. For almost three years, the Jewish state has been picking off its enemies from top to bottom, crippling terrorist networks, and fighting successfully for its existence. Over the same period of time, the rest of the world has been cosplaying at “free Palestine.”

 

We are arriving, then, at a fitting end for everyone involved. While Israel is very near total victory in the real world, the cosplayers have founded a purely notional Palestine. The first fact is already changing the course of history. The second isn’t even affecting the present.