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Now Is Not the Time to Recognize a Palestinian State

(Telegraph-UK) M.E. McMillan - At the UN General Assembly in September, governments around the world intend to recognize a Palestinian state. The idea of a two-state solution is not new. In November 1947, the General Assembly voted to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The Jews agreed. The Arabs did not. What is new about the current push for recognition of a Palestinian state is the backdrop against which it is due to happen. Governments, including Britain's, have decided to recognize a Palestinian state, seemingly without tying that commitment to any reciprocal commitment on the part of Hamas to release the hostages it took at gunpoint on Oct. 7, 2023, and have held in inhumane conditions ever since. Right now, with Gaza in ruins, the decision by Hamas to launch an unprovoked invasion of Israel does not look like it has delivered anything but disaster for the Palestinian people. But recognition of a Palestinian state at this time offers Hamas the opportunity to justify the horrors of Oct. 7 because it will say its actions delivered. It will say that Hamas alone delivered international recognition of a Palestinian state. Moreover, if Hamas can achieve an outcome no other Palestinian group or leader could, and can do it while committing to nothing, why would it release the hostages? The writer is the author of From the First World War to the Arab Spring: What's Really Going On in the Middle East?
2025-08-31 00:00:00
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