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What Young Israelis Think about Recognition of a Palestinian State

(Sunday Times-UK) Jim Armitage - I traveled to Tel Aviv, a 50-mile drive from Gaza, to gauge Israeli opinions on the decision last week by the UK and other Western countries to recognize Palestine. Saul and Yair, both 21, are appalled that Western leaders could even talk of a two-state solution while Hamas still has hostages hidden underground in Gaza. Yair says: "I just don't think people in Europe understand the situation we're in. Did they see what happened on October 7?" "Everyone here knows someone who was killed or taken that day," says Saul. "And, you know, Israel only has to lose one war and we will all be killed. All of us Jews will be dead." Josh Hantman, a partner at a polling and strategic communications agency, said, "Everyone has seen the images of October 7. Everyone is following the hostage crisis and feels it personally. And everyone has been running to bomb shelters with their kids on an almost daily basis." What has upset people, says Lianne Pollak, 42, is that Western leaders have proffered recognition of a Palestinian state now, without extracting anything from Hamas in return. "It ignores that right now there are 48 hostages being held by Hamas. It ignores that Hamas has not agreed to release them, end the war and disarm." Idit, 24, an army reservist, said her best friend was killed in Gaza in March, aged 23. "This is why it makes me so sad to hear about the European leaders recognizing Palestine....They have given a prize to Hamas....We have to destroy Hamas because we have nowhere else to go."
2025-09-28 00:00:00
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