Ireland has taken the side of Hamas terrorism
Well, at least it’s clear how one gets the Irish, Spanish and Norwegian governments on side: murder and rape as many Jews as you can find.
Whatever your views on Israel, whatever you think of the conflict, be in no doubt about the only substantive message of yesterday’s decision by those three governments to recognise Palestine as a state.
Hamas has already welcomed it. Of course it has, because the terrorist organisation (which is committed to the elimination of Jews) now has direct causal evidence to show to Palestinians that terrorism works. Hamas murdered Jews – I’m sorry, I forgot we are supposed to say “Zionists” – and a few months later, bingo: the Irish, the Spanish and the Norwegians all fall into line.
This is the key – indeed the only - point about yesterday’s coordinated announcements: it has strengthened the terrorists by showing that Western governments will act as a result of terrorism. And that’s all there is to note about it.
Don’t think this will have any beneficial impact for the Palestinians themselves, or even that it is meant to.
Before yesterday, 141 countries recognised a Palestinian state. If you think the addition of three more countries to that list will make any difference at all to reality – that somehow it will magic up the existence of an actual Palestinian state rather than the imagined one that exists only to enable politicians who know next to nothing about the Middle East to virtue signal – then, as they say, I have a bridge to sell you.
It’s not just the Palestinians for whom yesterday’s announcements will make no difference. That’s true also of Israel, which has and will continue to have diplomatic relations with almost all of the now 144 countries which have recognised a Palestinian state. Israel’s withdrawal of its ambassadors from Norway and Ireland shows that it, too, can virtue signal with the best of them – although in Israel’s case the audience Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signalling to is his far-right coalition allies and their voters. Withdrawing the ambassadors is a ludicrously over the top response. No one else in Israel thinks yesterday’s recognition makes any difference to anything.
Just as Israel’s response was intended for Israeli voters’ consumption, so the actual announcements in Ireland, Spain and Norway are in reality about their own internal politics rather than actually seeking to bring about a Palestinian state. All three countries have long been in the vanguard of support for Palestine, mostly because it goes down well with their voters. It’s costless and bolsters their domestic support.
It’s also frivolous showboating, which is why countries with a serious interest in bringing about a Palestinian state – such as the US, the UK, France or Germany – have gone nowhere near recognition. Try asking any of the countries which have done otherwise what the borders are of this supposed Palestinian state and you’ll get no response, because there is no state to recognise and there are no agreed border. Does it include Gaza? What about Jerusalem? And what is its government – the Palestinian Authority (in its 18th year since elections)? Until Israel’s military operation in Gaza you’d have had to ask if it was Hamas, which ran the territory. No one knows the answers to any of this because that would be the work of the hard, frustrating, difficult negotiations upon which the fabled two state solution depends.
If you’re serious about bringing about a Palestinian state there is hope, despite the seemingly impossible situation at the moment. Saudi recognition of Israel remains possible, even likely, at some point. That might well be the key which unlocks wider change. That should be the real focus.
