Is Recognition of Palestine Motivated by Hostility to Israel?

If so, then why hasn't there been a wave of non-recognition of Israel such as occurred in 1973?

Top map: countries recognizing Israel. Countries in green recognize Israel, countries in gray never recognized Israel, countries in maroon rescinded their recognition and have not restored it, and countries in red have cut ties but not formally rescinded recognition.

Bottom map: countries recognizing Palestine. Countries in dark green recognize Palestine, countries in gray never recognized Palestine, countries in light green or yellow are planning to extend recognition (yellow=conditionally), and countries in cross-hatched green and gray are reconsidering or disputing their recognition.

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Over the weekend, Britain, Australia, Canada and Portugal recognized the state of Palestine. In so doing, they joined nearly 150 other states who had previously extended such recognition. Within a month of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s declaration of a Palestinian State on November 15th, 1988, 75 states extended recognition to that state. That wave was dominated by countries of the Arab and Muslim worlds, along with numerous non-aligned developing countries like India and Nigeria, plus the Soviet bloc and other Communist states. Another 20 states extended recognition over the next several years until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, generally fitting the same profile (many of them were post-Soviet states); only 8 more recognized Palestine between the start of the Oslo process and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the most notable being post-apartheid South Africa in 1995.

Since 2005, there have been two further waves of recognition. The first began after Operation Cast Lead (Israel’s first post-withdrawal war with Gaza), and was dominated by Latin American states. The second began in 2024 in response to the current and ongoing war in Gaza, and has been dominated by developed countries, particularly in Europe. Notably, the current wave has included numerous NATO allies; previously, only two NATO members had recognized Palestine after joining the treaty organization, Turkey (immediately after the 1988 declaration, and obviously a special case), and Iceland (in 2011). If the trend continues, as seems likely, the state of Palestine will soon be recognized by as many if not more countries than the state of Israel (the current ratio is 151 to 164, counting only U.N. member states).

What practical significance does recognition of Palestine have? Very little in the short term. None of these states are proposing to intervene on the side of the Palestinians, and few of them are even eager to take in refugees, and while sanctions against Israel are being contemplated, these are likely to be either narrowly targeted or largely symbolic. But that doesn’t mean the significance is nugatory. The PLO’s 1988 declaration itself arguably had momentous significance, because it was the first clear indication that the organization could accept the existence of Israel and contemplate the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel rather than as a replacement for it. It didn’t guarantee such acceptance—the declaration did not recognize Israeli sovereignty and claimed no specific borders or territory other than a capital in Jerusalem, so it was consistent with a view that the entirety of Mandatory Palestine was still being claimed (or even territory beyond Mandatory Palestine). But it was at least as consistent with the position that Palestine was to be a separate state alongside Israel making claims only to the territories captured by Israel in 1967, and on that basis the United States began to explore the possibility of fostering negotiations between Israel and the PLO. It’s very hard to imagine the Oslo process ever beginning in the absence of that declaration, and it is similarly very hard to imagine recognition of Israel spreading to so many countries in the absence of that process—or, more broadly, in the absence of a prospect for a peaceful resolution to the question of Palestinian political representation. So, in a very real sense, the vast broadening of Israel’s acceptance internationally that took place since 1988 was underwritten in part by the PLO’s declaration of independence for Palestine.

More recent waves of recognition of Palestine have generally been interpreted by Israel as unwanted interference in negotiations that it says should be left to the parties; more recently, they have been interpreted as signs of fundamental hostility to Israel’s existence, aiming at deepening its isolation and ultimately destroying it. But it’s worth pointing out that despite the recognition extended to Palestine, very few countries have actually severed relations with Israel. In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, by contrast, numerous African and Soviet bloc countries did precisely that—but only a handful of countries have taken similar action since 2005, the most prominent being Venezuela, which severed relations in 2009 in response to Operation Cast Lead. It’s particularly notable that none of the nations that signed the Abraham Accords have rescinded their recognition or otherwise severed ties with Israel, though that could yet change if Israel goes forward with the annexation of territory on the West Bank. I think that is powerful evidence that both the post-2009 wave and the post-2024 wave of recognitions of Palestine should properly be understood not as a rejection of Israel’s own legitimacy but as a diplomatic effort to shift Israeli policy—specifically to move it towards extending recognition of its own to a Palestinian state. Israel’s own view might be that such a policy would lead to catastrophe and risk its own destruction, but there’s no reason to assume that policymakers in London, Ottawa, Canberra or Lisbon hold that same view that Israel does, and are therefore motivated to push that policy by existential hostility.

So what are they motivated by? In part, they are undoubtedly motivated by domestic considerations; their populations (and not by any means only their Muslim minorities) have turned sharply against Israel in the wake of the ongoing destruction of Gaza, and this may be in part an effort to appease public opinion. If that’s the rationale, I suspect it will fail; unless conditions change on the ground, public hostility seems unlikely to abate, and narrow or symbolic responses are likely not to appease but to lead to demands for measures with more teeth. On the other hand, it could also fail for the opposite reason. Those European states that have turned to the populist/nationalist right have been far less supportive of the Palestinian cause—Hungary has rejected (though not formally rescinded) its Communist-era recognition of Palestine, for example—so it’s possible, even likely, that European countries will become so consumed with their own internal divisions that they are in no position to get involved with Israel/Palestine. That having been said, European (and Canadian and Australian) recognition of Palestine does make sense to me as a diplomatic strategy aimed at maintaining smooth relations with the Gulf monarchies and various Asian and African countries for whom a symbolic alignment on the issue would have some value. As well, I think these countries’ willingness to make this move is a small gesture of diplomatic independence from the United States, at least in the sense that these countries are not as concerned to coordinate with America on an issue that, historically, we have cared a great deal about.

I don’t think, though, that Israel, or its friends, should discount the possibility that this is a sincere if largely impotent effort to reverse Israel’s very obvious slide toward a terrible outcome, not only for the Palestinians but for itself. The fact that the effort is self-interested on these countries’ part doesn’t mean it is insincere, and it actually argues against the view that it is motivated by atavistic hostility to Israel or the Jewish people. It may reflect a lack of appreciation of the stakes as Israelis see them—but by the same token, Israelis themselves may be blind to the stakes others have, most obviously but not exclusively the Palestinians.

My deepest worry, though, isn’t that Israel is blind but that it is actively choosing blindness over sight.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared earlier this month that Israel will need to embrace an autarkic economy to hedge against the risk of arms embargoes and other trade restrictions from Europe in particular. Israel’s stock market responded with alarm, but it’s not absurd for Israel to try to do more to reduce its dependence on foreign arms. The thing is, its main arms supplier is the United States, not any European country, and domestic arms manufacturers generally only reach the necessary economies scale by accessing a larger market than Israel provides, which means that even a more self-reliant Israel will still be dependent on foreign trade. Netanyahu’s main point, though, wasn’t economic, but rather psychological: that Israel needs to adopt the mentality of a country under siege by the entire world in order to survive.

The political utility of such a stance to parties of the far right should be obvious, but it’s worth recognizing—as many Israelis themselves have—that such a psychology would be a fundamental betrayal of the Zionist project. The aim of Zionism was, among other things, to defeat antisemitism by molding the Jewish people into a nation like other nations. That means being able to defend themselves, yes, but it also means being capable of engaging in normal relations with other nations—indeed, it means being able to understand and weigh other nations’ interests realistically in evaluating policy and in deciding how broadly to describe Israel’s own interests. I don’t think Netanyahu has ever truly believed in this project, but his “Super-Sparta” speech is the first time I can recall that he so explicitly repudiated it. But if Israel becomes convinced that it cannot have such normal relations—indeed, that it cannot even seriously account for other nations’ interests because those nations are inveterately hostile and see destroying Israel as a core interest—then its behavior will undoubtedly cause those convictions to be confirmed. And if you think that in those circumstances Israel can survive, to say nothing of thriving, then I’ve got a Third Temple to sell you.

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Tonight is the evening of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and I feel obliged to connect the above to that fact. To that end, I’ll note that, technically, there are four New Years in Judaism, and only one of them is the “Jewish” New Year—and it isn’t Rosh Hashanah. The New Year for the Jewish people is first day of Nisan, the month in which Passover is celebrated, because (per the story recounted in the Torah) the exodus from Egypt is the event in which Jewish peoplehood was forged. So the biblical calendar begins with the first of Nisan, establishing all other holidays in relation to that date, and in antiquity that was the beginning of the calendar year for the reign of the kings of Israel.

Rosh Hashanah (the first of Tishrei), by contrast, is the New Year for the whole world. Biblically, Rosh Hashanah’s main significance that it is the beginning of the ten Days of Awe that end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But it is also traditionally understood to be anniversary of the creation of the world, and as such it necessarily belongs to the whole world—from a Jewish perspective, it is the beginning of everyone’s year. For that reason, the first of Tishrei is the date used in antiquity to begin the calendar year for the reign of foreign kings. But it is also the date used for establishing the start of the Sabbatical year, the year when agricultural land in the Land of Israel is required by Jewish law to lie fallow.

Why should the Sabbatical year be determined by Rosh Hashanah rather than the first of Nisan? Shmita is a Jewish obligation; why shouldn’t it follow the date the Jewish people were created, not the date that it was created. Some might look at this distinction and say: yes, well, but perhaps the entire world was created only so that God could redeem creation through His people, and through the Land that He gave to them forever, so it amounts to the same thing either way. But I prefer to be less pathologically narcissistic and say that while Jewish leadership is, indeed, supposed to look after the Jewish people, the land itself—even in its potentially-redemptive aspect—is not separate, but remains part of the world. The Jewish people can “dwell apart” in the sense of cleaving to the Torah. But they cannot “dwell apart” in the sense of being a separate creation, apart from the world. Not even if they become “Super-Sparta.”

(As an aside, the other two New Year festivals—the fifteenth of Shevat and the first of Elul—are, like Rosh Hashanah, also linked to natural creation. The first is the New Year for trees, keyed to when fruit begins to ripen in the land of Israel, and is used for calculating the annual fruit tithe. The second is the New Year for animals, and is used for calculating the tithe of cattle, and is keyed, I believe, roughly to the sexual cycle of lambing, with spring lambs likely reaching sexual maturity before the first of Elul.)