OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Plans announced by France, the United Kingdom and Canada to recognize a Palestinian state won’t bring one about anytime soon, though they could further isolate Israel and strengthen the Palestinians’ negotiating position over the long term.
The problem for the Palestinians is that there may not be a long term.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects Palestinian statehood and has vowed to maintain open-ended control over annexed east Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and the war-ravaged Gaza Strip — territories Israel seized in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for their state.
Israeli leaders favor the outright annexation of much of the West Bank, where Israel has already built well over 100 settlements housing over 500,000 Jewish settlers. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has reduced most of it to a smoldering wasteland and is pushing it toward famine, and Israel says it is pressing ahead with plans to relocate much of its population of some 2 million to other countries.
The United States, the only country with any real leverage over Israel, has taken its side.
Critics say these countries could do much more
Palestinians have welcomed international support for their decades-long quest for statehood but say there are more urgent measures Western countries could take if they wanted to pressure Israel.
“It’s a bit odd that the response to daily atrocities in Gaza, including what is by all accounts deliberate starvation, is to recognize a theoretical Palestinian state that may never actually come into being,” said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
“It looks more like a way for these countries to appear to be doing something,” he said.
Fathi Nimer, a policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank, says they could have suspended trade agreements with Israel, imposed arms embargoes or other sanctions. “There is a wide tool set at the disposal of these countries, but there is no political will to use it …