There are surface reasons and more profound ones why Hamas terrorists and their millions of supporters around the world are cheering as secondary Western nations scramble to recognize Palestinian statehood.
But none of them is that recognition will make a Palestinian state more likely. Most United Nations member nations already recognize a Palestinian state, and that has done nothing but spur murderous anti-Israel and anti-Western Islamist violence and pushed the prospect of a real Palestinian state beyond the horizon, perhaps into neverland.
In quick succession, leaders of France, then Britain, then Canada, and now Australia have said they will recognize a Palestinian state as soon as next month at the United Nations summit in New York City. They present this as a move toward peace, stating their belief or pretending to believe — it is hard to decide which is worse — that such a move will prompt Palestinians to give up violence and is thus a precondition of peace.
It is hard to believe it, but Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese actually said on Monday that his government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state is “predicated on the commitments Australia has received from the Palestinian Authority,” which is a cardinal statement of willful diplomatic naivete. Palestinian officials make such promises promiscuously and never, never, keep their word.
They regard other people’s undertakings as inviolable promises to be secured in a zip pocket, but their own as bargaining chips to be traded lightly for just another click of the ratchet of concessions and abandoned without a backward glance as soon as convenient. In the Arab mind, as in Greek mythology, honor is associated with victory and plunder, not with keeping one’s word. If you win, you have achieved honor.
Another obvious reason that the terrorists and their enablers delight in news of Western dominoes tumbling in succession, falling for propaganda about peace being dependent on Palestinian statehood and about Israel starving civilians, is that it means the terrorists have no incentive to make concessions and every incentive to continue their barbarous and genocidal hostilities.
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained, Hamas scuppered ceasefire talks precisely because France and Britain announced they would recognize a Palestinian state without preconditions.
“Talks with Hamas fell apart the day [French President Emmanuel] Macron made the unilateral decision that he’s going to recognize a Palestinian state … and then you have other people [Britain] come forward [and] say, ‘Well, if there is not a ceasefire by September, we’re going to recognize a Palestinian state,’” Rubio said. “If I’m Hamas, I’d basically conclude, ‘Let’s not do a ceasefire, we can be rewarded, we can claim victory.’”
So, the strong surface reasons that Hamas delights in recent developments are that it can keep fighting while Western nations blame Israel, and the bad guys will secure wider deference without even handing over the hostages they took on Oct. 7, 2023. The dupe nations say they seek peace, but they incentivize violence.
A deeper and perhaps even more troubling reason why Islamists are cheering is that France, Britain, Canada, and Australia are implicitly announcing that they are no longer “powers” that need to be taken seriously. Their opinions, particularly those of Britain and France, once carried weight. They have long been second-tier nations rather than in the first rank, but they have now ensured that the summer of 2025 will be remembered as the moment they acknowledged they have sunk into irrelevance.
They know recognition of a Palestinian state will do no more to bring about statehood than has recognition by the scores of other countries that did so years ago. They know statehood will not come unless and until the United States and Israel allow it to happen. So they have made a move that will have no good practical effect and is an act of self-humiliation. These countries used to matter. They were members in good standing of a coherent, staunch, and serious alliance. But they now meekly raise their hands, look furtively at one another to make sure they don’t stand out, and effectively say, “We don’t count anymore.” It is shameful.
Islamists love to see this because it means these countries have surrendered. They are too weak and incompetently led to stand up for what is right, resist evil, and stay powerful. They are no longer strong enough to resist and will adopt an attitude of submission as the leftist-Islamist alliance presses them ever harder to abandon yet more of the rule of law and their traditional culture.
Macron made the move not to do what he thinks right but to try temporarily to placate France’s increasingly assertive Muslim minority. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer surely was doing the same thing. Canada and Australia, too.
OBAMA, BRENNAN, AND THE COLLUSION LIE
They are losing ground to populist and nationalist movements that are attracting increasing support from people rightly outraged at the despoliation of their societies by policies that have never been put to voters. These nations’ leaders are hoping to buy short-term relief at the cost of long-term decline and disintegration.
They are at the point where they are eating the Western seed corn, selling the birthright of future generations, and making a bonfire of the palace furniture to stay warm for just one more night.