On 24 July 2025, in his post on X, President Emmanuel Macron became the first G7 leader to commit to recognising a Palestinian State- at the forthcoming 80th UN General Assembly in New York in September. At the same time, he confirmed his intentions in a letter to Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. A three-day United Nations high-level conference on ‘The Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution’, followed. The meeting in New York City, between 28 and 30 July, was co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia and attended by over a hundred countries, although boycotted by both Israel and the US. The resulting seven-page declaration-the “New York Call”-was signed by the foreign ministers of 15 countries, setting out the path to a Two-State solution in which Gaza would be joined with the West Bank in a new Palestinian State.
The UK government then issued its ‘Statement on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the recognition of a Palestinian State’ on 29 July, promising to recognise Palestine at the General Assembly unless Israel took “substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza”, agreed to an immediate ceasefire, withdrew its forces from Gaza, promised to stop annexations in the West Bank, and allowed UN aid to enter Gaza. Hamas was also given an ultimatum to release all hostages, sign up to a ceasefire with Israel, disarm itself, and remove itself from leadership of the government of Gaza. The following day, the Archbishop of York and the Anglican Bishops of Chelmsford, Gloucester, Norwich, and Southwark issued a joint statement in which they called for the immediate and unconditional recognition of the State of Palestine. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had been put on the spot when 221 MPs from nine political parties, including 131 Labour MPs, submitted a letter on 25 July in favour of recognising Palestinian statehood. Back in 2014, a non-binding motion had already been passed in the House of Commons, backing the same measure. On the afternoon of 30 July, in Ottawa, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his country’s intentions to formally recognise Palestine during the forthcoming UN General Assembly, making Canada the third G7 nation to do so, after France and the UK.
Today, 75% of all UN members, representing 147 out of 193 UN member states and including 11 out of 27 EU member countries, recognise Palestinian statehood, as do various international organisations, such as the Arab League. Palestinian representatives have participated in certain UN activities in the capacity of non-member observers since November 2012.
Israel’s current leadership, however, vehemently opposes recognising a Palestinian State, which it considers a reward for ‘monstrous terrorism’, more so after the massacre of 7 October 2023. To put their position into context, the 1988 founding charter of Hamas actively calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu no longer subscribes to a Two-State solution, which he alluded to in his speech at Bar-Ilan University on 6 October 2013, when he proposed a demilitarised Palestinian state, coexisting peacefully alongside the Jewish nation state.
Establishing a Palestinian State, were it to succeed, would not be a straightforward matter by any means. The Palestinian National Authority seeks to include the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (the Old City and its holy sites), along with Gaza-all territories occupied by Israel following the Six-Day War of June 1967- in a new Palestinian State. Such an aspiration is incompatible with Israeli desires to fully annex the West Bank, as shown most recently by a 71-13 non-binding vote in favour in the Knesset on 23 July 2025. On 29 July, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich also indicated that “Gaza is an inseparable part of Land of Israel.”
It all began with the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1947 as Resolution 181, dividing the British Mandate of Palestine into Palestinian Arab and Jewish states. This plan was rejected by the Arabs, meaning that a Palestinian state was never formed, although Israel became a sovereign nation on 15 May 1948. The original de facto boundary of Israel was defined by the Green Line, agreed upon by the four General Armistice Agreements in 1949 after the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948. It has lost its relevance in the light of subsequent events, especially the territorial acquisitions made by Israel in 1967 and 1973. Israel also does not accept UN Security Council Resolutions 242 of 1967 and 338 of 1973, which have called for a return to its pre-1967 borders.
The First Palestinian Intifada (Uprising) of 1987-1993 and the Declaration of the Independence of the State of Palestine in Algiers in November 1988 were followed by the Oslo I Accord of 1993, formally referred to as Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, which established transitional arrangements towards a Two-State solution. The Palestinian National Authority came into being after the Cairo Agreement (Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area) in May 1994. Limited Palestinian autonomy was granted by the Oslo II Accord (Palestinian- Israeli Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) in September 1995. UN Security Council Resolution 1397 upheld the Two-State solution in 2002. Since then, the West Bank has been gradually walled off from the rest of Israel by a security fence, the so-called “Wall of Separation.” Various rounds of negotiations, summits, initiatives, peace agreements, and a Road Map for Peace (2003) have failed to resolve the territorial issues. The Second Palestinian (al-Aqsa) Intifada (2000-2005), repeated military operations, and continued terrorist activity testify to failed diplomacy and an inability to reach negotiated settlement.
The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, signed in December 1933, identifies the process for recognition as a sovereign state under international law. Any intending sovereign state is required to have “a permanent population; a defined territory; government; and capacity to enter into relations with the other states.” These conditions are far from being realised under the authoritarian and gerontocratic Fatah-controlled Palestinian National Authority administration, which is somewhat lacking in the institutional infrastructure of democracy. There have thus been no parliamentary elections in either the West Bank or in Gaza since 2006. Furthermore, terrorist leadership of the Hamas government of Gaza is incompatible with lasting peace.
Israel has an inalienable right to existence as a sovereign state and Palestinian Arabs have an undeniable right to self-determination. These are not necessarily mutually incompatible aims, depending on how they are handled. But, in the current hostile climate, and judging by historical trends ever since the establishment of an independent Israel, something substantial will have to give before any meaningful consensus can be reached.
Ashis Banerjee