A Personal Observation

Shortly before the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, I would often say that Israel had never held a better international standing. It was hard to believe after 10 years without any peace negotiations with the Palestinians, but this was my professional assessment. Israel was on the verge of diplomatic relations with the Saudis, and the Palestinians were at their lowest diplomatic point. It took the recent war and its aftermath to bring about a dramatic U-turn in this momentum. The last six months resulted in a deterioration in Israel’s international position. One of its very obvious manifestations was the revival of the international trend of recognizing the State of Palestine.

This recognition comeback does not leave me indifferent on the personal level. I entered the diplomatic service four years after the 1967 “Six-Day War” with a strong feeling that Israel should integrate into our immediate neighborhood. Most of my colleagues in the ministry shared this view. From day one, I discovered a peace-oriented diplomatic service. Israel already controlled the occupied territories, but its declared aim was to exchange these territories for peace.

In the early 1980s, I was sent as a young diplomat to Ankara, Turkey. During my years there I could already sense that religious-nationalistic elements inside Israel were forcing the government to allow the establishment of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. They were highly motivated and well organized. Watching the process from a distance, it looked to me like an historic mistake. The Israeli leadership, however, managed to convince us, young diplomats, that these settlements were needed for security reasons and were being established in order to serve as bargaining chips in due time. The declared policy was to evacuate the settlements when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would mature. “Land for Peace” was the diplomatic slogan that we, young diplomats, proudly marketed all over the globe. I wholeheartedly believed in it.

Nothing of this really happened in the years that followed. Even when we signed the Oslo Declaration of Principles (DOP) with the Palestinians in September 1993, the settlements were not removed. Just the opposite. They grew in space and population, gradually making a just and lasting agreement with the Palestinians more difficult. In November 1995, Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated for his efforts to enhance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the well-intentioned “Oslo process” entered a deep freeze.

A renewed effort to reach an agreement by Prime Minister Barak and Palestinian Authority President Arafat at Camp David in 1999 also failed. As a result, a huge wave of devastating violence broke out again (2000-2003) and shattered the hopes for peace.

During the following two decades, Israel was characterized by a strengthened religious-nationalistic momentum, further expanding the settlements to a point that started looking irreversible. In the early autumn of 2023, already long out of Israel’s diplomatic service, I found myself in a very strange mood: I stopped believing that a Palestinian state is a viable possibility while being simultaneously sure that Israel’s control of over five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (under the siege) was unsustainable. Not only did the West Bank settlements keep expanding but the international community practically accepted the situation, including key countries in the Muslim world.

The 6:29 a.m., alarm on October 7th changed it all.

The “October 7th” war already constitutes a strategic turning point. The Hamas attack turned out to be the most devastating military chapter in the history of modern-day Israel. It left Israeli society shattered and bewildered and ignited an urge for revenge among many Israelis. Simultaneously, the international community, particularly the United States and the Western European countries, came to a meaningful awakening. The concept marketed by the Israeli Government that Hamas is contained and deterred and that Israel can be integrated into the Middle Eastern region without addressing the Palestinian issue collapsed.

The events of October 7th, and those that followed exposed how irresponsible it was for the international community to neglect one of the most dangerous and volatile conflict areas on earth. Over the past six months, we have seen principal global players, with the United States at the helm, talking about the need to discuss “the day after,” pointing again at the two-state solution.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to rule out Palestinian statehood, but this has not deterred the international community from action – on the contrary.

The Recognition Process Makes a Comeback

Sweden recognized the State of Palestine back in October 2014. As a result, 11 West European parliaments called upon their governments to recognize the State of Palestine during the autumn of 2014. The process reflected mounting frustration in the EU over Israel’s settlement expansion and the collapse of the U.S, sponsored peace talks. Israel reacted very negatively, exposing its growing fear of the legitimization of a Palestinian state. The West European pro-recognition 2014 momentum collapsed on January 5, 2015. The massive terror attacks by ISIS, especially in Paris, created negative feelings toward the Muslem world and, as a result, the readiness to support the cause of Palestinian recognition faded away.

All this until the catastrophic 2023-24 Gaza war and its implications. Although 139 countries had recognized Palestine as a state prior to the war and it was also recognized as a state by the UN General Assembly in 2012, Palestine failed to achieve recognition as a full UN member state. It could not pass the threshold of nine out of 15 UN Security Council members.

The war brought about the change: Four West European countries – Spain Ireland, Norway, and Slovenia – recognized Palestine during May and June 2024. Four Latin American countries did so shortly before.

These recognitions happened at the same time that a renewed recognition momentum is taking hold at the UN. The Americans still vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to accept Palestine as a member state, but this time 12 out of the 15 members (way beyond the threshold) supported the draft resolution. This majority triggered a UN General Assembly vote on the issue in which 143 counties voted in favor of a resolution that significantly expanded the rights of the Palestinian delegation to the organization.

Palestine is not yet a full-fledged member of the United Nations, but it is well on the way to become one. Israel is objecting and denouncing the process, but it has no lasting ability to block it.