The Folly of Western European Leaders Recognising Palestine
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups took approximately 250 hostages in a coordinated and brutal assault. Since that day, the hope of rescuing those hostages has remained high in Israel and throughout much of the Western world. Among the captives was a British-Israeli citizen, Emily Damari. Held by Hamas for more than 15 months, she was finally released in January 2025.
Yet Damari believes that her government, specifically Prime Minister Keir Starmer, is sabotaging that hope, even if only unintentionally. Starmer recently announced that the United Kingdom would recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire and commits to a two-state solution.
Damari’s reaction was scathing. In a post on Instagram, she wrote:
“Prime Minister Starmer is not standing on the right side of history. Had he been in power during World War II, would he have advocated recognition for Nazi control of occupied countries like Holland, France, or Poland? This is not diplomacy; it is a moral failure. Shame on you, Prime Minister … I am deeply saddened by Prime Minister Starmer’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood. This move does not advance peace; it risks rewarding terror. It sends a dangerous message: that violence earns legitimacy.”
Unfortunately, Starmer is not alone. French President Emmanuel Macron is pursuing the same course. Both leaders seem to believe that the best way to free the hostages is to apply more pressure on Israel rather than on Hamas.
Critics across Europe have voiced opposition to the recognition. Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Estonian Parliament, warned that this move could be interpreted by Hamas, its Iranian backers and even Russia as a vindication of its deadly actions. Tom Tugendhat, a British politician who was the minister of state security until July 2024, has gone further, writing that Starmer’s approach reveals the “fundamental incoherence” of his foreign policy and raises troubling questions about his commitment to international law.
The legal standards for recognising statehood under international law are clear. Under the 1933 “Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States,” the international treaty that formalises the requirements for statehood recognition, a potential state must have:
1. A permanent population
2. A defined territory
3. A functioning government
4. The capacity to enter into relations with other states
Starmer’s recognition plan breaks this precedent. By his reasoning, Palestinian statehood now depends entirely on the actions of another sovereign state (Israel) and the cooperation of a ruthless terrorist organisation (Hamas). Tugendhat argues that Starmer’s recognition plan is an absurdity driven by political calculation rather than principled diplomacy.
The folly of the policy is so obvious that Hamas itself is celebrating the shift in Western policy. Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of the Hamas politburo, told Al Jazeera that the wave of recognitions is “the fruit” of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre. In other words, Hamas sees these moves not as a rebuke but as a reward. The irony is stark: Nations like Taiwan, unified, democratic and peaceful, remain unrecognised by many Western states, while a fractured Palestinian polity, partially controlled by an internationally designated terrorist group, is granted the prize of statehood.
If the folly of this policy is so obvious, why have Starmer and Macron not changed course? The answer lies in false hope and domestic political appeasement. They seek to restart the two-state solution conversation, even though at present it appears a hopeless endeavour. In Starmer’s case, his party broadly supports the decision, and so there is little internal political resistance.
Starmer and Macron’s potential recognition of Palestine does more than reward Hamas. It also emboldens Hamas’s sympathisers in the West. Because of their statements, protests that glorify Hamas’s violence may gain legitimacy, leaving Jewish students in the diaspora more vulnerable to harassment and abuse and antisemitism is implicitly commended. Meanwhile, the real victims — the hostages still held in Gaza and the Palestinian civilians suffering under Hamas’s misrule — are left to endure worsening conditions.
Rather than incentivising negotiation, the European leaders’ statements caused Israel to double down militarily. Handing Hamas such diplomatic leverage on a silver platter removed any incentive for Hamas to agree to a ceasefire that would force them out of Gaza. As Trump envoy Steve Witkoff has observed, Hamas shows “a lack of desire” to reach a truce and is “not acting in good faith.”
The path to freeing the hostages is not to create a false equivalence between Israel and Hamas by rewarding a terrorist group with political recognition. By contrast, the path to their freedom is to apply relentless pressure on Hamas itself politically, diplomatically and economically until it releases its captives and ceases its campaign of violence.
Western leaders must recognise and treat Hamas for what it truly is: an organization with no legitimate right to exist, whose power is built on terror, repression and the exploitation of both Israeli and Palestinian lives.
By ignoring this reality, Macron and Starmer are not advancing peace. They are undermining it and sending a dangerous message to extremists worldwide: that in the end, violence works.
Photo Caption: Anti-Starmer poster at a 2024 Free Palestine demonstration in Central London
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Revolutionary Communist Party
