If recent history is any gauge, Hamas will soon be publicly thanking Slovenia, something that ought to give Slovenians reason to pause.
Why? Because if a murderous terrorist organization that eight months ago triggered a war by murdering some 1,200 people in Israel and taking over 240 others hostage is thanking you, it’s a pretty good sign you are on the wrong side of history.
A thank you note from Hamas is akin to the letter of appreciation Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sent American college students protesting against Israel on campus – more a mark of shame than a badge of honor.
Words of appreciation from terrorist groups or terrorist regimes are not the kind of recognition most countries covet. Yet that is exactly what Slovenia should expect following its decision on Tuesday to recognize a Palestinian state.
By doing so, Slovenia became the fourth European country since October 7 to reward Hamas for its atrocities by recognizing a Palestinian state, following a similar move taken by Norway, Spain, and Ireland last month. A few other European countries – such as Malta and Belgium – may soon follow suit.
Each of those countries will deny up and down that their move is a reward for terror. Rather, they will explain, it is a move to advance peace. But go tell that to Hamas, for whom peace with Israel is literally against everything it stands for.
The October 7 massacre was not meant to further a two-state reality but rather to trigger a process that would bring about the eradication of Israel. Hamas does not want a Palestinian state living alongside Israel; it wants a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” instead of a place for Israel.
Nevertheless, following Norway, Spain, and Ireland’s recognition of a Palestinian state, Hamas issued a statement saying that “we consider this an important step towards affirming our right to our land,” and calling on other countries around the world “to recognize our legitimate national rights.”
AFP at the time quoted senior Hamas official Bassem Naim as saying “these successive recognitions are the direct result of this brave resistance and the legendary steadfastness of the Palestinian people. We believe this will be a turning point in the international position on the Palestinian issue.”
On a practical level, these acts of recognition have little impact. Since PLO chairman Yasser Arafat unilaterally declared a Palestinian state in the midst of the first intifada in 1988, 147 states – with Slovenia the most recent addition – of the 193 member states in the UN have recognized “Palestine.”
This recognition has done nothing to make the existence of a Palestinian state a reality. One hundred forty-seven UN states can call an apple an orange, but that doesn’t make it so.
For an actual Palestinian state to come into existence and be more than just a name on a placard identifying a speaker at the UN General Assembly, Israel will need to acquiesce. Even with all the pressure in the world, it is the Israelis themselves who will have to concur.
And neither will Slovenia’s, Spain’s, Norway’s, nor Ireland’s recognition of such a state will make that any closer to happening.
Israel becoming isolated on the global stage
ON THE contrary, moves such as these are likely to have the exact opposite effect, deepening Israel’s isolation in the international community and reinforcing the feeling that the “whole world is against us” among the Israeli public, a feeling that will only stiffen the public’s already stiff opposition to a Palestinian state.And that opposition is very stiff as is.
According to a Pew poll taken in March and published last week, only 19% of Israeli Jews believe that an Israeli and Palestinian state can peacefully coexist side by side. That was the lowest level of support for a Palestinian state among Israeli Jews since Pew began asking that question in 2013, significantly down from the 32% that had a positive view of the prospect of a two-state solution in a poll released just two weeks before October 7, and significantly down from the 46% of Israeli Jews who believed in 2013 that the two states could coexist peacefully.
When Arab Israelis are factored into the total, in 2013 50% of the country believed a two-state solution would work, while today that number stands at 26%.
One need not be a brilliant sociologist or political scientist to understand why: if the creation of a mini-Palestinian state in Gaza – which in effect was the situation in that coastal strip ever since Israel withdrew from there in 2005 – led to October 7, what would the creation of a Palestinian state linking Gaza with Judea and Samaria lead to?
A feeling that “the whole world is against us” will also have a domestic political impact, something that may help to explain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rising poll numbers over the last three weeks. In its weekly poll on May 17, Maariv had Likud winning 19 seats in the next elections. Last Friday, the poll gave Likud 22 seats.
Between May 17 and May 31, the following happened: the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the International Court of Justice called for Israel to end operations in Rafah, and Ireland, Spain, and Norway recognized a Palestinian state. Is it coincidental that Netanyahu’s numbers rose significantly during that period? Probably not.
Just as Palestinian state recognition has an impact on Israeli politics, it is also the product of local domestic politics. The European governments that have recognized a Palestinian state since October 7 are doing it within the context of their own political interests and taking into consideration their own constituencies.
These moves are hollow ones that will antagonize Israel and do nothing practical to promote peace. On the contrary, by recognizing a state and delineating – as Spain did – where that state’s boundaries are (the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as the state’s capital), they are only making any future negotiations more difficult. Why should the Palestinians compromise on their maximalist positions if certain European states have already said that this is their position?
Knowing that the move is only symbolic, knowing as well that it will antagonize Israel and complicate bilateral relations, the European governments taking this step – Spain, Ireland, Norway and now Slovenia – are doing it with an eye to their local politics, playing to constituents they are courting, in the belief that this is a fairly inexpensive way to placate allies and gain the political friends they need. Henry Kissinger’s quip that Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic politics, applies to other countries as well.