Palestinian state: These countries now officially recognize him

Great Britain and Canada were the first major western economic nations to decide to recognize a Palestinian state. This was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mark Carney shortly before the UN General Batte began in New York next week. Almost at the same time as the announcement of Britain and Canada, Australia’s head of government Anthony Albanese also announced that it formally recognized a Palestinian state. Portugal also followed on Sunday evening.

Canada continues to pursue the two-state solution in the Middle East conflict, explained Carney. The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is systematically working to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state. That is why Canada now recognizes a Palestinian state as part of an international initiative to maintain the perspective of a two -state solution, Carney continued.

Strander had already threatened Israel with the recognition of a Palestinian state at the end of July. At that time he made the decision dependent on whether Israel would change his course in the Gaza War.

In the UN General Batte in the coming week in New York, further G7 countries such as France and other western nations such as Belgium and New Zealand want to follow suit.

In doing so, the countries want to bring new impetus into the efforts to make a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians-in the middle of the Gaza War, in which the Israeli army had recently expanded its attacks.

The United States is Israel’s closest of allies and – like Germany – rejected the recognition of a Palestinian state at this time. Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann WadePhul recently confirmed the position of the federal government “that a Palestinian state cannot be recognized now, but that a two-state solution must be possible”.

The so -called two -state solution means the construction of an independent Palestinian state, which is supposed to exist peacefully by side with Israel. It is considered the internationally recognized goal for a solution to the Middle East conflict. Germany therefore continues to focus on a negotiating solution. However, all attempts at a peaceful agreement on both sides have failed so far, the last conversations were in 2014.

Israel’s right -wing conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once also supported the idea of ​​a demilitarized Palestinian state, but then moved away from it. His current government strictly rejects a two -state solution. Instead, he denounces the recognition of a Palestinian state as a threat to Israel’s existence. An internationally recognized Palestinian state would “endanger our existence” and was “an absurd reward for terrorism,” said Netanyahu on Sunday before his cabinet.

Netanyahu announced that Israel will struggle with the United Nations and elsewhere against “false propaganda” and “demands for a Palestinian state”. “The international community will hear from us on this topic in the coming days.”

Netanyahu’s government is also constantly driving the settlement expansion in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. In areas, more than 700,000 settlers live alongside around three million Palestinians. The Palestinians claim them as well as the Gaza Strip for their own state. With Israel’s progressive settlement, however, only one “patchwork” would remain. In this respect, Great Britain’s advance and other influential countries are de facto a rather symbolic recognition of a state without a country.

Israel’s right-wing extremist police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir reacted to the official recognition of a Palestinian state by Canada, Australia and Great Britain with the demand for an immediate annexation of the West Bank. In addition, the Palestinian Authority, which he referred to as the “terrorist authority”, had to be completely smashed, he demanded in a post on the platform X.

Ben-Gvir condemned the recognition with regard to the unprecedented massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023 as a price for murderers that belonged to the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas. At the next government meeting, he would present a proposal to “expand the (Israeli) sovereignty” – this means de facto an annexation that would let its own Palestinian state go into further distant.

The ultra -right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich also wrote at X that the times were over when the UK and other countries would have determined about Israel’s future. The British mandate is “ended, and the only answer to this anti -Israeli step is to take the sovereignty over the traditional areas of the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria and to take the foolish idea of ​​a Palestinian state from the agenda”. At the address of his boss, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he wrote: “It is time – it is in her hands.”

The Israeli President of the Parliament Amir Ochana also condemned the recognition and called the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer a “modern appeasement politician who chose the shame”.

Relatives of the Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip also condemned the recognition of a Palestinian state by Great Britain, Canada and Australia. After the massacre of October 7, 2023, 48 hostages in the violence of the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas, it said in a message from the forum of the hostage families. Recognition could only be made after its release – that is a “moral and humanitarian duty”.

The families confirmed their wish for peace in the region, but at the same time demanded that international discussions should only be held under this requirement about a “time after” in the Gaza Strip. Those who ignore this act against international law and strengthen terrorism, they argued.

Note: This post has been updated several times.