Israel increasingly isolated as more countries sign up to recognise Palestine
found itself in a diplomatic crisis this week as state after state declared recognition of a
Palestinian state
or willingness to take such a move if the humanitarian crisis in
Gaza
continued.
Even Germany, Israel's most important ally in Europe, joined the wave on Thursday when minister for foreign affairs Johann Wadephul, en route to Israel, said that although the recognition of a Palestinian state would come at the end of negotiations for a two-state solution, that process must begin now.
Sweden
on Thursday demanded that the
European Union
increase economic pressure on Israel.
France
, the
UK
,
Canada
and other states, including many considered allies of Israel, have already declared support for a Palestinian state, leaving Israel more isolated diplomatically than at any time in the past.
READ MORE
Israel is facing a new reality. The accusations of genocide and starvation in Gaza have led to sanctions, restrictions and international isolation. The situation is only likely to get worse as long as the war in Gaza drags on.
The reports of hunger in Gaza, often accompanied by harrowing images, along with the almost daily reports of civilians killed while trying to collect food under the Israeli and US-backed distribution system, are difficult to process for most Israelis, many of whom blame
Hamas
for anything that happens in Gaza. Other Israelis also assign any criticism of Israeli actions to 'anti-Semitism'.
[
An Irish surgeon in Gaza: I have seen tiny bodies ripped apart, children eating grass
]
The Israeli foreign ministry claims that recognising a Palestinian state is a 'reward for Hamas and harms the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza', damaging attempts to release the hostages.
Defence minister Israel Katz said the plans to recognise a Palestinian state 'give Hamas encouragement and harden its stance'.
Israeli officials also claim that Hamas manipulates the humanitarian crisis, inflating the number of those who died from malnutrition, and it blames Hamas for some of the exchanges of fire close to food distribution points.
When The New York Times admitted this week that a widely distributed front-page photograph of an emaciated child failed to admit that he suffered from a pre-existing disease, Israel termed the omission as a 'blood libel'. The photograph was also published in The Irish Times.
While international recognition of a Palestinian state increases Israel's diplomatic isolation, it remains a declarative measure with little practical impact.
But turning Israel into a pariah state, akin to apartheid-era South Africa, is already having a negative impact.
Every day this week Israeli media reported protests or physical attacks against Israeli holidaymakers in Europe. Last week an
Israeli cruise ship had to forgo anchoring in the Greek island of Syros, following a pro-Palestinian protest at the port
.
The 21-month war has decimated Israel's tourist industry. It may be decades before it recovers.
The Israeli economy has shown remarkable resilience this year – the Tel Aviv stock exchange is up 26 per cent and the shekel has strengthened 8 per cent against the US dollar – but many companies around the world are quietly choosing not to do business with Israel, whether due to solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza or consumer pressure.
This week's attempt by the
European Commission
to suspend funding for Israeli start-ups, which would have excluded Israeli companies from the Horizon Europe programme, failed, but it could be a sign of things to come.
A wide-scale academic boycott is also ongoing. Universities and professional associations have cut ties with Israeli researchers and institutions, and Israeli academics are rarely invited to conferences abroad.
The cultural boycott is even more pronounced. Foreign artists have stopped coming to Israel and Israeli artists abroad are considered unwelcome.
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Irish Examiner
30 minutes ago
- Irish Examiner
US special envoy Witkoff visits food distribution centre in Gaza
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy has visited a food distribution site in the Gaza Strip operated by an Israeli-backed American contractor whose efforts to deliver food to the hunger-stricken territory have been marred by violence and controversy. International experts warned this week that a 'worst-case scenario of famine' is playing out in Gaza. Israel's near 22-month military offensive against Hamas has shattered security in the territory of some 2.0 million Palestinians and made it nearly impossible to safely deliver food to starving people. Envoy Steve Witkoff and the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, toured a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution site in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, which has been almost completely destroyed and is now a largely depopulated Israeli military zone. Steve Witkoff, centre, and Mike Huckabee, centre left, visiting a food distribution site in Gaza City (David Azaguri/US Embassy Jerusalem via AP) Hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli fire while heading to such aid sites since May, according to witnesses, health officials and the UN human rights office. Israel and GHF say they have only fired warning shots and that the toll has been exaggerated. In a report issued on Friday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said GHF was at the heart of a 'flawed, militarised aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths.' Mr Witkoff posted on X that he had spent more than five hours inside Gaza in order to gain 'a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza'. Humanitarian aid is airdropped to Palestinians over Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP) Chapin Fay, a spokesperson for GHF, said the visit reflected Mr Trump's understanding of the stakes and that 'feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority'. The group said it has delivered over 100 million meals since it began operations in May. All four of the group's sites established in May are in zones controlled by the Israeli military and have become flashpoints of desperation, with starving people scrambling for scarce aid. More 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli fire since May while seeking aid in the territory, most near the GHF sites but also near United Nations aid convoys, the UN human rights office said last month. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots at people who approach its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Officials at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said on Friday they received the bodies of 13 people who were killed while trying to get aid, including near the site that US officials visited. GHF denied anyone was killed at their sites on Friday and said most recent shootings had occurred near UN aid convoys. Mr Witkoff's visit comes a week after US officials walked away from ceasefire talks in Qatar, blaming Hamas and pledging to seek other ways to rescue Israeli hostages and make Gaza safe. Mr Trump wrote on social media that the fastest way to end the crisis would be for Hamas to surrender and release hostages. The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on October 7 2023 and abducted 251 others. They still hold 50 hostages, including about 20 believed to be alive. Most of the others have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry. Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organisations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Recognition of a Palestinian state has become a punishment for Israel, says its former prime minister
In declaring that they intend to recognise a Palestinian state , Britain , France and Canada have moved closer to a step that Palestinians have sought for decades. But their announcements leave unanswered a crucial question: in the gritty context of today's conflict – with Israel waging war in a shattered Gaza Strip , threatening to annex the occupied West Bank and administering East Jerusalem as part of its own capital – what is left of Palestine to recognise? They also upend the sequence of the now-moribund Middle East peace process, in which detailed talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) were intended to be followed by international recognition of whatever Palestinian state emerged from those discussions. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said the gesture by Israel's western allies of recognising Palestine had taken on a different meaning. READ MORE What was intended to be a reward for Palestinians – a celebration for successfully ending more than eight decades of conflict – had in 2025 become a punishment for Israel . Ehud Olmert was the last Israeli prime minister to truly address the complexities of a two-state solution. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images It was a reflection of 'the real desperation of losing trust', said Olmert, whose premiership between 2006 and 2009 was the last time an Israeli leader seriously tussled with the complexities of a two-state solution. To Olmert, it is as if they are saying to his successor, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu: 'You didn't listen to us, to anything we are trying to do – so what else do we have but to use this, something you are so opposed to.' Olmert said the promised recognitions amount to a threat to dismantle the legacy of Israel's longest-serving premier, who has spent his nearly two decades in power blocking a Palestinian state from taking shape. Netanyahu's governments have expanded settlements, taken more land into Israeli state control and demonised the internationally accepted Palestinian Authority (PA) as supporters of terrorism akin to Hamas, the militant group that wrested Gaza from the PA in 2007. Netanyahu has lambasted the British and French proposals as a reward for Hamas, which triggered the current war with its cross-border attacks on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023. Now Netanyahu, who refuses to take responsibility for the scale of civilian suffering that Israel has wrought on Gaza, faces the prospect of four out of five permanent UN Security Council members recognising the state of Palestine. China and Russia have already done so. This would deepen Israel's diplomatic isolation as it fights accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice, the UN's highest court, and as the premier himself faces charges of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. The pledges by three G7 nations to recognise a Palestinian state ahead of the UN General Assembly in September all come with conditions. Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, speaks during the United Nations General Assembly in New York last year. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images UK prime minister Keir Starmer's hinge on Netanyahu ending the crisis in Gaza, while Canada is demanding that the PA, run by the ageing and unpopular president Mahmoud Abbas, enacts serious reforms and hold its first elections in nearly two decades. The announcements have been met with deep hostility from Netanyahu's far-right coalition, which is propped up by parties seeking to annex the West Bank. The last time Netanyahu – reluctantly – engaged with the peace process was in 2014, under great pressure from the Obama administration. The process of recognising a Palestinian state would also run up against the limits of international law: the 1933 Montevideo Convention sets out minimum criteria for a state, which include a permanent population, defined borders and a government. Two-year-old Yazan Abu Foul, held by his mother Naima, is suffering from severe malnutrition as a result of Israel's campaign in Gaza. Photograph: Haitham Imad That is one reason that Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has insisted that the PA – a semi-autonomous body set up by the Oslo Accords in the 1990s – commit to reforms that would restore a measure of democratic legitimacy to Abbas's government, said a Canadian diplomat briefed on the matter. Palestinian statehood also faces practical difficulties as formidable today as it did in 1988, when PLO chair Yasser Arafat first set out a formal claim to a Palestinian nation that mingled the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish with the prose of UN resolutions. He created a government in exile, based in Algiers. Most crucially, Israel controls all the borders and occupies the land on which any Palestinian state could be built. World powers have largely supported Palestinians governing an area that roughly aligns with the 1967 armistice line, which includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip – territories wrested from Jordan and Egypt by Israel. Israel's defence minister Israel Katz, whose government in May announced plans to build 22 new West Bank settlements , has said of the push for recognition: 'They will recognise a Palestinian state on paper – and we will build the Jewish-Israeli state on the ground.' Yet even if western recognition would bring little change in the territory, Palestinians say it would buoy morale and add weight to the beleaguered PLO's claim to statehood. Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu with US president Donald Trump at the White House. Photograph: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times 'It would still be very useful because it confirms the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, which Israel is trying to eliminate,' said Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and regular interlocutor with western diplomats. 'The issue of recognition is a political matter – admitting into law what these countries always speak about, the two-state solution.' Palestinian delegations to the UK, France or Canada would also become fully fledged embassies, getting diplomatic rights and immunities, and able to sign treaties as a state. 'States have allies, allies have responsibilities,' said a Palestinian diplomat based in the UK. 'Until then, all we have as Palestinians are friends.' These recognitions would undermine Israel's traditional argument that it is not alone in opposing unilateral Palestinian statehood, said Victor Kattan, who has served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Department in Ramallah. Some 147 countries already recognise a Palestinian state, but the addition of the UK, France and Canada would represent a significant shift on the part of powerful western states traditionally seen as Israel's unflinching allies. That shift is especially resonant on the part of the UK, the colonial power that administered Mandate Palestine after the first World War, issuing the Balfour Declaration that paved the way for a Jewish state to take shape on Palestinian land and fuelling a conflict that rages decades later. 'The Israelis had always had a strong 'moral minority' argument, that so long as some of the major western states . . . still don't recognise Palestine, there will always be a question mark over its claims to statehood and sovereignty,' said Kattan, who now teaches international law at the University of Nottingham. Protesters hold a banner showing starving Palestinian children during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people, at Sana'a University in Yemen. Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA 'But now that that's crumbling – it looks like nearly everybody is going to recognise Palestine, except for the United States – it greatly strengthens Palestinian claims to statehood.' The moves by the UK, France and Canada have infuriated the White House, with US president Donald Trump saying they pose a threat to trade talks with Canada. The US's long-standing policy has been to resist attempts by supporters of Palestine to assume some of the markers of statehood. On Thursday, the state department imposed sanctions on the PLO, for among other things 'taking actions to internationalise its conflict with Israel such as through the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice'. Other diplomatic efforts to upgrade Palestinian claims to statehood are also under way, said western diplomats based in Jerusalem, including an attempt to upgrade the fledgling state of Palestine's UN 'observer status' to full membership. The US has twice vetoed those attempts, most recently in April 2024. One of the diplomats said: 'They will undoubtedly veto again – but this time, they will be running against a large wave of international opinion, not just a technical vote that is ignored as a matter of course.' – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025 International recognition of Palestinian statehood
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Is the White House ready to demand an end to Netanyahu's campaign of starvation in Gaza?
Throughout June, CNN offered previews of its deep-dive documentary of the 40th anniversary of Live Aid. The first part was broadcast on July 13th and in the weeks since, the retrospective has been accompanied with disturbing contemporary reportage and footage of the horrific scenes of starvation and mass hunger afflicting people in bombed-out Gaza . This was the first week that the humanitarian crisis, and the shocking realisation that thousands of children are starving and dying while food and aid languishes nearby, has become a dominant news story in the United States. Since Donald Trump took office, Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been welcomed and feted in the White House three times. The change in policy, ideology and energy between the Biden and Trump administrations is day and night. Yet both administrations share, to this point, a willingness to bend to Netanyahu's every whim and to ignore his state-sponsored atrocities. Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently presented US president Donald Trump with a copy of a letter he sent to the Nobel committee recommending Trump for the peace prize. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images Just weeks ago, in a theatrical gesture much of the world found stomach-churning, Netanyahu, sitting across from president Trump ahead of dinner, presented his host with a copy of a letter he sent to the Nobel committee recommending Trump for the peace prize. READ MORE But this week, Trump broke with Netanyahu's conviction that there is no starvation in Gaza and that Hamas are issuing misleading reports. 'Based on television. . . those children look very hungry,' Trump said. 'But we're giving a lot of money and a lot of food, and other nations are now stepping up. Some of those kids are – that's real starvation stuff. I see it and you can't fake that.' It is tempting to believe that Trump, an avid consumer of television news shows, was exposed to much stronger and disturbing reports on Gaza during his five-day visit to Scotland than he had previously absorbed while flicking through the news networks in the White House. Belatedly, Trump seems to have realised, like Biden before him, that he has been played by Israel's prime minister, who has repeatedly demonstrated little interest in ending the conflict. If Russian president Vladimir Putin has proven hostile towards Trump's wish – and election campaign vow – of a swift resolution to the war with Ukraine, Netanyahu has been in turns ingratiating and contemptuous, taking unflagging US support for granted. On Wednesday, Trump dispatched Steve Witkoff , his diplomatic envoy, to Israel to pressurise Netanyahu on what is now being described as a famine. Trump returned to Washington from Scotland to find political representatives on the hard right and left are speaking in chorus. A demonstrator participates in a solidarity rally for Gaza in Paris on Thursday. Photograph: Mohammed Badra/EPA The Independent senator Bernie Sanders forced a set of resolutions to block the $675 million sale of bombs and guidance kits and automatic rifles to the Israeli government. 'Course he's lying,' Sanders said of Netanyahu's denials on CNN during the week. 'He's a disgusting liar. Israel had a right to defend itself from the terrible Hamas attack , but I think everyone understands that in the last two and a half years they have been waging a brutal, horrific, almost unprecedented type of war not just against Hamas but against the Palestinian people,' he said, citing the Gaza health ministry figures of 60,000 dead and 140,00 injured, most of whom he said, are 'women, children and the elderly'. 'We cannot continue providing military aid to the extremist racist Netanyahu government that is starving the children of Gaza.' But Sanders stopped short of agreeing that the word 'genocide' is applicable to the failure to deliver the emergency food and aid to Gazans. Instead, it was Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the Maga Republicans' most strident, conservative voices, who used that phrase. She was responding to Randy Fine, the recently elected Florida Republican congressman who last year labelled Ireland as an 'anti-Semitic country' over its support of the Palestinian people. Samah Matar holds her six-year-old son Yousef, who is suffering from severe malnutrition due to Israel's blockade of food into Gaza. Photograph: Saher Alghorra/The New York Times 'I can only imagine how Florida's 6th district feels now that their Representative, that they were told to vote for, openly calls for starving innocent people and children,' Taylor-Greene wrote. 'It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza. But a Jewish US Representative calling for the continued starvation of innocent people and children is disgraceful. His awful statement will actually cause more antisemitism.' Taylor-Greene's sharp criticism has been echoed elsewhere within the Maga movement, not least through the podcast megaphones of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Their perspective has not gone unnoticed in Israel, with an opinion piece written in June by Dr Judah Isseroff in the Israeli daily publication, Haaretz, noting that 'while Carlson's stances on immigration, vaccines and Russia are core elements of an emergent right-wing coalition, the criticism of Israel that he amplifies on his podcast has a level of cross-over potential that far outstrips the appeal of mass deportations or Covid revisionism. 'That is because Carlson's views coincide with those of increasingly large numbers of American Jews. According to two surveys last year, nearly a third of American Jews – and more than 40 per cent of American Jewish teens – agreed that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. In light of Israel's escalating activity in the Strip, those numbers are likely higher today than they were in 2024. It is clear that Binyamin Netanyahu takes the support of Donald Trump and the US completely for granted. Photograph:'As I see it, Carlson's real significance is actually more theological than political. I don't think we're likely to soon find Carlson marching arm-in-arm with Gaza campus activists at Columbia University. Instead, Carlson's platforming of Israel-critical Jews actually augurs a serious scrambling of relations between Jews and Christians in the United States.' Perhaps, but at congressional level, there is little to suggest that Netanyahu has any immediate cause for alarm about a suspension of arms and support or a sea-change in baseline support. A significant minority may be experiencing nausea at the sudden proliferation of images of starving Gazans. Still, the vote on Sanders's resolution- the third such motion he has brought – failed in the Senate by 27-70. It was significant increase on support among Democratic senators without ever threatening the status quo. Over a year has passed since Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senate minority leader and highest ranking Jewish political leader in US history, gave a speech warning that Israel was at the risk of becoming a 'pariah' under Netanyahu's leadership, and he called for an election of new officials there. But this week, Schumer voted to continue to supply artillery to Israel: the protection of the state cannot, for Schumer, be compromised by objections to Netanyahu. Nor can the atrocities inflicted by Hamas militants on innocent Israelis on October 7th, 2023, be forgotten. When Netanyahu gave his address after a bipartisan invitation from Congress last week, at least 38 elected Democratic representatives announced they would boycott it. A few empty seats, then, but Netanyahu, basking in the afterglow of the successful joint Israel-US strikes on Iran nuclear facilities, still enjoyed a prolonged standing ovation before House speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged the 'distinct honour' of introducing the guest. 'For the forces of civilisation to triumph,' Netanyahu told them, 'America and Israel must stand together', provoking another standing ovation. He knew he was among friends – from both sides of the House – and had every reason to believe, in that moment, that the historical alliance will withstand whatever moral queasiness US politicians may feel about the images of dying Palestinian children. And while president Trump has voiced his unease at the images of malnourished and starving children, on Thursday morning he posted on Truth Social his stated position that the 'fastest way to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages'. A man carries the body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike, ahead of a funeral procession in Gaza City. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images Asked during his meeting with Britain's prime minister, Keir Starmer, if he supported Britain's pledge to recognise Palestinian statehood unless a ceasefire is in place by September, Trump said that he saw the plan as 'rewarding Hamas'. On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described Witkoff's meeting with Netanyahu as 'very productive' and she confirmed that he would spend Friday inspecting the food distribution sites and speaking with Gazans living through what has become a ceaseless nightmare. He will then brief president Trump on advised next steps. 'President Trump is a humanitarian with a big heart and that's why he sent special envoy Witkoff to the region, in an effort to save lives and end this crisis,' Leavitt said. With Hamas refusing to negotiate a path towards a ceasefire until the unfolding food shortage stand-off is resolved, and Israel's leader remaining unrepentant, many lives may hinge of the persuasive power of Witkoff's report to Trump. It remains to be seen whether the sudden prominence of the Gaza plight in US news coverage is just a temporary conscience salver which will, in a week or a fortnight, become obscured by domestic and economic issues again. Or whether the White House, and Trump, is at last ready to demand an end to Binyamin Netanyahu's clear-eyed campaign of death by one means or another.
