When the governments of the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia announced they were recognizing a Palestinian state, headlines across the world framed it as a breakthrough. Editors called it “historic,” commentators suggested it was long overdue, and diplomats portrayed it as a fresh commitment to the two-state solution.
But Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the independent news channel The Electronic Intifada, was not celebrating. Speaking on the program he has anchored for years — a channel whose UK-based journalists have recently been raided by the Metropolitan Police for reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza — Abunimah made clear that this “recognition” was no step toward Palestinian freedom. It was, he argued, a political ruse: an attempt to launder Western complicity in mass killing by offering Palestinians only symbolism and conditions.
Recognition Without Rights
At the heart of Abunimah’s critique was the way these statements defined what was being recognized. He dissected Australia’s declaration, delivered on 21 September. The opening line read: “Australia formally recognizes the independent and sovereign state of Palestine.” Yet almost immediately, the statement shifted. The recognition was not of a people’s rights but of an “aspiration.”
“This is not a statement recognizing Palestinian right to self-determination,” Abunimah stressed. “It’s a declaration by the government of Australia of Israel’s right to independence and sovereignty.”
That inversion, he explained, is deliberate. International law grants the right of self-determination to peoples. It does not recognize a state’s “right to exist.” “Israel has no right to exist, nor does any other state,” Abunimah reminded his audience. “Peoples have a right to self-determination.”
By reducing Palestinian claims to mere aspirations, Canberra and other capitals stripped Palestinians of the very core of their legal standing: the right to return to their homes, to restitution for their losses, and to genuine independence.
Conditions That Void Sovereignty
Even more galling, Abunimah said, was the list of conditions buried in these recognitions. Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, declared that Hamas could never play a role in a future Palestinian state, that the state must be disarmed, and that recognition itself was conditional on Israeli hostages being released.
“Here’s the prime minister of Australia telling the people of the supposedly independent and sovereign state of Palestine who is and isn’t allowed to rule them,” Abunimah noted. “So who gave him the right to do that?”
The contradiction was obvious: a recognition that simultaneously revoked itself by dictating internal politics. “It’s outrageous. It’s vile. This isn’t a step forward. This is an effort to define Palestinians out of existence.”
For Abunimah, the hypocrisy was staggering. “If you’re recognizing an independent state, you don’t get to say who its leaders are, you don’t get to say which political parties are legal or illegal, you don’t get to say what its constitution must be. That’s what colonial rulers do. And that’s what these countries are doing under the guise of recognition.”
A Cover for Genocide
Abunimah insisted that the timing of the recognitions could not be separated from the massacres unfolding in Gaza. “We should condemn these fake recognitions,” he said. “We should condemn the continued use of the two-state fantasy to distract from the genocide that all these countries are helping Israel to perpetrate.”
“The sole focus,” he added, “should be on accountability and pressure to stop this genocide. Instead, we’re getting a charade of recognition while the bombs keep falling, while people in Gaza are being slaughtered.”
This was not abstract for Abunimah or his colleagues. The Electronic Intifada has documented the destruction of entire families in Gaza, the systematic targeting of hospitals and schools, and the role of Western governments in arming and justifying Israel’s campaign. For him, to pivot to “statehood recognition” in this context was an insult. “They’re killing our people in real time, and they want to throw us a ceremony and a flag,” he said.
Abbas and the Politics of Collaboration
Another central theme in Abunimah’s critique was the role of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Western governments consistently presented Abbas as the partner in their recognition process, despite his deep unpopularity among Palestinians.
Polls show that more than four-fifths of Palestinians want Abbas to resign, yet the recognitions repeatedly tied “Palestine” to his leadership. In return, Abbas reassured world leaders that Hamas would be excluded from governance and that the PA was prepared to take over Gaza.
For Abunimah, this was proof of collaboration. “This is what a Palestinian Zionist looks and sounds like,” he remarked after Abbas’s speech. The PA, he argued, functions as an extension of the occupation — a structure designed during Oslo to police Palestinians on Israel’s behalf. “And now it is being dressed up as the ‘state’ the West wants to recognize.”
Symbolism Over Substance
The hollowness of this recognition was illustrated by the ceremonies that followed. In London, the Palestinian mission was renamed an “embassy of the state of Palestine.” Labour politicians attended, smiling for photographs and waving for cameras.
Abunimah dismissed it with a Palestinian proverb: a man finds one horseshoe and declares himself nearly a horseman. “That’s what this is,” he said — empty symbolism. “They want to take a concentration camp and put a sign on it that says state of Palestine.”
It was, in his view, the worst kind of deceit: symbolism designed to placate global outrage while leaving intact the very structures of dispossession.
Reviving Oslo in the Middle of a Holocaust
Finally, Abunimah placed the recognition drive in historical context. “We saw what Oslo produced — a bunch of bantustans in the West Bank with settlements expanding everywhere,” he recalled. “This is just an attempt to revive that in the middle of a holocaust.”
Oslo had promised Palestinians sovereignty but delivered only fragmentation, checkpoints, and settlements. The new wave of recognitions, Abunimah argued, was Oslo redux — colonial control disguised as peace.
“This isn’t recognition,” he concluded. “It’s colonial diktat dressed up as progress. Until Palestinians’ rights — not aspirations, rights — are affirmed, all of this is a fraud.”
