NY, Sep 28 : The reluctant recognition of Palestinian statehood by Britain, France, Australia, Canada this week is a con – it is the same switch and bait that has been blocking the creation of a Palestinian state for three decades now.

Imagine that these four leading western countries had recognised Palestine not in late 2025, when Palestine is in the final stages of being eradicated, but in the late 1990s, during a period of supposed Palestinian state-building. 

That was when the Oslo accords were signed with western backing. The Palestinian Authority was established under Yasser Arafat with the apparent aim that Israel would gradually withdraw from the territories it still occupies in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and begin ruling an emergent Palestinian state.  At Israel’s insistence, let us note, the Oslo accords carefully avoided any mention of the ultimate destination of this process. Nonetheless, the message from western politicians and media was the same: this was heading towards a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.  Looking back, it is evident why that did not happen when it still looked feasible. 

The Israeli leader of the time, Yitzhak Rabin, told the Israeli parliament that his vision was not of a state but of “an entity which is less than a state”: a glorified Palestinian local authority utterly dependent on its bigger neighbour, Israel, for its security and economic survival.  After Rabin was assassinated by a far-right Israeli gunman, his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, was propelled into power by a majority of the Israeli public on a mandate to stop the Oslo process in its tracks. 

He repeatedly reneged on commitments to withdraw Israeli soldiers and Jewish settler-militias from the occupied West Bank. In fact, in this period of supposed “peace-making”, Israel colonised Palestinian land at the fastest rate ever.  In 2001, during his time in opposition, Netanyahu was secretly caught on camera, explaining how he achieved this reversal.