Mondoweiss: European recognition of a Palestinian state is not an act of solidarity but a betrayal of Palestinian liberation

“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” – Toni Morrison

The recognition of the State of Palestine is not a gesture of solidarity—it is my enemy. Most Palestinians disagree with a two-state solution, which is what all the recent moves to recognize a Palestinian state are contingent on. It is only the Palestinian Authority (PA) elite, who continue to subcontract the Israeli colonial regime, who embrace this recognition in order to fulfill their role in a sub-colonial project. They have accumulated wealth, status, and shallow control benefiting from neoliberal governance under military occupation, while internationally serving liberal imperialists who champion a two-state solution that unapologetically shrinks Palestine and grants Zionists more time to expand their settler-colonial project across historic Palestine.

Again, the recognition of the State of Palestine is not a gesture of solidarity—it is my enemy.

How deafening is the global silence in the face of the ongoing genocide, the brutal invasion of Gaza City, and the erasure of our core struggles—especially the right of return for refugees and Jerusalem. I write to assert our Palestinian right to define our own liberation. We must not allow French, Saudi, or other European powers—complicit in colonial histories and present inaction—to whitewash their failure to stop genocide with hollow gestures of recognition. Our liberation cannot be defined by those who have enabled our oppression.

This recognition does not halt colonization—it accelerates it. Hundreds of new military checkpoints and settlements continue to isolate Palestinians into increasingly besieged Bantustans. It is not a step toward justice but a maneuver of moral bankruptcy. It is legitimizing Zionism atop the ruins of my grandparents’ homes, from which they were ethnically cleansed in the Nakba in 1948 and now on top of our assassinated refugee camps in Gaza.

All refugees in Gaza share this history, alongside over 5.9 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA. And that’s only the official count—there are an estimated 1 to 1.5 million more Palestinians who remain unregistered and more. Will this recognition restore the right of return under Resolution 194 for all those refugees? Or will it once again undermine that right to serve Zionist interests and uphold Jewish supremacy over historic Palestine.

This recognition does not restore our homeland—it erases it. It sustains and legalizes the theft of Palestine, declaring Jewish supremacy victorious atop the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and over a million who have been imprisoned for resisting the Zionist colonial regime since 1948. It offers unconditional self-determination to Zionists settlers but conditional self-determination to the Palestinians and our school books. This humiliation deprives us from our political agency without putting any condition on Israel.

The latest recognition was especially insulting. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who not only supported but actively armed and participated in the genocide in Gaza, cited the 1917 Balfour Declaration with arrogant pride—affirming his unapologetic support for Jewish supremacy and the Israeli state. People cheer as if the native people of Palestine need recognition from their colonizers, who are currently committing genocide in Gaza and have carried out repeated brutal assaults over the years, with documented crimes against humanity.

These same institutions and states continue to support a live-streamed genocide, affirming their backing of the settler-colonial project daily—without studying the facts, without hesitation, and without even revisiting the original partition plan that granted over 43% of historic Palestine to the Zionist movement. After the Oslo Accords in 1993, some Fatah Party elites agreed to just 18% of historic Palestine. Today, with over 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the PA controls less than 10% of the land. Even in those areas, Israeli colonial forces retain the freedom to jail, bomb, and raid—stripping any notion of autonomy or sovereignty from our so-called statehood.

This is the logic of colonialism. Anyone who accepts it without interrogating history is either hypocritical or complicit—serving hegemonic interests that ultimately enable full Zionist liberation while denying Palestinian liberation, or offering only a partial, hollow version of it.

Yet people cheer for any form of state recognition. Most political parties in Europe support it without critical pause, failing to see how such recognition not only undermines Palestinian political rights but also destabilizes the region.

All generations of Palestinians know this truth: such recognition will not liberate us, restore our homeland, or offer reparations. It renders us invisible, inferiorized, and deepens our mistrust in an international community that seems united against our dreams. They do this without ever looking at the map—without acknowledging how settler colonialism has expanded relentlessly from 1948 to today. They ignore how Zionist forces have besieged us, stolen our natural resources, and demonized our existence in collusion with orientalist Western elites.

The world must pause and decolonize its thinking. We will not accept a sliver of our homeland so that European, Russian, and American settlers can enjoy the rest. This recognition is not a step toward justice—it is an escape from responsibility, part of the ongoing genocide and the escalating Nakba. It abducts everything Palestinian again, including our ability to dream of a different kind of liberation—one that could include Jewish people, but not at the expense of native dreams.

This is liberal bankruptcy masquerading as solidarity. It convinces the world that something is being done for Palestinians, when in reality, we are being punished, violated, and silenced—while imperialist mouths speak only for themselves.

This state recognition is the most hypocritical, egocentric, Eurocentric way of escaping moral responsibility while continuing to support the white Jewish settler colonial superiority in Palestine. I will never accept any recognition that legitimizes the Zionist Israeli colonial regime or whitewashes Western imperialist complicity—especially from the UK. This recognition is not a solution; it is a distraction from ending the genocide and settler colonialism. The UK, like all Western powers, will continue its arms trade with Israel and conduct business as usual—participating in our genocide without shame.

After more than 23 months of live-streamed genocide, the only meaningful response should be sanctioning Israel and ending its impunity. Yet, while a number of Western countries discussed sanctioning Israel, and Spain which canceled a third arms deal with Israel, the absence of most European countries taking action reveals how deeply Zionism and right-wing Western politics are intertwined.

I also reject the notion that Western leaders have any right to decide for Palestinians whether Hamas should be involved in Palestine’s future. That is a Palestinian political decision. Yet Western imperialists—true to their nature—assume they know better than us, the indigenous people of Palestine. I am among the most critical voices of Hamas, but I recognize that it has political legitimacy and a voter base. It is the largest Palestinian political party and must be respected as such.

Western imperialists want us to accept Zionism and settler colonialism across all of historic Palestine. The real betrayal lies in accepting these terms without demanding concrete steps to end the genocide, recognize it, and sanction those responsible. That must be our first demand—otherwise, it dishonors the sacrifices of Palestinians in Gaza, 80% of whom are refugees.

Therefore recognition of Palestine is a colonial mirage. A two state solution is not only fiction but also was born dead and is not a path to collective liberation. True recognition begins with acknowledging genocide, sanctioning Israel, ending impunity, and dismantling the colonial structures that have dispossessed us for generations. Anything less is not recognition—it is surrender. And I, like many Palestinians, will never accept it.