Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, was “not very happy” to hear that some of the West’s most powerful countries wanted to recognize a Palestinian state.
“Nothing has been settled by ‘we recognize you,’” said Fayyad. “Somewhere, someone needs to do something to make it happen. And that someone, somewhere is Israel.”
In late September, France, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom recognized a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly. The moves were meant to keep the possibility of a two-state solution alive and quickly drew backlash from Israeli officials.
“Your disgraceful decision will encourage terrorism against Jews and against innocent people everywhere. It will be a mark of shame on all of you,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech at the UN.
The timing of the recognitions signals a desire for Western nations to put increasing pressure on Israel and on Netanyahu’s government over the war in Gaza. But as a largely symbolic move, recognition of a Palestinian state is unlikely to produce much without a real peace process, said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer.
“I think absent a process of negotiation, of involvement of the two sides in some interactions, the politics of this are not going to work for a long time,” Kurtzer said.
With the recognitions by France and the United Kingdom, the United States is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council that opposes Palestinian statehood. The current Palestinian state, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, is currently a non-voting observer state (status on par with the Vatican). Admitting Palestine as a full member of the United Nations requires the assent of the Security Council, where the United States has veto power.
But American recognition of a Palestinian state is unlikely any time soon. Under the Biden administration in 2024, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution to admit a Palestinian state. At the most recent U.N. General Assembly in September, President Trump called recognition a “reward” for Hamas. Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, couldn’t even be in New York to deliver his speech in-person after the Trump administration revoked his visa.
“Will it [recognition] come at some point? I hope to be able to live to 120, maybe in that period,” Kurtzer said with a chuckle. “But I’m not sure that’s the case.”
Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza outlined a shaky pathway towards potentially recognizing a Palestinian state, when “Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out.” But Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly shot down the possibility in a Sunday interview on MSNBC.
“In order for that aspiration to even be credible, it has to be realistic. We can’t have a Palestinian state that’s governed by Hamas or by some terrorist organization whose stated purpose for existence is the destruction of the Jewish state,” he said.
As a technocrat in Palestinian government from 2002 to 2013, Fayyad’s view was that statehood would be achieved by building the state itself, with security forces, public infrastructure, and a strong economy — not simply by declaration. He criticized recognition as encouraging complacency among Palestinian leaders, including Abbas, who called for additional countries to recognize a Palestinian state in his address at the U.N.
“Unless we assume full agency, nothing’s going to happen,” he said. “The mindset is, ‘it is going to happen for us.’”
Instead, Fayyad proposed having the U.N. Security Council recognize the right of the Palestinian people to a state — as opposed to just recognizing the state itself — as a way to open up negotiations.
“Our right does not mean I am not prepared to negotiate borders. I am prepared, but I need to know that I have [the] right to this whole thing,” he said.
Kurtzer acknowledged that such an approach could be more palatable once the Trump administration has figured out the war in Gaza.
“A creative idea could be, all right, you’re not going to recognize the state of Palestine, but start with recognizing Palestinian self-determination. And then after you’ve recognized Palestinian self-determination, you can include including the right to create their own state,” he said. That could help incrementally build a peace process for now, he said.
Public opinion in Israel, however, is not optimistic about a peace or a two-state solution. Two years after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, only one in five Israelis think permanent peace can be achieved, according to a Gallup poll. Nearly two-thirds of Israelis said they opposed a two-state solution.
“I’m a realist. There is no prime minister in Israel, not Netanyahu, anyone, within the next, maybe, 20–30 years, who is going to be able to tell his colleagues, ‘let’s do that,’” Fayyad said. “But why not really try to get this through the Security Council?”
