The recent moves by the likes of the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia to recognise a Palestinian state have terrified the Israeli regime, concerned that support for their genocide is shifting, while they have encouraged many Palestinians.
But the moves by these countries are not just empty and performative —they are positively sinister. They serve as a diplomatic fig leaf for the continuation of Israel’s genocide and as a means to whitewash the complicity of these powers, who for two long years have armed, financed, and shielded the butchers of Gaza.
It is a low-cost manoeuvre, taken under mounting domestic and international pressure, designed to placate the streets with the illusion of action while in practice doing nothing to stop the most concentrated campaign of mass killing in living memory.
Unacceptable conditions
The UN General assembly resolution voted by 142 states called for an end of Hamas’ rule in Gaza and the handing over of its weapons to the Palestinian Authority. In plain terms, recognition is made contingent on stripping Palestinians of their means of resistance, and restoring control to a venal and discredited institution that has long acted as a subcontractor for the Israeli occupation.
Most Western governments take this logic even further, tying the recognition of Palestinian statehood to the “demilitarisation” of any future Palestinian state, and to elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part. So much for the right of self-determination! That’s imperialist arrogance at its finest.
Socialists do not politically support Hamas, whose right-wing Islamist programme offers no path towards genuine liberation of the Palestinian people. But we defend without hesitation the elementary right of the masses in Gaza to decide their own future, and to resist extermination and ethnic cleansing —a right imperialism seeks to deny them by demanding disarmament and political submission. It is no accident that large majorities of Palestinians reject such demands: 85% in the West Bank and 64% in Gaza oppose the disarmament of Hamas, according to a PSR poll taken in early 2025.
Needless to say, no demilitarisation is ever demanded of the state that has relentlessly rained down fire and steel upon the Palestinians —a state that, according to some recent academic estimates, may already have annihilated up to a third of Gaza’s pre-war population. This is the morality of the imperialists: one law for the oppressor, another for the oppressed.
Step up solidarity actions
Millions around the world already see through this charade. They know full well that these same governments have not lifted a finger to stop the genocide. On the contrary, they have kept the arms trade flowing, shared intelligence, safeguarded business ties, and unleashed grotesque repression against the Palestine solidarity movement in their own countries.
Yet this statehood “recognition” is also a sign of weakness. It is a symptom of cracks opening in the imperialist front under pressure from below, and a clear indication that not all Western powers march in lockstep.
That weakness should be seized as our opportunity to push harder, and be answered by further escalating the international struggle against the genocide. The example of the Italian dockers in Genoa, Livorno, and Ravenna who recently blocked arms shipments to Israel must not remain an isolated spark. It should be the opening of a generalised movement to block ports, strike at the supply chains, shut down the corporations and institutions greasing and profiting from the genocidal machine.
Only through such actions can the huge solidarity expressed in the streets be converted into a force capable of striking at the heart of imperialism itself — and eventually, of dismantling the entire architecture of capitalism that has allowed this horror to unfold.