Israel calls global push to recognise Palestine a ‘mistake’, warns of possible ‘unilateral’ action

Israel’s foreign minister on Sunday criticised recent moves by some countries to recognise Palestinian statehood, calling them a “mistake” and warning they could provoke an unspecified unilateral reaction, after reports that Israel plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

Several nations, including France and Britain, have indicated plans to recognise a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly. Israel’s ties with France have been notably tense since President Emmanuel Macron announced Paris’s intention and co-hosted a July conference with Saudi Arabia advocating a two-state solution.

Britain has said it would recognise Palestinian statehood if Israel does not agree to a truce in the ongoing Gaza conflict, which erupted after a Hamas attack in October 2023.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar argued that such international recognition “will destabilise the region” and could make achieving peace more difficult.

“It will push Israel also to have unilateral decisions,” Saar said at a joint press conference with his visiting Danish counterpart, Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

“States like France and the UK that pushed the so-called recognition had made a tremendous mistake,” he added.

Rasmussen said Denmark does not plan a similar move.

“We will never… recognise a Palestinian state which is ruled by Hamas or any other terrorist organisation,” he said.

“And therefore it comes with a lot of preconditions – a disarmed Palestinian state recognising Israel, transparency, democracy… That is our position.”

Saar did not specify what Israel’s reaction may entail, but his remarks come after the government approved new settlement projects in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

A major project just east of Jerusalem, known as E1, would bisect the West Bank, and according to Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

Smotrich, who lives in a settlement, said on Wednesday that Israel should annex parts of the West Bank to “take the idea of dividing our tiny land and establishing a terrorist state at its centre off the agenda once and for all”.

The West Bank is home to around three million Palestinians, as well as about 500,000 Israelis who live in settlements that are illegal under international law.

Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau it captured from Syria, both seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Most of the international community does not recognise Israeli sovereignty over these areas.

Throughout the Gaza war, the West Bank has been rocked by a surge in violence including settler attacks and Israeli military raids.

With inputs from agencies