A new wave of recognitions of the State of Palestine is underway. A déjà vu of the 2011-2012 Palestinian statehood bid (which culminated with 138 states voting to grant Palestine non-member observer State status at the United Nations) is in full swing again in New York, London, Paris, Ottawa, Canberra, and elsewhere. Back then, the atmosphere was more positive and optimistic. There was no genocide, imposed famine, and erosion of people and their history on the scale we have been witnessing since October 2023. Instead, then, there was a “global celebration” of the Palestinian State that “existed in all but name” as the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority at the time firmly declared, adding that Palestinians are getting “closer to the rendezvous with freedom.” So, while the Palestinian Authority got the recognition it was seeking almost 15 years ago, the reality of the State of Palestine today is farther away than at any time since that Authority was established in 1993.

Alarmingly, the new wave of the nominal statehood recognition does not recognize the Palestinians themselves: the people and their individual and collective rights. A basic definition of a state is largely about the land and the people. Yet, the land has been captured over the years by the settler colonial – and now genocidal – State of Israel; while the people have been killed and ethnically cleansed in tens of thousands over the past two years, accelerating a process that began with the 1948 Nakba, which begs the question: What is a state without the people, and without the land?

Let us be clear: the new wave of recognitions of the State of Palestine is largely driven by a desire to address political guilt and impotence over the silence – and in some cases complicity – in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but so far does not carry with it a true commitment or plan to make that state a reality. Despite the glowing rhetoric from everybody that this recognition is a victory for Palestine, the Palestinians, and their inalienable rights, the emptiness of these slogans is staggering when contrasted with the realities on the ground: a systematic denial of rights, annexation of the occupied West Bank, erasure of the Gaza Strip, political bankruptcy of almost all Palestinian factions and forms and shapes of political leadership, and the fascist expansionist agenda of Israel.

After two years of international failure to stop the genocidal war on Gaza, a declaration on Palestinian statehood appears as an easy solution and a magical formula for countries needing to appear to do something to “cleanse” their silence or impotence, especially for those who have invested for decades in the original two-state solution framework.

But declaring a state – without steps to address its land and its people – is a continuation of the “statehood opium” approach which keeps an obsolete framework alive and allows involved actors to boast about their commitment to “peace and justice” while the celebrated nominal state is pounded by Israel into a mere mirage and hallucination, or until major segments of the Palestinian people are erased. If those actors did not manage to stop an ongoing genocide over two years, or are complicit in sustaining it, and if these same actors did not manage to build a Palestinian State over the past 32 years, why is now different? This is the question that the Palestinian people want an answer to.

The so-called peace plan offered by French President Emmanuel Macron on 22 September from the podium of the United Nations is not really a peace plan, unless the meaning of peace has changed or continues to be distorted. At best, it is a roadmap to free the 48 Israeli hostages as an ultimate priority (but no mention of the nearly 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails), to disarm Hamas, to empower and revive the Palestinian Authority, and to put a long list of conditionalities on the Palestinians and their present and future (which the leadership of the Palestinian Authority gladly accepted and endorsed). That is not a recipe for peace. It is another form of domination.

Diplomacy is critical and negotiations are crucial, but they cannot be superior to other equally important issues that are dismissed in relation to the overall framework within which diplomacy functions, such as the questions of dignity, resistance, legitimacy, accountability, local ownership, political representation and pluralism, and Palestinian agency, to name but a few. The appeal for diplomacy and negotiations should stem from these issues and be rooted in them instead of masking and marginalizing them. This is the lesson to draw from the Oslo Accords and the subsequent 30 years of peace distortion. Otherwise, we are willingly marching on a path that will provide nothing more than another false “framework of peace" that sustains and normalizes Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid.

In fact, those states that are recognizing the State of Palestine today argue that the timing is of the essence, and that at this critical juncture the declaration is the panacea to peacebuilding, and that they are committed to take follow-up actions in the near future to implement the New York Declaration, and to finally and for once realize the framework of the two-state solution. However, after three decades of failures, and the stark failure of the past two years, why should the Palestinian people, not their illegitimate leadership, trust those who are celebrating now, while the people are suffering and being erased and ethnically cleansed? There is a surreal contrast that is not reconcilable. If those actors interested in peace are really interested in seeing change, they should start by understanding and addressing the current one-state reality that exists between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea: Apartheid, genocide, and settler colonialism.

Additionally, it is even more plausible to argue that back in 2011, the Palestinian Authority – in terms of institutions, financial position, donors’ commitment, and even legitimacy – was riper to assume the role of a state and the context was more conducive to peace than today. At the time, 140 countries recognized that, and the main international organizations testified to and declared the institutional readiness of the Palestinian statehood. Since then, the mere idea of Palestinian statehood does not extend beyond pretentious declarations, emotional announcements, and fancy words. Those “actions” do not trickle down to alter the detrimental realities on the ground. Three decades and counting, the Palestinian people do not feel or perceive that their human, civic, political, and national rights are considered genuinely and seriously. This matters for peace, as those interested in building peace know very well, but on this occasion, they have decided, once again, to conveniently dismiss the people, or merely pay lip service to their suffering and aspirations.

Ultimately, a recognition that is driven by political guilt is certainly not sufficient for a lasting peace or justice if it is not accompanied by actions that center the colonized Palestinian people and their rights to dignity, self-determination, and freedom. And the louder the celebrations get, be it by the international actors or by the politically bankrupt Palestinian factions and leadership, the more surreal and dangerous these celebrations are. As I argued before, the celebration of the trappings of statehood did not only render the mere idea of the state – as a vehicle to realize rights – simply unviable and unattainable over the past decades, but it also contributed to the denial of Palestinian rights, including the right to sovereign statehood and freedom.

This is not meant to be a “rejectionist” or “pessimistic” perspective as some might argue. I am not interested in serving as a spoiler or “party pooper”, and my criticism is not targeted against the principled positions of countries such as South Africa, Spain, Norway, Ireland, and others that have gone beyond mere declarations. But it is an argument that is embedded in observing and living the multilayered failures of the so-called “peace process”. The return to the “old normal” is neither good news for peace nor justice, let alone freedom and equality for the Palestinians. A 24-hour hyped news cycle celebrating a Palestinian State will not return the tens of thousands killed in Gaza over the past two years, nor feed the hungry, nor prevent further killings by Israel, nor hold those who killed them accountable, unless concrete actions, not declarations, are taken.

Declarations could signal a fresh start. But these declarations will ring true when we see serious sanctions on Israel, when the rulings of the international courts and the conclusions of the UN reports are taken seriously, when Israel pays for its actions, and when Palestinian choices are respected, when a meaningful Palestinian democracy is not denied, and when Palestinians are able to claim political agency and draw the contours of their future.

Inferring a direct link between statehood recognition and stopping the genocide is a mere fantasy. I suspect that those in power know that a symbolic gesture driven by political guilt, and not by a genuine commitment to accountability, rules-based world order, and decolonization, will not stop a genocidal machine. In fact, they are distracting attention by throwing out a party while the same concerned nation is being annihilated, and by that, they once again distract from the core: how to stop the genocide, how to end the Israeli occupation, how to dismantle apartheid, and how to decolonize. The ways and avenues to first hold Israel and its allies accountable are clear and straightforward. And by not doing that, those governments, driving their actions by political guilt, are doubling down directly or indirectly either on their complicity or failures. On both occasions, they are causing harm, not only to the Palestinians and their quest for freedom, but to the very meaning of peace. Before they recognize Palestine, they need to recognize the Palestinians.