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Why a State of ‘Palestine’ Will Not Remain Demilitarized

On the left: Tzeela Gez, who was shot dead while in a car with her husband in the West Bank, as they were driving to hospital to give birth in May 2025. On the right: Hananel Gez holding his son, Ravid Chaim, who died two weeks after the terrorist attack. Photo: Screenshot
France, Spain, Ireland, and Norway have recently announced plans to recognize “Palestine” as a fully-sovereign state. Though these plans may be well-intentioned, they nonetheless disregard an utterly core expectation of international law. Formally, this treaty-based expectation is “peremptory” — a rule that “permits no derogation.”
According to the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (1934): “The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states.”
This binding treaty (aka the “Montevideo Convention”) clarifies that sovereignty always requires (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) a government; and (d) the capacity to enter into relations with other states. The above-listed state endorsements of “Palestine” fail to meet every one of these requirements. Whatever their true motives, states that support “Palestine” are effectively urging the acknowledgment of an expansionist state. Over time, this new terror-state could become an existential hazard for Israel, either directly or in collaboration with a still-nuclearizing Iran.
What if the new Arab sovereignty were “demilitarized?” A full and correct response should be easy to identify. For Israel, imposing demilitarization on “Palestine” would never “work.” Inter alia, a new state of “Palestine” could evade any pre-independence promises made to Israel, even ones that had originally been tendered in good-faith.
There is more. Because treaties are binding only on states, any agreement between a non-state Palestinian authority and a sovereign State of Israel would have no foreseeable effectiveness. This is the case even if a “government of Palestine” were willing to consider itself bound by pre-state assurances.
Even in such presumptively favorable circumstances, rulers of Palestine could retain law-based grounds for agreement termination. For example, they could withdraw from the pact on account of a supposed “material breach.” In all likelihood, this withdrawal would stem from an alleged violation by Israel that allegedly undermined the object and/or purpose of the agreement.
The breach won’t be real — just a pretext for the newly formed state of “Palestine” to renege on its commitments.
Further opportunities for Palestinian manipulation would arise. Palestinian decision-makers could point toward what international law calls a “fundamental change of circumstances” (rebus sic stantibus). If a Palestinian state were to declare itself vulnerable to previously unforeseen dangers, perhaps even to forces of other Arab armies or jihadist insurgencies, it could lawfully end its original commitment to remain demilitarized. A new state of Palestine could also point to “errors of fact” or “duress” as permissible grounds for agreement termination.
Prima facie, any treaty or treaty-like agreement is void if, at the time of entry into force, it conflicts with a “peremptory” rule of general international law — a “jus cogens” rule accepted and recognized by the international community of states as one from which “no derogation is permitted.”
Because the right of sovereign states to maintain military forces essential to self-defense is precisely such a rule, Palestine could credibly argue its right to abrogate an arrangement that had “forced its demilitarization.”
In the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson, an American president, wrote knowledgeably about obligation and international law. While affirming that “Compacts between nation and nation are obligatory upon them by the same moral law which obliges individuals to observe their compacts…,” he simultaneously acknowledged that “There are circumstances which sometimes excuse the nonperformance of contracts between man and man; so are there also between nation and nation.” Specifically, Jefferson continued, if performance of contractual obligation becomes “self-destructive” to a party, “…the law of self-preservation overrules the law of obligation to others.”
Summing up, a presumptive Palestinian state could lawfully abrogate any pre-independence commitments to Israel to demilitarize. Recent declarations of recognition by France and other major states have no legal bearing on the creation of such a state. On the contrary, these declarations seriously undermine the authority of law-based international relations, generally, and in particular reference to Israel.
In the final analysis, Jerusalem needs to assess the existential threat of Palestinian statehood as part of a larger strategic whole; that is, in tandem with the continuously intersecting perils of conventional and unconventional war. More precisely, this points to a comprehensive analytic focus on potential synergies between enemy state aggressions and Israel’s nuclear doctrine. Already, recent victories over Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah notwithstanding, Israeli leaders need to calibrate incremental shifts from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.” Although recent declarations of national support for Palestinian statehood can be countered on a legal level, even a non-state “Palestine” would remain intolerable.
International law is not a suicide pact. Israel has no legal obligation to carve an enemy state aggressor from its own still-living body. Though expressed in the stirring syntax of high moral authority, recent recognition of “Palestine” by four major states misses larger justice issues altogether.
Assigning formal statehood to violence-centered entities that openly seek an existing state’s elimination violates both justice and logic. In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, such assignment is wrongheaded on several levels and signals an evident contradiction in terms. Now, rather than accept the law-ignoring policy urging of France, Spain, Ireland, or Norway, the community of states should be faithful to law-based treaty expectations.
Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).
The post Why a State of ‘Palestine’ Will Not Remain Demilitarized first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.