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What Does International Law Say About Recognizing a Current State of ‘Palestine’?
The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York, Aug. 15, 2014. Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
All state recognitions of “Palestine” to date have failed to meet even a single one of the four Montevideo Convention requirements. Those national governments now expressing their support for the sovereignty for “Palestine” are effectively welcoming a lawless aggressor state into the community of nations. Over time, this terror-state could become an existential hazard for Israel, directly and/or in collaboration with other irredentist states. Ipso facto, it could also undermine international law generally.
Leaders of every ideological stripe of the “nonmember observer state” of Palestine have long displayed and continue to display “criminal intent” (mens rea) toward Israel.
Would this lawless behavior be reduced or better controlled in a Palestinian state? What if the new Arab sovereignty were “demilitarized?”
There is a clear answer to this question: A fully sovereign state of “Palestine” could evade any pre-independence security promises made to Israel, including those made in alleged good faith.
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 would be the case even if the “government of Palestine” were willing to consider itself bound by its own pre-state assurances. Even in such circumstances, the government of Palestine could retain legal grounds to terminate the agreement. For example, it could withdraw from the pact on account of a supposed “material breach.” In all likelihood, such withdrawal would stem from a supposed violation by Israel that had “undermined the object and/or purpose of the agreement.”
Multiple 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.
On its face, 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 any arrangement that had “forced its demilitarization.”
In the 18th century, US president Thomas Jefferson wrote 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.”
A presumptive Palestinian state could lawfully abrogate any pre-independence commitments to Israel to demilitarize. Recent declarations of recognition by France, the UK, and other major states have no legal bearing on the creation of such a state. On the contrary, these declarations directly undermine the authority of law-based international relations, both generally and with particular reference to Israel.
In the final analysis, Jerusalem needs to assess the existential threat of Palestinian statehood as part of a much larger strategic whole; that is, in tandem with the continuously intersecting perils of conventional and unconventional war. This points to a comprehensive analytic focus on potential synergies between enemy state aggressions and Israel’s nuclear doctrine. Notwithstanding Israel’s recent victories over Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli leaders need to calibrate incremental shifts from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure.” Though 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 a new enemy state aggressor from its own still-living body. Despite being expressed in stirring rhythms of high moral authority, the recent recognitions of “Palestine” by major states avoid larger justice issues altogether.
Assigning formal statehood to a violence-based entity that openly seeks the total destruction of an existing state 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. Instead of accepting ad hoc policy prescriptions drawn from non-legal sources, the community of states will need to display good faith (a basic expectation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) by upholding law-based rules.
Under the British Mandate, in confirmation of decisions made at the San Remo peace conference of April 1920, all of Palestine was reserved for the establishment of a “Jewish national home.” In 1922, though no part of mandatory Palestine had ever been designated for the creation of another Arab state, Britain illegally carved Transjordan out of 78% of its mandatory territory. Transjordan became Jordan in 1949, one year after the declaration of the State of Israel. On May 15, 1948, one day after the State of Israel was declared by David Ben-Gurion in Tel-Aviv, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, forecast the war being planned by combined Arab forces: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.”
The later UN partition resolution (1947) included only 22% of the lands originally pledged to establish a Jewish national home. In the interests of a peaceful start, Jewish national authorities accepted the illegally reduced land mass (essentially half of the residual one-fifth) in exchange for establishing a Jewish state. From the beginning, this immediately beleaguered state, less than half the size of America’s Lake Michigan, had to endure with virtually no strategic depth.
There is one last critical observation. In view of continuing misinformation suggesting Israel’s alleged displacement of a pre-existing Arab state, current issues concerning Palestinian statehood and the disposition of Gaza should be understood in an accurate historical context. At absolutely no time in history has there been a Palestinian state.
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). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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EU-Funded NGO Backed Online Platform Targeting Jewish Businesses in Catalonia
Supporters of Hamas demonstrate outside the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Oct. 18. Photo: Reuters/Guillermo Yllanes Gonzalez
The controversial online platform mapping Jewish-owned businesses, schools, and Israeli-linked companies in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain, was promoted by an EU-funded non-governmental organization.
On Tuesday, NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — released new information showing that Engineers Without Borders – Catalonia (ESF-C) and Universities with Palestine (UAP) jointly promoted the BarcelonaZ project on social media, identifying themselves as its primary backers.
First reported by the local Jewish outlet Enfoque Judío, the interactive map was launched by an unidentified group claiming to be “journalists, professors, and students” on the French-hosted mapping platform GoGoCarto.
As a publicly accessible and collaboratively created online platform, the map marked over 150 schools, Jewish-owned businesses — including kosher food shops — and Israeli-linked as well as Spanish and international companies operating in Israel, labeling them as “Zionist.”
“Our goal is to understand how Zionism operates and the forms it takes, with the intention of making visible and denouncing the impact of its investments in our territory,” the project’s website stated.
According to NGO Monitor’s newly released report, ESF-C is a European Union–funded NGO running a Youth Internship Program subsidized by the Public Employment Service of Catalonia, with 40 percent co-financing from the European Social Fund Plus — the EU’s primary program for funding employment, education, and social initiatives.
The EU Financial Transparency System shows that ESF‑C partnered on two EU grants worth about $2.8 million from 2019 to 2023 and received at least $164,000 in funding.
Jewish leaders in Spain have strongly denounced the BarcelonaZ initiative, warning that it fosters further discrimination and hatred against the community amid an increasingly hostile environment in which Jews and Israelis continue to be targeted.
“The mapping and boycotting of Jewish businesses in Catalonia is an echo of some of the darkest chapters in history, including the prelude to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,” the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Director of European Affairs, Shannon Seban, said in a statement.
“The organizers of this initiative put a target on the backs of Spanish Jews, at a time when Jews are being hunted across the globe, as seen so horrifically in Australia just three weeks ago,” she said, referring to the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people and wounded at least 40 others.
“Clear incitement to violence of this nature must not be platformed or tolerated by internet companies or government authorities,” Seban continued.
On its website, ESF-C describes its mission as promoting “a fair international society, which does not exclude anyone,” and highlights its commitment to “non-denominationalism and non-partisanship.” Yet, the NGO’s 2024 annual report also asserts that it “cannot ignore the Palestinian resistance, a clear expression of the struggle for freedom of all oppressed peoples.”
In a social media post, the NGO also accused Israel of “genocide” during its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, describing its platform as “a resource designed to inform, raise awareness, and mobilize the educational and student community in Catalonia.”
“The attacks that began on Oct. 7 have involved water and electricity cuts, the boycott of essential water infrastructure, and the contamination of Palestinian water sources,” ESF-C wrote in an Instagram post, without mentioning the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
“The violation of these basic rights is a key weapon used by the State of Israel to perpetuate genocide,” the statement read.
NGO Monitor also revealed that UAP is a network of Catalan faculty- and student-led anti-Israel organizations that co-sponsored the BarcelonaZ project.
Last year, UAP organized a “People’s Court” at Complutense University of Madrid on what it called the “Palestinian genocide,” with attendance from several terror-linked NGOs and individuals, including Samidoun, Masar Badil, Al-Haq, and Raji Sourani, NGO Monitor reported.
Several community organizations have filed complaints with GoGoCarto, demanding the site’s removal and arguing that it violates French laws against hate speech and discrimination.
Earlier this week, GoGoCarto announced it had removed the BarcelonaZ project from its website after local groups denounced the initiative as blatantly antisemitic and dangerous.
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Knesset member from Netanyahu’s party decries ‘new enemy’: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens
(JTA) — In an address to the Knesset on Monday, Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz decried what he said was a “new enemy” rising within American politics: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
“We are used to enemies from outside. We fight terror tunnels of Hamas. We fight the ballistic missiles of Iran. But today I look at the West, our greatest ally, and I see a new enemy rising from within,” said Illouz, who is originally from Canada originally, in an English address. “I am speaking of a poison being sold to the American people as patriotism. I’m speaking of the intellectual vandalism of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.”
Illouz’s comments come as the Republican party has been roiled in recent months by debates over the mainstreaming of antisemitic influencers within the GOP.
טאקר קרלסון וקנדיס אוונס הם לא פטריוטים – הם ונדלים אינטלקטואלים. הם טוענים שהם נלחמים בשמאל הקיצוני, אבל הם בדיוק אותו דבר: אותה שנאה למערב, אותו רלטיביזם מוסרי ואותו ניסיון להחריב את המורשת שלנו ואת המערב. pic.twitter.com/ygN70WtGEw
— דן אילוז – Dan Illouz (@dillouz) January 7, 2026
In October, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson hosted far-right antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes on his platform, igniting outrage from Jewish conservatives who warned of the growing reach of antisemitic voices.
Owens has long made antisemitic rhetoric a hallmark of her YouTube channel, which has 5.7 million subscribers. A recent analysis of her content by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that three-quarters of her videos that mentioned Jews were antisemitic.
“They claim to fight the woke left. They are no different than the woke left,” said Illouz. “The radical left tears down the statues of Thomas Jefferson, Tucker Carlson tears down the legacy of Winston Churchill. The radical left says Western civilization is evil, Candace Owens says the roots of our faith are demonic. It is the same sickness.”
Carlson and Owens are among the right-wing influencers who have made opposition to Israel a centerpiece of their output, at a time when support for Israel is declining among conservatives, particularly younger conservatives.
In November, Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister, echoed Illouz’s concerns in an interview with the New York Post, telling the outlet that he was “far more concerned about antisemitism on the right than on the left.” The comments were notable because Chikli is himself a right-wing, anti-“woke” warrior who, in a first for Israel, has stoked relationships with far-right European parties that in some cases have ties to the Nazis.
“One of the worst moments was when a popular conservative broadcaster called one of the most vile Holocaust deniers in America ‘one of the most honest historians.’ That legitimizes hate — it normalizes it,” Chikli told the New York Post, appearing to refer to Carlson’s past praise of the Holocaust revisionist Darryl Cooper.
Chikli also warned against the rising influence of Fuentes and Cooper among young Americans.
“Antisemitism has become fashionable for Gen Z,” Chikli continued. “They listen to podcasts, not professors. When people like Nick Fuentes or Darryl Cooper are treated as thought leaders, that’s dangerous. These are neo-Nazis.”
The Times of Israel asked Illouz whether he was worried about appearing to interfere with American politics. “Defending the alliance between America and Israel is not interfering,” he said. “I am in touch with many pro-Israel conservatives who know that Candace and Tucker are a threat to America as much as to Israel.”
Top GOP officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have largely dismissed calls from Jewish conservatives, including Ben Shapiro, and others to draw a line against antisemitic influencers.
“Do you think you are the first to try to delegitimize the Jewish people? We are the people of eternity,” said Illouz toward the conclusion of his address, adding that “we will be here long after your YouTube channels are forgotten dust.”
The post Knesset member from Netanyahu’s party decries ‘new enemy’: Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens appeared first on The Forward.
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Texas Joins Legal Action Against American Muslims for Palestine as Move to ‘Counter Hamas Terrorism’
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks during AmericaFest, the first Turning Point USA summit since the death of Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona, US, Dec. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Cheney Orr
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday announced the state would join Virginia and Iowa in the filing of a legal brief against the nonprofit activist group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and other organizations which he characterized as “radical” in order “to combat Hamas terrorism.”
“Radical Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas must be decimated and dismantled, and that includes their domestic supporting branches,” Paxton posted on the social media platform X.
“Terrorism relies on complex networks and intermediaries, and the law must be enforced against those who knowingly provide material support,” Texas’s top legal officer added in a statement. “My office will continue to defend Americans who have been brutally affected by terrorism and ensure accountability under the law.”
In November, Texas began more aggressive legal efforts against organizations long alleged by researchers and law enforcement to be part of a domestic Hamas support network in the United States. Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Nov. 18, the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as terrorist organizations.
A month later, Paxton filed a motion defending the designation in court, countering a suit by the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin chapters of CAIR. “My office will continue to defend the governor’s lawful, accurate declaration that CAIR is an FTO [foreign terrorist organization], as well as Texas’s right to protect itself from organizations with documented ties to foreign extremist movements,” Paxton said at the time.
In its latest statement, Paxton’s office described how on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, the groups AMP and National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) “declared that they were ‘part of’ a ‘Unity Intifada’ under Hamas’s ‘unified command.’”
“Those who have been victimized by Hamas’s terrorism brought claims against the radical groups under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act,” the statement continued. “Attorney General Paxton’s brief is in support of the victims and was filed to ensure terrorist supporters are brought to justice.”
The legal brief references the “unity intifada” and “unified command” sentiments before stating, “They should be taken at their word. And just like their predecessor organizations — convicted or admitted material supporters of Hamas — they should be held accountable.”
The brief charges, “Defendants here are alleged to have provided material support for Hamas, the brutal terrorist regime that not only oppresses millions in Gaza but that also murdered more than a thousand innocents and kidnapped hundreds more. States have an interest in ensuring that valid claims brought under material support statutes are allowed to be litigated in court and that any violators are held accountable.”
Last year, Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares — whose name appears at the lead of the brief — sought to press AMP to reveal its funding sources, which a judge ruled it needed to do May 9, 2025.
The latest brief provides a history lesson about how AMP and NSJP “did not begin their material support for Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023; rather, their material support has been going on for decades — both as the current organizations and through predecessor entities. Indeed, AMP was founded after a predecessor organization and five of its board members were convicted of providing material support for Hamas.” The brief describes the network beginning when “first, the Muslim Brotherhood founded the ‘Palestine Committee’ in 1988 to fund the terrorist organization Hamas.”
This network included “several organizations providing Hamas financial, informational, and political support,” the legal document explained. “Among those organizations were the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), organizations founded and controlled by senior members of Hamas leadership.”