Denying statehood isn’t just bad faith — it’s central to Israeli agenda

Let’s be honest, what has happened to the people of Palestine, to Palestine itself, has been able to happen because Palestine has been denied statehood.

If Palestine had legally recognised statehood worldwide, would Israel have had carte blanche to batter it to the bloody pulp we’ve all witnessed over these last six months?

Denying Palestine statehood isn’t just bad faith on Israel’s part, it’s central to its agenda.

Let’s go back a bit.

Palestinians were living peacefully in their own land when Zionists — mainly Russian and Eastern European Jews who’d suffered appalling pogroms — decided they wanted a country of their own. They persuaded the Brits to give them Palestine.

The Suez Canal was close by and the British governor general, fresh from Northern Ireland, said: “Our aim is to create a loyal little Jewish Ulster in Palestine. To guard against a sea of hostile Arabism.”

Rhetoric was ramped up. Palestine was “a land without people for a people without land”. No matter that over a million and a half Palestinians lived happily there amid fertile farms, olive groves, schools, mosques, a functioning administration, alongside small groups of Christians and Jews.

From the beginning Zionism meant death to Palestine. Founding father Theodor Herzl said: “We shall endeavour to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed.” A Palestinian uprising in response to thousands of refugees after World

War II was brutally crushed, with Zionist support.

When the Brits washed their hands of the mess they’d made, Zionists were ready. A UN mandate carving Palestine up was ignored. Thousands of Palestinians were killed. Thousands of villages were burnt to the ground. Entire cities surrounded, sieged and bombed and 750,000 Palestinians were driven into Lebanon.

In 1948, amid blood and gore, the state of Israel was founded. The state of Palestine — what state?

It was a stunning magical trick. Here’s Palestine — oops, Palestine is gone. Here’s Israel, and now every surviving Palestinian is a stateless refugee inside their own country.

Europe and America played along. Europe, because of guilt over the Holocaust, and because having thousands of Holocaust survivors in their midst would be both embarrassing and dangerous. What if they clubbed together and rose up against their persecutors now busy carving up the remains of Germany and Europe between them? America, because Israel would be their aircraft carrier in the Middle East.

Palestinians, what Palestinians? Successive Israeli administrations agreed: granting Palestine statehood would be “an existential threat to Israel”.

It would be laughable if it weren’t such an appalling reversal of the truth: it is Israel that wishes to wipe Palestinians off the map; that is actually wiping Palestinians off the map.

To be fair, the Israelis are right to be terrified of growing calls for statehood to be granted to Palestine.

Statehood would mean Palestinians would be in a position to argue legally for their rights. As opposed to begging concessions from a brutal occupier. It would mean they could fix their boundaries.

No more settlers in the West Bank. They could go to the International Court of Justice. They would have a seat at the UN (at the moment they only have observer status). They could invoke international law to stop the Israelis trying to genocide them.

Even at this very late stage, statehood would change everything.

One of the countries honourably leading the campaign is Ireland, with Tánaiste Micheál Martin joining leaders from Spain, Malta, Slovenia and Australia. The usual suspects — America, Germany, France and the UK — are lined up on the No side.

For most people with a beating heart, even at this eleventh hour, maybe particularly at this eleventh hour, granting full statehood to Palestine cannot come soon enough.

With Armageddon looming, it might be what saves us all.