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RAMALLAH: When France, Britain and other Western powers last year recognised a Palestinian state, entrepreneur Adam Bader felt a sense of hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was happy when I heard about it,\u201d said Bader, 27, who lives in the occupied West Bank\u2019s city of Tulkarem, which has seen repeated Israeli raids in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow a year on, we\u2019re not seeing any improvement. On the contrary,\u201d he said. \u201cThe situation is getting worse by the day and no one can do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year after the recognition, Palestinian statehood in real, tangible terms looks more distant than ever.<\/p>\n
Israeli settler violence has soared, Palestinians are being pushed into ever-smaller areas and the Palestinian Authority has only been weakened.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron, vowing to find a new path forward amid global outrage over Israel\u2019s offensive in Gaza, on September 22, 2025 led a special UN summit to recognise a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n
Ten countries, also including Britain, Canada and Australia, recognised Palestinian statehood, bringing the number of UN member-states doing so to around 157, more than four-fifths of the UN membership.<\/p>\n
But Israel, which enjoys support from the United States, adamantly rejects Palestinian statehood, and has stepped up efforts to isolate the Palestinian Authority of president Mahmoud Abbas.<\/p>\n
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stopped short last year of formally annexing the West Bank, observers say unofficial annexation is creeping as his right-wing government approves an unprecedented number of settlements.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecognition makes the two-state solution a reality politically and diplomatically, but unfortunately on the ground it still depends on the illegal behaviour of Israel, which is not implementing international resolutions,\u201d Omar Awadallah, deputy foreign affairs minister of the Palestinian Authority, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Ines Abdel Razek, a Palestinian political analyst, said that recognition of a state of Palestine amounted to little without measures to support its existence and counter Israeli actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two-state solution\u2019s become a diplomatic refrain to avoid looking at reality in the face,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u2018No future\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Across the West Bank\u2019s limestone hills, thousands of Israeli flags line roads used by Israeli settlers, with the occasional graffiti \u201cNo future in Palestine\u201d stencilled on walls, as a call for Palestinians to leave.<\/p>\n Netanyahu argues that a Palestinian state would be a \u201creward for terrorism\u201d after Hamas on October 7, 2023 carried out the deadliest attack ever on Israel, which responded with a massive military operation in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as I am prime minister, an Iranian-controlled Palestinian state will not be established — neither in Gaza nor in Judea and Samaria. Period,\u201d Netanyahu said last month, using the biblical name for the West Bank.<\/p>\n Iran, which the United States and Israel attacked in February, backs Hamas in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority, centred in the West Bank, is led by Fatah, Hamas\u2019s archrival.<\/p>\n Ahead of the anniversary, Israel ordered the closure of the UK consulate serving Palestinians from Jerusalem, angered after Britain led France and Canada in sanctions over rising attacks by settlers.<\/p>\n Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, explaining the move, said Britain\u2019s Labour government was attempting to \u201cforce upon Israel\u201d a Palestinian state but the attempt was \u201cdoomed to fail\u201d.<\/p>\n Rising attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n The Palestinian Authority, established in the 1990s, has been starved of cash in part by Israel\u2019s decision not to give it customs revenue it collects on its behalf, and struggles to pay its civil servants.<\/p>\n Israel has objected to the Palestinian Authority\u2019s historic payments to families of imprisoned or slain Palestinians, including those who carried out attacks against Israelis.<\/p>\n In early 2025, Israel built nearly 1,000 gates in the West Bank, at the entrances of nearly all villages and towns, which it closes on occasion to control Palestinian movement.<\/p>\n Palestinians have also decried a policy of \u201cmaximum land, minimum Arabs\u201d whereby settlers push out isolated herder communities from rural areas in order to establish settler outposts.<\/p>\n The UN says extremist settlers have been responsible for an average of six attacks per day on Palestinians and Palestinian property in the West Bank in 2026.<\/p>\n Palestinians complain that Israeli perpetrators of violence are almost never brought to justice, and are protected by the army.<\/p>\n Defence Minister Israel Katz has called for police to take over civilian matters from the military in the West Bank, a move observers see as a further step towards annexation.<\/p>\n Sameh, a software engineer in Nablus, still sees last year\u2019s move as a positive sign, but concedes the difficulties.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is still a big distance between international recognition and seeing that recognition translated into reality on the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n