Recognising Palestine is not a gift to Hamas

Malta did the right thing on Monday to formally recognise the Palestinian state with all the diplomatic and legal trappings this entails.

After stalling for more than a year, Prime Minister Robert Abela finally took the next logical step in Malta’s five-decades-old relationship with the Palestinian people.

Support for the Palestinian cause has been a constant principle in Maltese foreign policy since the 1970s. The commitment to the Palestinian cause is one of the few issues where cross-party support has endured.

Recognition of Palestinian statehood follows the bold steps taken over the years to strengthen the relationship between Malta and Palestine.

From Dom Mintoff’s invitation to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to open an office in Malta in 1974 to Guido de Marco’s gesture to visit Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan on his first overseas trip as president of the UN General Assembly in 1991, and George Vella’s efforts to bring Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy together during the Euro-Mediterranean Conference held in Malta in 1997, Malta’s support for a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel has never wavered.

Indeed, in 1988, Malta’s Permanent Representative at the UN in New York, Alexander Borg Olivier, presented a letter to the organisation’s secretary general in which the Maltese Government affirmed its “recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own”. And since 2009, Malta has had a representative office in the Palestinian-administered Ramallah in the West Bank.

But Malta’s commitment to the Palestinian cause was never exclusionary. Malta has always maintained good diplomatic relations with Israel and reaffirmed the Jewish people’s right to live in peace and security. Malta has consistently supported the two-state solution as

defined by the UN.

Palestinians and Israelis have a right to live in dignity, prosper, enjoy peace and live securely in their homes, their streets, their cities. But there is no mistaking who is on the receiving end in this equation. Palestinians continue to suffer oppression as they see their land in the West Bank being eaten away by illegal Israeli settlements and Gaza being raised to the ground.

Malta’s recognition of a Palestinian state will not change the course of history in the Middle East. Neither will it materially improve things on the ground for downtrodden Palestinians. But it does represent a significant gesture of solidarity with a people that has been suffering occupation, displacement and humiliation for more than 70 years.

The Israeli narrative has been to depict recognition of Palestinian statehood as a gift to Hamas and an endorsement of terrorism. This is just spin, intended to confuse issues and perpetuate the status quo.

By recognising a Palestinian state, Malta is not endorsing terrorism, or the murderous actions of Hamas. It is definitely not a gift to Hamas and it is neither the negation of Israel’s right to enjoy peace and security. On the contrary, it is an act of goodwill that recognises the Palestinian people’s right to live free in a prosperous, peaceful and viable state.

Hamas is not Palestine, just as the Taliban are not Afghanistan. Indeed, Malta outrightly condemned the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israeli communities; has consistently called for the unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza; and is insisting, Hamas play no part in the Palestinian state.

It would be a mistake to conflate the Palestinian people with Hamas. But Israel’s current government, propped up by extremist elements that would rather see Palestinians removed completely from their land, has no interest in drawing this distinction. Conflating Hamas with all Palestinians makes it easier to justify the genocide going on in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinian lands by Jewish settlers taking place in the West Bank.

Israel’s actions are intended to make the two-state solution unviable, leaving them in control of all territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Last August, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the idea of a Palestinian state was “being erased” when unveiling the construction of a controversial settlement outside East Jerusalem that would cut off the contiguity of any future Palestinian state.

It is within this context that recognition of Palestinian statehood should be followed by concrete steps to suspend trade with Israel, impose punishing sanctions on extremist government ministers and impose an arms embargo. The EU may not be politically influential in Israel but it certainly has the economic clout to put pressure, if it can find the will to do so.

Difficult as the circumstances are today, the two-state solution remains the only viable solution in the long term. This is the message Malta has always put forward in international forums and one which it must continue pressing on.