Musa Iqbal
Recent moves by Western governments to recognize Palestinian statehood come as a welcome development, but the conditions that accompany statehood reveal a lot more about the crumbling state of the Israeli occupation, the devastating blow to the so-called U.S. “rules based order,” and containment measures imperialism is adopting when properly examined.
After two years of Israeli genocide, where figures estimate 100,000 Palestinians have been martyred by Zionist forces in the Gaza Strip, Western countries are slowly posturing that they will “recognize the State of Palestine.” In recent days, the governments of France, Canada, and the United Kingdom have all vowed to recognize Palestinian statehood during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.
These political moves come after perhaps the most well-documented genocide of all time, where live footage of Israeli carnage floods social media networks. At the same time, mainstream news churns narratives defending the Zionist massacre of Palestinians, day in and day out.
The crisis has, of course, worsened, reaching a point where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians face imminent starvation as the Israeli Occupation has denied the entry of food and other aid into the besieged strip. The available aid is at established checkpoints where occupation forces, along with American mercenaries, fire into starving crowds. At the same time Israeli forces tighten their grip, Palestinian resistance forces within the strip continue to carry out heroic, complex operations, eliminating Zionist soldiers and destroying positions, tanks, and other vehicles.
This resistance, which has acted in defense of the Palestinian people, which has never laid down its arms in exchange for a false sense of security, is being coerced to dismantle itself by the very Western governments willing to recognize Palestinian statehood. It is the key imposed element built into the alleged recognition of Palestinian statehood: that Hamas, arguably the vanguard of the Palestinian people, must never return to govern anything, and must completely dismantle its armed wing and turn in its weaponry. In its place, the Palestinian Authority, a group that war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has said “does our (Israel’s) job for us”, must reform itself to the whims of Western acceptance and rule over the Palestinian people.
The statehood that the West intends to recognize is no statehood at all. Furthermore, with the current stage of the genocide, it may not happen. The UK has conditioned the recognition of statehood to only go through if the Zionist entity does not wrap up its assault on Gaza and cease its expansion in the West Bank (the Knesset just voted to annex the entirety of the West Bank).
The conditional recognition of Palestinian statehood is a response to the resistance’s ability to successfully confront Zionist forces for nearly two years now, with its current stage beginning with the heroic operation of October 7th, 2023, operation “Al Aqsa Flood.” Despite its horrific aerial assaults, ruthless massacre and torture of civilians, and ongoing methods of starvation, the Zionist military has found itself in a military quagmire within the strip.
Soldiers are ambushed, killed, or maimed, as those who survive return from the front with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, often committing suicide – which has now become a trend among Zionist veterans.
Successful resistance followed by calls for disarmament is not just limited to Gaza. Hezbollah’s engagement in the north, though now halted by a ceasefire (that Israel has violated over three thousand times), has rendered entire settlements empty to this day, despite the ceasefire officially commencing in November of 2024. Hezbollah not only had direct battlefield confrontations with the Zionist entity, but was able to strike as far as Tel Aviv using its missile and drone programs. Similarly, Hezbollah is also being pressured by the US and the Israeli Occupation to disarm itself – something that it has rejected outright and declared a red line.
Furthermore, the same demand for disarmament is also being imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran after it successfully prevented the Israel-US alliance from succeeding in its objective of regime change during the “12-Day War.” Iranian missiles struck the Zionist entity in critical areas, including the Weizmann military research base and other military-intelligence installations. As expected, Iran also rejects any call for disarmament.
It is quite clear why Western governments are imposing disarmament as a requirement for Palestinian statehood. Not only is Israel successfully repelled by resistance, but it is facing a scenario where its very survival is threatened. The Israeli Occupation, to successfully carry out its role as the enforcer of US-imperialist will in the region, needs to be the dominant military force. However, it cannot claim this title when it is successfully beaten back each time by armed resistance.
From Palestine to Iran, sovereignty is defended not by words at the UN General Assembly, but by bullets, rockets, missiles, and drones. This is not to discount the words of world leaders, but when push comes to shove, it is the exchange of projectiles that determines whether nations fall or survive. The demand for disarmament can then be considered a force of containment, a counter-revolutionary bid by imperialism to save its military partner in the region at the small price of recognizing a state without a means to defend itself.
As proven by the last two years of Israeli aggression against the entire region, how can a state enjoy sovereignty while its aggressor is armed to the tune of billions of dollars of weaponry on a quarter-to-quarter basis? It cannot—and that is the point. When the Ba’ath government in Syria fell in late 2024, the first military operations by the Zionist entity against Syria involved destroying its air defenses, weapons depots, and other military targets. Syria, which stood as a bulwark against the spread of Zionism for so long, has opened itself up to ongoing Zionist aerial bombardment because it lost its defense capabilities. Now, it must beg Washington for the cessation of hostilities. A once proud nation now stands at the whims of whoever is in the White House.
The Resistance Axis’s steadfast commitment to maintaining its arsenals is essential to preserving its independence, protecting its people, and resisting the hegemonic designs of imperialist forces led by the United States and its Zionist enforcer.
It is also worth analyzing the role of some Arab states that support the disarmament of Hamas, as demonstrated by the recent French-Saudi summit in New York. The Arab states that call for the disarmament of Hamas – including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, and others – are well integrated into the US-imperialist order. The survival of these governments is only guaranteed by security arrangements by the United States, in exchange for recognition of the Zionist entity or their refusal to engage with it in a hostile manner. These security arrangements ironically contain the selling of advanced armaments.
Thus, these “sovereign” states are not truly sovereign. Their governments are ultimately guaranteed survival by U.S. security arrangements, provided their resources are dedicated to advancing US economic interests. This would include the maintenance of the petrodollar, facilitating access to resources and cheap labor for US-based multinational corporations, and, of course, the containment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This arrangement – more formally known as neocolonialism – is disguised as independence. These states have their own flag, their own army, their own internationally recognized government and political system. But imperialism has captured it economically via exploitative trade relations and debt traps – and integrated it into its own world system, subordinating the allegedly sovereign government.
Comparing and contrasting the “sovereignty” of these states, which obtain their arms through US-Israeli contracts, to the sovereignty of Palestine set by the terms of popular armed resistance – makes it evidently clear that sovereignty, by Western definition, only applies to the U.S. “rules-based order.”
Disarming these groups – who are the defenders of their people – would not bring peace but capitulation, allowing imperialist powers to impose their will unchecked. It would open up the doors of exploitation and plunder by imperialists in an unchecked fashion. It would mean further destruction of people and land. The history of disarmed nations – for example, Libya under Gaddafi – serves as a reminder of the fate awaiting those who relinquish their arms.
Furthermore, the demand to “reform” the Palestinian Authority is just that – reform of an organization that has the primary purpose of suppressing Palestinian popular, revolutionary will, as it has demonstrated throughout its history. As it stands, the Palestinian Authority by its very history as a tool to manage the affairs of Israeli interests within Palestinian territories. The Palestinian Authority has assassinated some of Palestine’s most revolutionary fighters and thinkers such as Abdul Rahman Abu al-Muna and Nizar Banat. It continues to suppress protests in the West Bank. Its leadership often shares the same goals – and rhetoric – as the Israeli occupation.
Like with other neocolonial forces within the region, the “reform” of the Palestinian Authority would be a model constructed to further ensure security guarantees for the Zionist regime. Furthermore, with the formal recognition of the Palestinian state under conditions of disarmament, a Palestinian Authority would serve the purpose of integrating into the world imperialist system.
Popular will of the Palestinian masses would be stifled in order to pillage and exploit resources, land, and labor for the benefit of the U.S. ruling class. A small minority of Palestinian comprador agents would manage these affairs, and with armed resistance out of the way, the Palestinian Authority would enjoy some of the same guarantees other Arab regimes integrated into the U.S. capitalist order already enjoy.
The path that has led to this point of Western “recognition” is because of the very success of armed resistance. Western governments are now scrambling to reach a compromise, where a toothless state is “recognized” by world imperialism so long as it is no real state at all – it exists only as a vassal for the exploitation of Palestinian people and land.
As Western governments come to terms with the fact that the Israeli Occupation failed to achieve its objectives, they will look for a way to salvage what they can politically, while saving their image in the face of an undeniable genocide. It cannot be overstated: the vast majority of the world recognizes Palestine and condemns the actions of the Zionist entity. The fact that a few outlier Western nations have held out for this long is not a sign of diplomatic or political savvy; it is a mark of complicity. Now, as the people of these nations declare their unwillingness to support the Zionist entity in record numbers, these governments will make quick moves to ensure the survival of their regional enforcer.
If we care about the sovereignty of Palestine, then we must support the right to armed resistance. There is no other alternative.
Musa Iqbal is the Political Director and Editor at Vox Ummah.
