The hostility toward Israel in Europe is matched only by the enthusiasm for establishing a Palestinian state controlled by Hamas. Leading this effort is France: President Emmanuel Macron announced on July 25 that his country would recognize a Palestinian state later this year. Knesset member Dan Illouz rightly opposed such a state as “a gift to the terrorists of October 7.”
Four days later, at a U.N. conference, France and Saudi Arabia led the New York Declaration, aiming for a “tangible, time-bound and irreversible” step toward the creation of Palestine. The 26-page document, a study in mendacious one-sidedness, is the latest sign of Europe’s anti-Israel sentiment, which has been prevalent since the founding of the Jewish state.
Image created using AI.
On the same day, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK too will officially recognize the Palestinian state in September. More than 90 countries, including those in the EU and the Arab League, and many U.N. member states, support the declaration.
Writer Michael Snyder warns that this is the “biggest international push for the establishment of a Palestinian state.” The new initiative, he says, could spread quietly, and by September, the recognition of Palestine might become a reality. Unless the world wakes up now to the danger of an openly jihadist and terrorist regime, it could be too late.
In the declaration, all references to Israel are accusatory. But Hamas is never once referred to as a terrorist group, though its charter calls for the killing of Jews everywhere and the establishment of a worldwide Islamic government through jihad. Nor is there any mention of Hamas using Gazans as human shields, firing rockets from schools, hospitals, and mosques, and stealing aid—some of which comes from Israel!—to sell it to Palestinians at exorbitant prices.
The declaration does condemn the October 7 Hamas attack, but it also criticizes “the attack by Israel against civilians in Gaza”—as if Israel isn’t entitled to defend itself after such a severe attack on its citizens. Throughout, it says Hamas must “end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority,” an unrealistic expectation. While not calling for any action against Hamas, the declaration urges all states to intervene as parties to the genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The words of praise in the document, as might be expected, are reserved for Palestinians, who have apparently made great efforts to fight “radicalization, incitement, dehumanization, violent extremism conducive to terrorism, discrimination and hate speech.” This is when thousands of Gaza civilians joined the slaughter on October 7, ordinary Gazans participated in beating and torturing the Oct 7 hostages, and Palestinian children routinely jeer at Israeli soldiers with racist slurs and pelt them with rocks using slingshots.
So, how did it happen that Europe, which experienced the Holocaust, has completely turned against Israel and the Jews? It is partly because of large-scale Muslim immigration to Europe, prompting politicians to seek Muslims’ votes. Other reasons, discussed in detail by Bat Ye’or in her 2005 book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, include European nations’ cultivation of Arab nations after the 1973 oil embargo and their refusal to acknowledge Europe’s own history of suffering when large parts of it were under Islamic rule.
Arab propaganda also contributed to the myth in Europe that Palestine—flooded by work-seeking Arabs from the Maghreb, Egypt, and Syria only after the creation of Israel—was Arab land for 5,000 years. Mainstream media helped spread this propaganda and sided with the Arab cause, abandoning all journalistic standards in their coverage of the Middle East.
Although Israel left Gaza 20 years ago, the media still call the strip “occupied.” Hamas attackers are called “militants” or “resistance fighters,” never “terrorists.” European media often echo Hamas talking points, publishing death tolls and figures of women and children killed without verification, even though these come from local stringers who cannot operate in Gaza without sympathizing with Hamas. The Asserson Report is a shocking exposé of the BBC’s biased coverage of the conflict: for example, Israel was branded with committing “war crimes” 592 times, Hamas only 98 times.
As a result of such propaganda and media bias, actuated by attitudes reminiscent of the continent’s centuries-old antisemitism, billions of euros have been allocated to the destruction of Israel and its citizens since the 1990s. The funds are sent to Hamas, which has used them to purchase weapons and construct tunnels for the war against Israel, a maze twice as extensive (350-450 miles) as the Cu Chi tunnels (155 miles) used by the Vietcong during the Vietnam War.
In 1999, Ilka Schroeder, a German member of the European Parliament, discovered that EU funds had been diverted to the Palestinian Authority since 1992 and called for a detailed investigation. However, her demand was rejected because members did not want to face accusations of EU corruption or that the funds were being used for terrorist activities against Israel. In March 2006, she testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, stating that Brussels provided Arafat with 90 million euros during the Intifada and 10 million euros monthly for a year and a half. NGO funds, too, have fueled Hamas’s terrorist activities and tunnel construction.
The realpolitik of trade also plays a major role. France’s annual trade with Muslim countries exceeds $100 billion, while the U.K.’s is $22.55 billion. In contrast, the two countries’ annual trade with Israel amounts to just a couple of billion dollars. France: exports total $1.78 billion, and imports are $1.5 billion; and the U.K.: exports amount to $1.57 billion, with imports of $1.96 billion.
France leads the anti-Israel campaign because, under Macron, it has become a platform for radical Islam, Jew hatred, and the systematic delegitimization of Israel. Hamas propaganda is allowed; France’s educational, judicial, and security institutions are embedded with Islamist coalitionists; and Israel is cautioned when it acts against terrorism. Crimes against Jews are rising, and hundreds of Jewish families are fleeing to Israel. Meanwhile, despite the more than 750 Islamist no-go zones in his country, the demand for Sharia law, and over 700 antisemitic crimes reported after the Oct 7 attack, Macron still believes that supporting Palestine will bring peace at home.
Macron, Starmer, and other EU leaders are also naive to believe that a Palestinian state recognized by the world will bring stability to the Middle East. When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Gazans destroyed greenhouses and modern farming systems provided free of charge and immediately elected a terrorist government. Since then, every restriction imposed by Israel has been necessary for self-defense because construction materials are diverted to build tunnels, pipes, and steel are used for rockets and mortars, and food and agricultural shipments are used to smuggle in chemicals for bomb making. Given its belligerence, Hamas will repeat what happened in 2005, causing hardships for Gazans and intensifying its terrorist activities.
With Hamas controlling a new Palestinian state, the threat to Israel will increase. Therefore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly opposes the two-state solution proposed in the declaration. U.S. President Donald Trump, like Illouz, has called the proposed Palestinian state a “reward for Hamas.” And Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., said, “This is hypocrisy and a waste of time that legitimizes terrorism and hinders any chance of regional progress.”
But the most forceful words of opposition, perhaps, came from Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who told international reporters, “Establishing a Palestinian state today is establishing a Hamas state, a jihadist state. It ain’t gonna happen.” Let us hope so.