Several countries over the weekend changed the address on the websites for their general consulate in Israel to say “Palestine.” The British consulate in Jerusalem, located in the historically Arab and controversial Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, was one of them. The French consulate in Jerusalem, nestled between the historic King David Hotel and the Jaffa Gate of the Old City, as well as the Canadian general consulate in Tel Aviv, also changed their addresses to read “Palestine.”
The online modifications lasted only a few hours before “Palestine” was removed after outrage from government officials and criticism on social media. “After an online fuss — just because the British government says it recognizes Jerusalem is in Palestine doesn’t mean it actually exists — the entire address vanished from its website. It no longer knows where it is,” posted Jewish Chronicle journalist Nicole Lampert on X.
The address debacle resulted from these three countries, and numerous others, proclaiming official recognition of a Palestinian state ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York, raising the number of UN member states that recognize Palestine from 157 out of 193. Such moves were merely symbolic, or as Israeli UN ambassador Danny Danon dubbed them, a “circus.” Also symbolic, and equally performative, was how over 100 diplomats from more than 50 countries walked out on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he began his speech before the General Assembly on Sept. 26.
Such symbolic gestures and performative bedlam reflect an ongoing international trend of normalizing the isolation of Israel.
This international isolation surged immediately after Oct. 7, when the IDF’s retaliatory shelling of Hamas positions in Gaza triggered the outcries of a Palestinian genocide. Since then, the quiet energies of the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement have become more violent and visible. Universities have systematically ostracized Jewish and Israeli students. Publicity stunts, such as the recent “selfie flotillas,” make anti-Israel sentiment popular to an uninformed population. And the Palestinian and left-wing media empire propagates believable narratives of genocide and famine in Gaza that make the vilification of Israel palatable and the need for a Palestinian state all the more urgent.
Diplomatic Isolation Abroad
Recent events have turned this surging tide of isolation into a rogue wave. The recognition of a Palestinian state by Spain, Ireland, and Norway in 2024 in response to perceived genocide and famine in Gaza exposed what many sensible observers long feared: that Europe was not only slipping into irreversible delusion, where it could no longer recognize true indicators of global terrorism, but that it was falling into the belief that supporting a Palestinian terrorist state would actually stabilize the Middle East.
France and the U.K.’s decisions last week — which no doubt helped sway Canada, Australia, and other minor European nations to follow suit — marked the first G7 countries to accept this fraud as reality, and isolated the U.S. as now the only permanent UN Security Council member that does not recognize a Palestinian state. The scores of diplomats who stormed out of the assembly hall while Netanyahu approached the podium signal the frightening reality that it’s not only Palestinians who want a single Arab state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — much of the UN wants it as well.
The Abraham Accords also seem held together by unraveling threads these days, especially following the Israeli airstrikes in Qatar earlier in September, and rumblings in Jerusalem of annexing the West Bank.
The UAE has threatened to downgrade relations with Israel, which could spell the end of the Accords and definitely hinder any progress toward normalization between Israel and other Arab nations. The issue of West Bank annexation is also a nonstarter for Saudi Arabia, which partnered with France last week to rally support for recognizing a Palestinian state among UN members. The unpredictability of the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s firm stance may reveal underlying cracks and alternative motives in the foundation of the Accords. Arab and Gulf states are willing to pay lip service to normalization with Israel as a long-term strategy to eventually isolate the Jewish state through Palestinian sovereignty.
Isolation on Israel’s Borders
Tensions on Israel’s borders also situate the Jewish state in new, precarious circumstances with its neighbors. The good relations long maintained between Israel and Jordan have since deteriorated after respective ambassadors were recalled after Oct. 7, and the Allenby Bridge border crossing became a flashpoint for terrorism. Jordan has criticized Israel’s war in Gaza and has assumed a key role in facilitating humanitarian aid to Gaza by overland trucks through the Allenby Bridge crossing. Roughly 150 trucks of humanitarian aid a week usually enter Gaza from Jordan.
On Sept. 8, a Jordanian aid truck driver opened fire on Israeli border guards, killing two Israeli soldiers. According to an Israeli military statement, “A terrorist arrived in a truck transporting humanitarian aid from Jordan and opened fire.” The incident mimicked a similar tragedy a year ago when a Jordanian aid truck driver also opened fire on Israeli border guards. Israel has since closed the Allenby Bridge, halting aid to Gaza and preventing the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, which has further widened the diplomatic gulf between Jerusalem and Amman.
Relations with Egypt, already tense because of the proximity of the Gaza Strip, are also spiraling downward. Cairo strongly opposes the IDF’s presence in Gaza and opposes any prospect of displacing Gazan Palestinians, especially to Egypt. Last month, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told CNN that any mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza was a “red line.” “We will not accept it, we will not participate in it, and we will not allow it to happen,” he said.
As the IDF’s Operation Gideon’s Chariot pushed into Gaza City in late August, Cairo deployed about 40,000 Egyptian troops in addition to armored vehicles, air defense systems, M60 tanks, and special forces units to northern Sinai. “Egypt’s army is on the highest state of alert we’ve seen in years,” an Egyptian military source told the Middle East Eye.
The Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar media reported last weekend that Egypt’s prospect of doubling the number of troops in the Sinai and transferring more weapons and aircraft to the peninsula would act as a “deterrent to Tel Aviv.” Egypt’s State Information Service denied these allegations, stating that the increased readiness was to secure the border “against all threats, including terrorist operations and smuggling.”
With the concentration of forces at the Gaza border and the Rafah Crossing (known as Zone C), Cairo aims to repel any mass movement of Gazan (i.e., Hamas) refugees that might turn the Sinai into a zone of insurgency, as it was a decade ago when ISIS and other extremist groups infiltrated the Sinai following the Arab Spring.
Isolation From the Iranian Axis
While the 12-Day War last June may have temporarily knocked Iran out of the picture, the scale and speed at which Tehran is rearming, and the partners are supporting rearmament, are alarming. Ynet reported that “Western intelligence agencies, mostly those in Europe, have observed Iranian and Chinese cooperation.” China had previously supplied Iran with military equipment after the October 2024 altercation with Israel, “but is now actually rebuilding the Iranian capabilities.” Israeli intelligence has also detected an upsurge in discreet Chinese military shipments to Iran.
While looking to Beijing for advanced rearmament, Tehran is also calling on Moscow to upgrade its nuclear program. Last week, Iran signed a $25 billion agreement with Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, for the future building of new nuclear power plants.
A newly armed and emboldened Iran has already sparked concern in Jerusalem. Israel maintains stable relations with both China and Russia, which leaves Jerusalem in a precarious military and diplomatic position regarding how to deal with Beijing and Moscow’s support for Iran without igniting a larger crisis. (It’s worth noting that both China and Russia quietly stepped aside while Israel and Iran battled last June). The strength of Iran’s partnerships is not solely aimed at Israel; a strong Iran-China-Russia axis also counters the U.S.’s growing alliance with Israel.
Isolation has been part of Israel’s existential psyche since its founding, and, to its advantage, has in part fostered the productive and creative anxieties to ensure survival at all costs. The increasing isolation of Israel, however, is also a wake-up call to the nations that support the Jewish state — from the U.S. to Micronesia. The steadfast alliance between the U.S. and Israel is, therefore, not only strategic and of the utmost importance to Israel’s survival, but a bulwark of sanity and hope amidst the increasing delusion of Europe and the UN.
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