A day after Belgium said it will announce its recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN later this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called his Belgian counterpart Bart de Wever “a weak leader who seeks to appease Islamic terrorism by sacrificing Israel.”
“He wants to feed the terrorist crocodile before it devours Belgium,” Netanyahu said of de Wever in a post on X. “Israel won’t go along and will continue to defend itself.”
This was the second time in as many weeks that Netanyahu has called a head of state “weak.” He also described Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as “a weak politician” after Canberra said it would recognize a Palestinian state.
Also commenting on Belgium’s announcement, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told the Belgian Sudinfo newspaper that it was “a very strange decision, which was taken under pressure.”
“But in any case, I’ll tell you frankly: it’s not happening now!” he continued. “If Hamas continues to rule Gaza, it will never happen. So the question of whether a Palestinian state will exist or not is not linked to the decision of the government in Brussels, but rather to the decisions of the government in Jerusalem.”
Asked about the future of Gaza after Hamas, Sa’ar said Israel has “no intention of controlling the Palestinian population in Gaza.”
“They must be given autonomy, but it must be linked to the end of two things: first, the end of terrorism, of course; second, the end of incitement,” he said.
Notably, Sa’ar did not categorically rule out a Palestinian state at some point, instead saying that “this process can only be realistic when they change their attitude.”
Belgium said Tuesday that it will recognize the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, joining France, Australia and several other major Western countries that have announced their intention to do so in recent weeks.
“Palestine will be recognized by Belgium at the UN session! And firm sanctions are being imposed against the Israeli government,” Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot wrote on X.
Prevot said the move would send a “strong political and diplomatic signal” to preserve the chances of a two-state solution, and “mark the condemnation of Israel’s expansionist ambitions, with its colonization programs and military occupations.”
Belgium noted “the trauma that the Israeli people have suffered from the terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023,” he added, and that therefore “administrative formalization” of the recognition of Palestine will only be declared by royal decree “when the last hostage has been released and Hamas no longer exercises any form of governance over Palestine.”
A Belgian official explained to The Times of Israel that at the UN, Belgium will announce “its political commitment to recognize Palestine, in view of a two-state solution. Belgium also calls in parallel all Arab countries to recognize Israel.”
Belgium will not take formal measures, like opening an embassy, until Hamas is disarmed and excluded from any governing role, said the official.
In July, French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN meeting, and more than a dozen other Western countries have since said they would do the same. Israeli ministers have lambasted the move as a “reward for terror” in the wake of the October 7, 2023, onslaught.