Will The Arab League End Hamas Rule as UK & Canada Go Along with French Plan to Recognize a Palestinian State at UN?

When French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would call for the establishment of a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in New York, I knew the U.K. and Canada would soon follow suit:

Macron is rewarding Hamas actions on October 7th and is giving them license to continue to negotiate in bad faith on the release of the 50 remaining hostages both living and dead. Unfortunately, I suspect that the rest of the EU, the U.K. and Canada will eventually go along with this dubious scheme.

Sure enough, both the U.K. and Canada have done exactly that with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer making an announcement yesterday while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney followed suit today. 

Yes, I know Starmer stated U.K. recognition of a Palestinian state would be withheld if a ceasefire were forthcoming. But I'm not buying it. Starmer will join Macron and Carney in endorsing a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly even if Hamas were to publicly execute every last living hostage.

However, there is a distinct possibility that Israel (and indeed the United States) might have to go along with this plan in light of the Arab League issuing a condemnation of the October 7th attacks with a demand that Hamas release the hostages, disarm and leave Gaza. 

Now, it's one thing to make a declaration, it's quite another to make it so. Unless the Arab League is prepared to expend political and military capital to gain the release the hostages, have Hamas disarm and leave Gaza, then it is yet another empty statement. But if it were to come to pass between now and September then Israel would be under enormous pressure to go along including from the Trump Administration.

Of course, the devil is in the details. The Arab League resolution calls for the Palestinian right of return. I cannot see Israel agreeing to such a thing because it would guarantee Israel would cease to exist as surely as an Iranian nuclear weapon. Perhaps the Arab League put that provision in there knowing Israel would reject it and when they do to cast blame upon Israel for rejecting peace.

But what if Hamas were to leave? Who fills in the void? Presumably the Palestinian Authority but they would need to be propped up. Mahmoud Abbas, who is in the 20th year of his four-year term, remains PA President only months away from his 90th birthday. Even with Arab League support, their grasp in Gaza and the West Bank would be tenuous leaving room for another Hamas-like entity to fill the void be it Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ISIS, al Qaeda or a new entity altogether.

Of course, for the aforementioned questions to be answered, the Arab League would have to be serious about chloroforming Hamas, and it remains to be seen if they will go beyond mere words while the West continues to delegitimize Israel with each passing day.