At this year’s United Nations General Assembly, France, Britain, Canada, Australia, among others, joined more than 150 countries in recognising the State of Palestine. On paper, this is historic as more countries recognise Palestine than Israel. Unless this recognition is backed by action, though, it risks leaving Palestinians to confront the reality of Israel’s brutal occupation alone.

Responding to the new wave of recognition, Israel has threatened to annex the West Bank. For decades, the West Bank has been fragmented into a labyrinth of Jewish-only colonies, seeded by armed racist Zionist youth, and apartheid occupation. Annexation would formalise what Israel has long been enabled to do by Western governments and Arab normalisation. Israel’s disregard to international law does not exist in a vacuum.

In the US, Trump has surrounded himself by groveling pro genocide Israel-first yes-men who have acted, since his return to office, as emissaries of Tel Aviv rather than US officials. Trump has been reduced to a captive pawn, paralysed, manipulated, and out maneuvered by Netanyahu and his “men” in Washington. Every word from his administration reads like a script of Zionist propaganda—perhaps drafted in Tel Aviv for an Israel-first official. It blames Palestinians for Israel’s violation of the ceasefire, granting Israel more time to starve Gaza, commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, and accelerate the demographic change in the West Bank.

Regarding the Monday’s meeting between Trump and Netanyahu, if history teaches anything, it is that Israel has always wagged the occupant of the White House. The hyperbolic marketing of a 21-point ceasefire plan is typical Trump’s political theater with little substance. We have seen this charade countless times, and it would surprise no one if Netanyahu—the tail—aided by his Israel-first collaborators inside the Trump administration, succeeds in injecting a poison pill to undermine Trump’s plan from within. Then Trump will follow the now familiar play of blame and accuse the victim for the collapse of a plan sabotaged by Netanyahu himself.

US administrations and legislatures who clash on nearly every other domestic issue, uniformly kowtow to the demand of Israel and its lobby. The paradox of discord and accord is on full display in Washington today, as both political parties fight over the national budget under the shadow of a looming government shutdown. Yet, in the budget, both sides of the aisle stand united on passing the foreign funding provisions that grant billions of US taxpayers’ dollars to Israel. Ironically, the US is the only nation that borrows money to give to a foreign entity. Funds that subsidise healthcare and free education to Israeli citizens, while the same American lawmakers cannot agree on borrowing to provide those very benefits for their own people.

Back to the countries that recognised Palestine: if these governments truly believe it to be a state, then any Israeli annexation attempt cannot be dismissed as another Israeli violation of Palestinian rights or international law. It constitutes an infringement on the sovereignty of a state they are supposed to have recognised. Absent of protection, the recognition risks being reduced to symbolic act, a PR gesture to pacify domestic public opinion. Real recognition must confront the reality of Jewish settlers, armed and protected by the Israeli army, encouraged by racist ministers, as they terrorise villages, burn homes, and destroy olive groves.

Beyond placating voters, the recognition of Palestine may also reflect mounting frustration with Israel’s use of food as a weapon of war against Gaza’s 2.3 million people. This recognition, however, cannot absolve these countries decades of complicity. For 77 years, Europe armed Israel, financed its occupation, and excused its massacres. In the past two years, it normalised Israeli war crimes calling it “self-defence,” shielding it diplomatically while famine took hold in Gaza.

Further, Western governments have provided Israel with a media censorship platform by adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which absurdly conflates Judaism with the state of Israel. Far from protecting Jews in the West or restraining Israeli leaders, this appeasement has fueled Zionist arrogance and cruelty, turning IHRA into little more than a political tool to silence Western intellectuals who dare to criticise Israel. As we witness the genocide in Gaza, the IHRA has revealed itself as a cynical Zionist scheme designed to desensitise criticism of Israel and embolden its leaders to commit war crimes with total impunity.

Recognition from past enablers is worthless unless backed by concrete action to make the state they claim to recognise a reality. Palestinians were promised a process for a statehood in 1993, after more than three decades of negotiations, they remain trapped in an endless cycle of delays while Israel entrenches its occupation, expands the Jewish-only colonies, and erases Palestine from the map.

Now those who recognise Palestine face a clear choice: take concrete steps to ensure the emergence of an independent Palestinian state. To achieve this, and until Israel complies, they must:

End complicity. Suspend trade, cultural, military, and diplomatic relations with Israel until it complies with international law.
Ban goods from the illegal Jewish-only colonies. Products from colonies built on stolen Palestinian land must be barred from international markets.
Sanction Jewish colonists. Freeze their assets, impose travel bans, and hold them criminally accountable for violence. Recognising Palestine means recognising colonists as illegal occupiers.
Impose consequences for annexation. If Israel annexes the West Bank land or any part thereof, coordinated sanctions must follow.
Pursue justice. Those who recognise Palestine must lead in bringing cases before the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice against Israel’s settlers, soldiers, and politicians for crimes of apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and state-backed terror.

If European countries are not ready to enforce Palestinian statehood, then the alternative option is to abandon the two-state illusion altogether. Dismantle the Jewish apartheid system and demand one democratic state where Palestinians and Jews live as equals, in egalitarian society, and under a single uniform law. The same rights and protections Jews enjoy in the US and Europe.

Recognition is not charity. It is an inalienable Palestinian right. Rights, which demand protection. Standing idle while Israel annexes land and colonisers terrorise Natives exposes the hypocrisy of governments that congratulate themselves for “historic recognition” while doing nothing to end injustice.

For 77 years, Palestinians have endured dispossession, massacres, and broken promises. Gaza lies in ruins, Palestinian refugees suffer in camps, the West Bank bleeds under settler pogroms, and annexation is no longer a threat but a reality. Now the 150 states, plus, that recognise Palestine must decide: will their recognition become the birth certificate of a sovereign Palestinian state, or another death certificate for international credibility?

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.