A group of global leaders—including politicians, diplomats, and members of the military—who are members of the Friends of Israel Initiative contributed an op-ed to The Times of London on Saturday, calling the efforts among elements of various European governments to formally recognize a Palestinian state to be “inappropriate, counterproductive and unwarranted.”

The op-ed points out that support of the declaration of a “State of Palestine” contradicts the intent of the Oslo Accords that peace between Israel and the Palestinians must come through negotiations.

First, recognising Palestine will induce the Palestinians to stray from a negotiated solution, given the fact that a hard line has got them this far.

Second, feel-good statements will not change reality on the ground; rather they will rather encourage the Palestinian Authority to continue a static strategy in the negotiations — thereby promoting stalemate in the talks. The Oslo Accords, signed by both sides, commit them to negotiation as the way to reach an agreement. Declarations such as these will only turn the path outlined by Oslo into a chimera, pre-empting the peace it is supposed to produce.

In effect, the piece argues, proffering a Palestinian statehood declaration rewards the intransigent behavior of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas:

It was Mahmoud Abbas who failed to accept the recent US framework document accepted by Israel. It was Mr Abbas who demanded unacceptable concessions from Jerusalem, and it was Mr Abbas who reached a unity agreement with Hamas, just three months before the Islamist group began a massive series of rocket attacks on Israeli cities.

The op-ed concludes, “If we want to have a democratic, free, peaceful and prosperous Palestinian state alongside Israel, recognising an entity that is far from democratic, free, peaceful and prosperous will only thwart any possibility that any such state will exist in the future.”

The op-ed was written by former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and signed by, among others, former United States Ambassadors to the United Nations John Bolton and Bill Richardson, former foreign minister of Italy Giulio Terzi, former president of Peru Alejandro Toledo, and Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan.

In a similar vein, Alan Baker, the former Israeli ambassador to Canada, wrote in an analysis of the movement to recognize “Palestine” written for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

Since the issue of the permanent status of the disputed territory is an agreed-upon negotiating issue, as indeed acknowledged by the international community including the UK, Ireland and Sweden, any resolution by the House of Commons, the Irish Upper House of Parliament or the Swedish prime minister calling for recognition of a Palestinian state in effect purports to pre-empt the outcome of that negotiation through a one-sided determination that totally ignores legitimate legal and historic claims to the territory by Israel, including those based on historic and legal commitments to which the United Kingdom itself is bound.

They would thus appear to be intervening in a bona fide negotiating process by supporting one side only. This is far from constituting any “bridge” to negotiations, so described by shadow foreign minister Mr. Ian Lucas, or “morally right,” as stated by Mr. Nicholas Soames.

To the contrary, rather than encouraging a return to negotiations, as claimed by the proponents of these resolutions, such one-sided and biased issuances emanating from European parliaments will only serve to impede any bona fide and genuine negotiation by encouraging the Palestinians to adopt arbitrary and uncompromising positions on the issues on the negotiating agenda, knowing that they have the support of those European countries.

Last year, the Friends of Israel Initiative called on the European Union to reverse its stand on boycotting Israeli settlements. Earlier this year, during Operation Protective Edge, the group called on the EU and the United Nations to declare the terrorist organization Hamas as the war’s aggressor.

[Photo: WorldJewish Congress / YouTube ]