The Most Significant Shift in International Relations

As not seen since the 1956 Suez Crisis, the escalating repercussions of more than 150 countries voting to declare recognition of the State of Palestine and to advance the two-state solution may redraw the architecture of international alliances stretching from Washington to Beijing.

What reinforces the value and significance of this shift is the joint action achieved between two distinct strategic pillars of today’s world: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, guardian of the Islamic holy sites, and France, the secular state that has long supplied Israel with weapons since the 1960s.

It is the greatest challenge to the United States’ monopolization of the Middle East peace process as an aspect of its global hegemony—blatantly embodying Israel’s diplomatic isolation.

This is not only about Palestine; it signals the early stirrings of a comprehensive restructuring of global power. France—America’s oldest ally—has openly broken with U.S. foreign policy. Even Britain—the historical architect of the maps of the modern Middle East—has retreated after a century of procrastinating and obstructing recognition of Palestine.

For more than 18 months, under diligent Saudi-French sponsorship, eight specialized diplomatic teams worked on the various aspects of an action plan for the two-state solution.

This was by no means ceremonial. Timetables, benchmarks, and specific enforcement mechanisms were set. Article 12 establishes an International Fund for Palestinian Development with initial commitments of $50 billion over ten years—not as “aid” to a Palestinian state, but as capital for state-building. Article 15 establishes a regional security structure with mutual and international defense guarantees for a future Palestinian state. And it essentially creates preferential trade relations between Palestine and European markets, bypassing Israeli economic leverage entirely.

The “New York–Gaza Declaration” was enshrined as an integral part of a unified Palestinian state with the West Bank—peaceful and free from occupation or forced displacement.

In addition, the declaration reinforced the Palestinian president’s commitment to a peaceful settlement and the continued rejection of violence and terrorism.

By contrast, Israel and the United States gained the support of Paraguay, Palau, and Micronesia. What a grand alliance!

This was not merely support for Palestinian rights; it was an attempt to prevent the complete collapse of Western influence in the Middle East. Three concurrent factors contributed to this international shift. First, the foundations of the Abraham Accords have eroded, making normalization with Israel effectively contingent upon the establishment of a Palestinian state. Second, to salvage their political futures, European leaders were compelled to respond to their publics after desperate attempts to stem the tsunami of European public opinion. Third, there is the arithmetic of the United Nations: Israel and the United States are alarmed by 150 countries recognizing Palestine and by the clear support of four out of five permanent members of the Security Council. In this context, the American veto—or the development of bilateral diplomatic relations or economic partnerships—avails them nothing.

From the Korean War to the Suez Crisis, the Cuban crisis, and the wars of the Middle East, over 75 years, control over international crises has reinforced American global influence through crisis management.

Important as it is, the issue does not end with recognizing Palestine. Rather, this shift signals the beginning of the end of an era of American unipolarity in world affairs and the emergence of an international dynamic parallel to the system of American hegemony and monopoly. Indeed, European recognition of Palestine dismantles that framework in its entirety.

What next? Questions and scenarios: further escalation will be met with further isolation for Israel. The European Union threatens economic sanctions against any escalation, in a graduated response—starting with suspending the benefits of the Association Agreement and banning arms and dual-use technologies; moving to financial sanctions on the settlements; and culminating in full economic isolation, akin to South Africa.

While Europeans face enormous domestic political pressures, the United States will exert significant strategic pressure on its European allies. The United States will resist the establishment of a Palestinian state through European channels, which would fundamentally undermine its leadership. For if that were achieved, it would shatter the entire architecture of American leadership.