Will Western Governments Rescind Recognition of Palestine

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has once again postponed Palestinian elections, this time from November 2026 until September 2027. It is a familiar routine for the 90-year-old leader, who was elected in 2005 to a four-year term and has remained in power for 21 years. Palestinians last elected a legislature in 2006, when Hamas defeated Abbas’s Fatah party. Since then, Abbas has repeatedly promised elections, postponed them and continued governing by decree, knowing that he will be trounced in elections.

This latest postponement for the authoritarian leader has consequences far beyond Palestinian politics. In September 2025, Canada, France, Britain and Australia recognized a Palestinian state, citing commitments by Abbas to democratic elections and governance reform. Just over a year later, those promises have been broken.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly predicated recognition on Abbas’s commitment to fundamental governance reform, elections in 2026 excluding Hamas, and demilitarization. Australia’s Anthony Albanese similarly cited Palestinian commitments to elections, reform and demilitarization.

French President Emmanuel Macron secured written assurances from Abbas to hold presidential and legislative elections under international supervision. Britain’s Keir Starmer endorsed Abbas’s commitment to elections within a year of a ceasefire. Belgium tied further diplomatic implementation to elections and Hamas’s disarmament.

These Western governments knew Abbas’s record when they accepted his promises. He had already postponed national elections in 2021.

Meanwhile, only 32% of Palestinian Arabs are in favor of a two-state solution with a majority opposed according to an October 2026 Gallup poll. So what Palestinian state are western governments trying to recognize anyway?

The implications are straightforward. Western governments should announce that they are standing by their words and not going to recognize a Palestinian State headed by an authoritarian corrupt Holocaust denier, nor one with a genocidal jihadi legislature.

The Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) do not want a state to coexist next to a Jewish State; they want to control every inch of the holy land. Perhaps it is time for western governments to recognize what these regional Arabs have been saying consistently for a century.