In recent weeks, several Western governments have issued statements suggesting a growing openness to recognising a Palestinian state. France has expressed its intention to support Palestine gaining a “state seat” at the United Nations this September. The UK has hinted it may follow suit—so long as a ceasefire in Gaza proves unattainable. Even Canada has joined the conversation, albeit with a telling condition: that any future political settlement excludes Palestinian resistance groups like Hamas.

To some, this may appear as progress—a cause for cautious optimism. But hope, when divorced from justice, can be dangerously misleading. Those of us shaped by exile, loss, and long memory have learned to question appearances. We know that paper cannot build a homeland. Recognition, without the right of return, true sovereignty, and the lifting of the siege on Gaza, amounts to little more than symbolic appeasement.

Let’s be frank some of these gestures are laced with troubling implications. The UK’s message seems to suggest that........

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