Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to denounce the recognition of a Palestinian state by many of Israel’s historic allies, but the prime minister may be struggling to decide how to turn rhetoric into a concrete response.
His options are perhaps more constrained than he would have his supporters believe. He has variously threatened annexation of occupied Palestinian land and bilateral action against countries that joined the tide of recognition.
But laying formal claim to part or all of the West Bank would jeopardise the Abraham accords, the historic agreement that normalised ties with regional powers including the United Arab Emirates.
That deal was perhaps the most high-profile foreign policy achievement of Donald Trump’s first presidency, cited in nominations for the Nobel peace prize he openly covets, and one of Netanyahu’s own landmark achievements.
The UAE, one of its most important partners, has already said annexation is a “red line”, and the deal’s collapse would carry a high risk of alienating Netanyahu’s single most important supporter.
Israel chose a bilateral response to Ireland, Norway and Spain when they recognised a Palestinian state last year, including withdrawing ambassadors.
Doing the same thing now, when so many key allies have followed suit, would be far more complicated – and could harm Israel far more than its targets, former Israeli diplomats said.
It would accelerate Israel’s trajectory towards the isolated “super-Sparta” status that Netanyahu celebrated last week and then backed away from after public outrage and economic warnings.
Alon Liel, a former diplomat who served as Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, said: “I think its such a difficult dilemma that Netanyahu decided to postpone. There is no way Israel will not respond, and there is no way Israel will respond in a clever way. The cabinet is on the point of discussing which mistakes to make.”
The Jewish new year holiday, celebrated on Monday and Tuesday, and the upcoming UN general assembly have given Netanyahu a chance to claim breathing space while he considers his options.
He is travelling to the US for the meeting and said his response to the UK, France and others would come after meeting Trump. That meeting will take place after the US president meets Arab leaders in New York.
Before leaving, Netanyahyu convened a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet to discuss possible responses to recognition, Israeli media reported.
In a clear indication of concerns about the risks of annexation, the two strongest advocates of that approach – the far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – were not invited.
In addition to the future of the Abraham accords – which Trump and Joe Biden hoped to expand to include Saudi Arabia – many of the Trump family and allies have deep financial ties in the region.
But domestic political pressures over a corruption trial and upcoming election may outweigh Netanyahu’s worries about antagonising Trump, said Alon Pinkas, another former Israeli diplomat.
“Netanyahu of two or three years ago would not have dared annex anything,” said Pinkas, whose former positions include consul general in New York. “Netanyahu of September 2025 is unhinged; detached from reality, with an acute case of delusion of grandeur [about the idea he is] redrawing the regional map; afraid of an election; scared of his trial [on corruption charges]. If all of those point to partial annexation, he might actually do something.”
Inside Israel, debate has swung confusingly between an insistence that recognition is an irrelevant gesture towards an empty symbol, and fury at the countries that have pressed ahead.
Across most of Israel’s political spectrum, from the far right to the centre-left leader Yair Golan, the move to recognise the Palestinian state has been condemned as a “reward for terrorism”.
But even if a sovereign Palestine is still more an idea than a reality, recognition has profound legal and diplomatic implications. British recognition has a particular diplomatic and historic weight because of the role Britain played in laying the groundwork for the creation of the state of Israel with the Balfour declaration of 1917.
Liel said: “I see it as more than a bilateral event; it [should be understood in] the historic perspective of the Balfour declaration. It’s a kind of correction to the British historic role.”
