JERUSALEM: Already under global pressure over the mounting toll from the war in Gaza, Israel slipped further into international isolation on Wednesday after three European countries broke with their main EU partners and decided to recognise a Palestinian state.

In the demolished Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, the action—which an Israeli government spokesman called “obscene”—will not significantly affect daily life. The financially constrained Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is forced by Israel to struggle even to pay its own civil personnel.

However, it comes after a slow but steady accumulation of issues, starting with Washington’s threats to withhold weapons if the war in Gaza goes on and its sanctions against violent settlers. It also includes charges of genocide filed with the International Court of Justice and a potential International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has long opposed the so-called two-state solution, and since taking office at the end of 2022 and forming a coalition of far right religious nationalist parties, his opposition has grown.

His government continues to harbor strong misgivings toward the Palestinian Authority, which was established under the Oslo interim peace accords thirty years ago. It accuses the Authority of hostile acts ranging from supporting antisemitism in textbooks to providing financial support to the families of armed militants murdered by Israeli forces.

This emphasizes how acrimonious the situation has grown around the slaughter in Gaza and how remote the chances of a political solution based on an independent Palestinian state coexisting with Israel currently seem, with peace negotiations appearing to be hopelessly stalled.

The foreign ministry called the Norwegian, Irish, and Spanish ambassadors in Israel to view video footage of the attack on Israel on October 7 by gunmen commanded by Hamas. It also called back its diplomats from Oslo, Madrid, and Dublin.

At the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst, described the three nations’ action as “diplomatically bold but emotionally tone deaf and unproductive.”

“For Israelis it will increase paranoia, reinforcing Netanyahu’s argument that Israelis stand alone,” she stated. “For Palestinians, it falsely raises expectations, without defining a pathway toward realizing legitimate national dreams.”