The New York Declaration doesn't merely betray Palestine. It weaponizes the language of statehood to formalize the suppression of a people's right to exist without colonial rule.
Originally published in Masar Badil.
Amid the ongoing Zionist genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, as the siege, starvation, and daily massacres intensify, the dimensions of international and regional complicity are being exposed with increasing brazenness and openness. At the heart of this complicity, both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the French Republic are playing a suspicious role, attempting to reimpose what is called the “two-state solution” as a political exit, precisely at a time when people are being annihilated, the land is being burned, and homes are being demolished on top of their inhabitants.
What Paris and Riyadh are promoting is nothing short of an open political genocide, recycling of a failed and dangerous project, one that seeks to liquidate the Palestinian cause under the guise of so-called “international legitimacy.” And yet, what is being proposed occurs entirely outside the framework of all UN resolutions related to the Palestinian question, flawed as those resolutions may be. It is a continuation of what was started by Camp David, Oslo, Wadi Araba, and the Abraham Accords — the systematic violation of Palestinian rights and the fragmentation of the goals of the Palestinian national struggle.
How is it possible to speak of “two states” in the context of comprehensive occupation from the river to the sea, of accelerating colonial settlement in the West Bank, and of collective massacres being committed against children, women, and men in Gaza? How can a people who have resisted for over seven decades be offered a state on paper, without sovereignty, without an army, without the right of return? And why is a people fighting on behalf of the entire Arab nation being asked to surrender all of its rights?
France has always been a principal partner in the Western colonial and imperialist project in our region. Today, it continues this filthy role through its full support for the Zionist entity, its refusal to halt arms exports, and its brutal repression of any public expression of support for Palestine on its own soil. Paris falsely and brazenly presents itself as an “honest broker,” while it stands firmly in the same trench as Washington and Tel Aviv, hosting conferences that seek to entrench the system of occupation. Indeed, it has managed to dilute the positions of several European countries, including Ireland, Norway, Belgium, and Spain.
As for the repressive, obscurantist Saudi regime, after years of ideological, religious, and political preparation, it no longer even pretends to be ashamed of its strategic partnership with the Zionist entity. It openly presents full normalization as a “rational” path that the rest of the Arab states should follow. For the rulers of Riyadh, Palestine is nothing more than a bargaining chip to improve the terms of U.S. protection. They are not embarrassed by their open conspiracy against the resistance or by their pressure to disarm it and strip it of legitimacy, even if the price is the extermination of two million people in Gaza. This comes as no surprise: this is the same bloody regime that led a criminal war against the people of Yemen.
The essence of the so-called “two-state solution” is nothing but the legitimation of the Zionist entity, the enshrinement of defeat, and the consolidation of a racist colonial entity on 90% of the land of Palestine — not just the 78% commonly cited. In return, it proposes a weak, fragmented, and functional Palestinian entity confined to the few remaining besieged islands in the West Bank and Gaza, whose presence will not exceed more than 10% of the land, without any guarantees for the right of return, the dismantling of settlements, or the release of prisoners. This is not a project for a just solution; it is a liquidation project. It seeks to strip the Palestinian people of the essence of their cause: liberation and return.
The New York Declaration: Total Capitulation and a State on Paper
In this context, the danger of the so-called “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Palestinian Question,” issued recently, becomes apparent. It states:
“We welcomed the commitments made by Mahmoud Abbas on behalf of Palestine, contained in his letter dated 9 June 2025, including the pursuit of a peaceful settlement to the Palestinian issue and the continued rejection of violence and terrorism.” The statement continues: “We also welcomed his affirmation that the Palestinian state should be the sole authority responsible for providing security in its territory, but it does not intend to be an armed state.”
This formulation does not merely mark an attempted official declaration of the end of the Palestinian national project and total surrender to the conditions of occupation and Zionism. It also represents the death of the so-called “Palestinian state,” even by the standards of the “Authority” itself, which has tried to market this idea among our people. A “state” without land, without arms, without resistance, without decision-making power, without sovereignty, one that accepts Western and Saudi guardianship, is nothing more than a security appendage of the Zionist system. It has nothing to do with the aspirations of our people for liberation and sovereignty. It is even more grotesque than the infamous limited “self-rule” project.
The bitter irony in this repulsive scene is that the Zionist enemy itself does not even accept this content-less program, as it refuses even “Mahmoud Abbas’s vision” and the Oslo liquidation agreements, despite the fact that these were originally crafted to protect it, consolidate its occupation, and constrain our people’s resistance. So perhaps we can take some comfort in the fact that the Zionist war criminals and their backers are working to sabotage this project! In the presence of impotent and complicit Palestinian leaderships and Arab regimes, Zionist colonialism leans on them to carry out the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.
This dangerous phase demands absolute and uncompromising Palestinian, Arab and international popular rejection of this treacherous liquidation project. It requires us to seize back the initiative from the hands of these puppet regimes, and to escalate the popular, political, financial, and military support for the Palestinian resistance by all means necessary. The experience of the past decades has proven that the Zionist enemy understands only the language of force, and that rights are not restored through negotiations and false mediations, but through armed struggle and comprehensive resistance.
All of occupied Palestine, from the river to the sea, is the sacred right of the Palestinian people, and it is non-negotiable. The right of return for refugees is inalienable, not subject to delay or bargaining. Anyone who promotes the fragmentation or diminishment of these rights is part of the liquidation project, whether they cloak themselves in religion or raise the banner of secularism and democracy. No perfume from Paris or Riyadh will mask the stench of their treacherous project.
Khaled Barakat is a Palestinian writer and a member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement.
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