Statehood through the Tinkerbell Effect

The idea that something exists if enough people believe in it. Dave Rich on Palestinian statehood:

The recognition of Palestinian statehood by the UK and other western governments is less an acknowledgement of reality, and more an expression of faith. The official statements announcing recognition do not even try to pretend that Palestine meets the criteria for statehood as set out in international law, because it obviously doesn’t (this is a separate question from whether Palestinians as a people have the right to statehood). Not for Palestine, the need to fulfil the laborious challenge that every other state that has come into being in the modern era has had to meet.

Instead, it is as if these governments hope that they can imagine Palestine into being simply by saying it is so. It is statehood through the Tinkerbell Effect – the idea that something exists if enough people believe in it.

The problem is that the two state solution has been on offer for years – and has been rejected for years, by the Palestinians. Has anything changed? The problem if anything has got worse, as the international community has implicitly – and often explicitly – supported the Palestinians in their fantasy of being refugees whose destiny it is to eventually return to their stolen land. In the meantime the Palestinian claim has been subsumed into an Islamist holy war, driven by Iran, where the sacred land of the Al-Aqsa mosque can never be home to the evil Zionists.

Those are the barriers.

Added:

The single biggest peace move the international community could make for the Middle East would be to get rid of the concept of Palestinian “right of return” and disband UNWRA.

— Andrew Fox (@Mr_Andrew_Fox) September 23, 2025