Israeli security forces work at the scene of what police said was a suspected car-ramming attack, at the entrance to Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of eastern Jerusalem May 16, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

On the cusp of the new year, Jews globally find themselves breathless, tied in knots as the world tries to award international recognition to those who kill us and wish us dead.

Hamas launched its brutal invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, then hid behind and beneath civilians, with a singular goal: to instigate a bloody war that would turn global opinion against Israel and in favor of its purpose — to eradicate the world’s only Jewish state.

The international community is acceding to Hamas’ grotesque desires.

Masochistic leaders Keir Starmer, Anthony Albanese, Mark Carney, and Emanuel Macron rewarded Hamas for overtly invading Israel with empty statehood recognition, partly because of the radical Islamic movements that are taking root in their own countries of the UK, Australia, Canada, and France.

The international community is obsessed with accusing Israel of flouting international conventions. We hear endlessly about the Geneva Conventions, usually as applied against Israel with respect to unsupported allegations — and never in relation to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which are definitely breaking the Geneva Conventions.

As such, I want to introduce you to another convention that everyone conveniently forgot this week: the Montevideo Convention.

Since 1933, the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States has served the international community as the governing document establishing the basic criteria of statehood. Article 1 states:

The state as a person of international law should possess:

a. a permanent population;

b. a defined territory;

c. government; and

d. capacity to enter relations with other states.

A state may exist without formal recognition if it possesses these characteristics, but the inverse cannot be true. A state cannot be willed into existence if it lacks these features.

Unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state contravenes the required presence of these elements under international law.

First, the continued demand for a “right of return” by Palestinian leaders confuses the concept of a permanent Palestinian population. Will Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan evict Palestinians languishing in their refugee camps and send them “home?” Does this mean Palestinian leadership will abandon the “right of return” to Israeli territory because they now have their own state? Will Palestinians throw away keys passed down from generation to generation as they radicalized their youth to demand homes that have not existed for 80 years?

Further, who may live in this state and have citizenship? Surely any Jews in the West Bank should be treated as equal citizens. Once statehood is declared, undoubtedly the world will demand an end to apartheid in Palestine, given that Jews currently may not live in Palestinian Authority territories. Right?

Second, none of the announcements clearly defined the territory of this state. What are its borders? What is its capital? Even the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy acknowledged to the BBC that no actual state exists, calling the UK’s announcement an aspirational statement — an attempt to “hold out for” a two-state solution. Has he never heard of putting the cart before the horse?

More problematic are vague references to a reversion to pre-1967 Six Day War boundaries. Under such declarations, Jerusalem again will be divided, with the Kotel — the Jews’ holiest site — potentially in Palestinian territory. Hebrew University, Hadassah Hospital, the Jewish Quarter — all may fall within a Palestinian state if borders are recognized unilaterally.

Dangerous de facto realities have already been created on the ground, with the British consulate renaming its eastern Jerusalem address online as within “Palestine” instead of “Israel” this week.

Imagine how emboldened terrorists will be to attack these places once London decides to declare them part of a nonexistent Palestinian state. Does anyone think the Palestinian Authority will allow Jews to live in or travel safely to those locations in eastern Jerusalem? Will Jews be able to pray at the Kotel, study at Hebrew University, or live in the Jewish Quarter?

Third, who represents the government of this state? Mahmoud Abbas is in the 18th year of his four-year term. Meanwhile, Hamas has governed Gaza with an iron fist since 2005. Without Israel as a mutual enemy, these groups would slaughter each other. Who owns the capital, and is it in the West Bank or Gaza? Where will embassies be established?

These are questions that the Montevideo Convention intended to be answered before declaring statehood.

Finally, with whom does the international community intend to establish relations? With a proscribed terror group in violation of their own laws? Most countries cannot engage with Hamas, one of two Palestinian governing bodies. What happens if Abbas dies, elections are held, and Hamas wins control of the West Bank? It is a distinct possibility, and it’s one reason that Abbas has not held elections for 18 years. The fact is, there is no one government that represents all Palestinians. The Palestinian schism since 2005 itself demonstrates the premature nature of statehood recognition.

Far more problematic for Palestinians is the failure to play this game out to the end. They can no longer be refugees under the auspices of UNRWA if they are a permanent population of a defined state. Palestinian refugee status is eviscerated by statehood; the two cannot exist on the same plane. All rights and benefits accruing from and institutions constructed around that fiction logically should end. But the UN is so wrapped up in the grift pervading this sick system that it would never countenance such a loss.

Furthermore, statehood comes with duties as well as rights. A Palestinian state should be subject to the same international norms governing war crimes, human rights, and terrorism as other UN members. A nascent Palestine will be born a rogue state, instantly subject to sanctions for flagrantly violating these norms — but we all know that will never happen.

The new state’s swaddling cloth will be laundered terror funding, its wet nurse international leaders who coddle its human rights violations, and its first words contempt for the communities that gave it everything it did not deserve because it sought the murder of Jews instead of peace.

This week’s lesson in international diplomacy is simple and terrifying: slaughtering Jews pays.

Ellen Ginsberg Simon is an attorney living in New Jersey and an advocate against antisemitism on college campuses through the Jewish Alumni Council and Brown Jewish Alumni & Friends.