Belgium has joined the slow European drift towards Palestinian statehood, with Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot announcing in the early hours of Tuesday that his country will extend recognition at the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
The declaration, posted on X, carried the force of both moral rebuke and political calculation. Prévot promised not just recognition but sanctions against Israel — a ban on settlement products, a tightening of contracts with Israeli companies, a gesture meant to show that Europe’s patience has limits.
In Brussels, the decision is framed as a response to Gaza’s catastrophe: more than 63,000 dead and over 160,000 wounded in the war, according to local health authorities. But in reality, the recognition is also about Europe’s shifting posture. France moved first in July, declaring that it would back Palestinian membership at the UN. Others are testing the waters, weighing conditions. Belgium has now broken from hesitation, and by doing so, pushed the current forward.
For Israel, every recognition in Western Europe is more than symbolic. It chips at the sense of diplomatic insulation it has long relied upon. For Palestinians, it offers a form of legitimacy that has been promised for decades but withheld in practice. Recognition does not end bombardment, nor lift blockades, but it shifts the terrain of international argument.
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Belgium’s move comes with its own ironies. A country still haunted by the colonial stain of Congo now positions itself as a defender of occupied peoples elsewhere. Whether that contradiction weakens or sharpens its message depends on who is listening.
The UN General Assembly, which opens in New York on September 9, will again stage the familiar theatre of speeches and symbolic votes. Recognition will not alter the facts on the ground in Gaza or the West Bank overnight. But in diplomacy, symbolism is its own kind of weapon — and Belgium has just chosen to wield it.