A growing list of countries — including Norway, Spain, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and others — have lined up in recent months to formally “recognize” a Palestinian state. They frame these moves as overdue moral gestures or leverage for peace. But one central question undercuts all the fanfare: What, exactly, are they recognizing?

There is no functioning Palestinian state. No defined borders. No credible government. The West Bank is ruled — barely — by Mahmoud Abbas and the deeply corrupt Palestinian Authority. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, a U.S.- and European Union-designated terrorist group that holds an iron grip of control on its millions of Palestinian residents. These rival entities do not govern together; they barely communicate. They represent division, dysfunction

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