Recognizing Palestine: A requiem for US soft power over Europe?
Recently the UK, Canada, Australia and France officially recognized the statehood of Palestine. This marks an end to a decades-long policy and alignment among the US and its allies.
In September 2025, the UK, Canada, Australia and France announced the recognition of the statehood of Palestine. Alongside the obvious political implications of the move, this decision makes the support for a two-state solution a practical reality for these states (compared to the previous rhetorical/political reality). But this is also an interesting event that signals a break from US policy on this matter, and gives the UK and France a level of agency and independence in Middle-Eastern foreign policy not seen in decades. This is more than just a shift - it’s moving into separate diplomatic bedrooms on the matter.
The end of an era
In 1956, President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company, responsible for the operation of the Suez Canal and owned by the French and the British. In response, the two former shareholder countries, together with Israel, prepared an invasion of Egypt to remove Nasser and to ensure that the canal remains open for transit. It started on the 29th of October, 1956 and ceasefire was announced barely over a week later on November 6 after economic and political pressure on the UK and France from the international community, most importantly including the United States. The crisis (along with the French defeat in Vietnam and the US involvement even before the French withdrawal) revealed that Britain and France can’t recover their pre-WW2 power and that their foreign policy is subordinate to US interests (which can and will keep them on a short leash if and when needed using their economic and diplomatic might). The normalization of Egypt-Israel relations (the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the following peace treaty in 1979) didn’t even bring these two to the negotiation table.
The Suez Crisis thus marked the end of the era of independent British and French great power and Middle Eastern politics (as well as it being a huge loss of prestige for the now junior countries). Since then, both countries supported US efforts in the region, most notably of course during the Gulf War, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (though France dissented in the latter) and the intervention in the Syrian civil war.
European-led initiatives since then also required political, intelligence and logistical support from the US to compensate for inadequate inventory and lesser capabilities. Air-refuel and reconnaissance (including AWACS) capacities were provided during the 2011 intervention in Lybia (as well as operational assistance in establishing the no-fly zone, the US involvement being ‘shaping and enabling’ as President Obama put it) and French troops were airlifted (along with air-refuel and other support) to Mali using US planes during Operation Serval (I could have just said ‘the 2012 intervention in Mali’ but ‘Serval’ just sounds so much cooler) along with the usual intel & recon support. The shortcomings during these European initiated actions serve as yet another reminder of the diminished abilities of Britain and France for independent capabilities in projecting power in the MENA region - whether political or military. For the sake of keeping it high level I won’t go into more details about the specific military forces mobilized, assistance provided or other conflicts such as the conflict with the Houthis starting 2023 (though it would also show the severe differences in commitment and capacities as the US rotated multiple carriers and deployed nuclear submarines for example while the Europeans did not despite the key importance of the the Red Sea in maritime trade and power projection) - we aren’t a milblog after all.
Public support and foreign policy
Switching gears into another but related topic (and to navigate back to what we are more about, polling), a few thoughts on the role of public support in foreign policy. This is an old debate in international relations, with arguments for either side - some believe that foreign policy decisions are too important to leave it to the (uninformed and fickle) public while others are in the position of public support being necessary to provide legitimacy for the actions in this field too as governments going against public opinion will surely be punished (in a democratic system at least). We could find examples for both sides: for the latter, consider the buildup of public support (connecting Iraq to terrorism shortly after 9/11 and the “possession of WMDs” - see Pew for a summary) in the US and it being largely successful in that initially. On the other hand, public opinion turned on the Vietnam war as early as 1968 (Gallup) yet US involvement continued until 1972-73.
Policy vs. Public Opinion
And now we are getting to why it matters now - if and how public support shaped the decision to recognize Palestine.
The UK saw a more-or-less steady support for Palestinian statehood as polled by YouGov: 45% for and 14% against in 2025; where support is only slightly up compared to 2023 from before the conflict was reignited (40% for, 8% against).
The French public seems to show more support historically as this ifop poll from 2012 shows a 66% approval for voting to recognize Palestine in the UN. This support also seems like a rough constant as more recent (2025) ifop surveys show an altogether 69% support (unconditional and conditional together). A BMFTV poll also shows a 53% approval for Macron recognizing Palestine, but that difference could also be chalked up to the president’s (lack of) popularity.
As recent polls show the US is not so different in this sense either, as a 2024 Gallup poll measured a 53% support for recognizing Palestinian statehood - though the party divide is clearly present as 73% of Democrats would approve it whereas it was only 26% among Republicans. The overall support also seems to stagnate zooming out as it reached the high fifties in the 2000s, then dropped to the forties and now it’s back at 50+% (you can examine the polled trends in the linked Gallup summary). A 2025 Ipsos poll even measured 58% support which shows a rising tendency for approval.
And how is this important? Well we can see that governments can readily ignore public opinion if they prefer.
The US didn’t recognize Palestine last time it would have been a majority approved decision under President Bush, while it’s more understandable later as the majority shifted after 2010.
The French and the Britons were more consistent in that regard (although for the latter it didn’t and haven’t reached a majority either way), public opinion didn’t change significantly over the course of the last 15-20 years.
What all this means
Which raises the question of timing, and ties these two topics together.
Considering the history of alignment on Middle-Eastern affairs between the US, France and the UK since the Suez Crisis, the materiel reality and the reliance of the latter two to exert influence even in the immediate Mediterranean area, it’s not a surprise that the Europeans ignored public support for Palestinian statehood for a long while. Now however, despite the material situation being largely unchanged (as European defense industry is still behind the American) France and the UK moved to recognize Palestine. While I wouldn’t expect the diplomatic and military situation to change between the allies drastically, this is a noteworthy rift between the previously aligned policies and could point at a considerable erosion of US soft-power over the European counterparts.
The US public largely considers the Israel-Palestine conflict a critical interest with 90% of the respondents of this Gallup poll considering it at least somewhat important. Sentiments are also shifting though: 68% sympathizing with Israel and 18% with Palestine in 2015, this was 46/33% in 2025.
Considering these, along with the US force posture review and mixed messages around it, it’s not unimaginable that this decision by the UK and France is a part of them trying to assert more influence in the region by probing a more independent diplomatic stance through ending a decades long item of direct US alignment.
If an when others will follow is another question. Germany, the Netherlands and Italy for example have yet to do so, although the latter two laid out conditions/debate for recognition already - but given these recent developments, it’s not at all out of the question that this first official break of policy is only the beginning.