00:00Rawia, we'll turn to you first of all on this. Belgium saying it is now going to recognize a Palestinian state, the latest country, to do that.
00:07The UN is where this will all take place, and we know when that happens in September, there will be quite a few countries who will be doing the same.
00:13How big of a deal is this, diplomatically speaking?
00:16Well, it's a strong political message, I think, yet it has symbolic weight, if you want.
00:23Now, it will not have immediate practical impact on the ground, especially with the current Israeli government.
00:31Yet, on the other hand, I think it signals European support for Palestinian statehood.
00:37It gives the Palestinian statehood legitimacy, and I think it opens the door for more European countries and other Western countries to support Palestinian statehood.
00:48If you want, it could start a domino effect, that we might not see the effect of it now, but it's building solidarity, building support for a Palestinian state, I think, for the future.
01:01Now, we know that, and we've said this before, many, many countries have joined in.
01:05Without the EU actually backing this and being on board...
01:08Basically, 143 countries out of the 193 countries that are members of the UN General Assembly have already recognized the state of Palestine.
01:21But if the EU as a whole does not get behind it, it does kind of fall down a bit, which is where Hungary a lot of the time will interject and say, and also Germany as well, will say we're not getting behind.
01:30A united European stand would be, a united European recognition of a Palestinian state actually would be a lot more effective than individual states, even big states like France, you know, also Spain already did, France intends to, also could, will not be as effective.
01:51Without the might of the US as well, it feels like this is largely symbolic.
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