The stage is set for the upcoming United Nations’ International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. The session, to be held June 17-20, 2025, will be chaired by President Emmanuel Macron of France and Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. France and a number of other countries are understood to be planning formal recognition of the State of Palestine. Netanyahu has announced that should this happen Israel will retaliate by formal annexing the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In a sense, the threats are meaningless, not because Israel could not take measures to sabotage a Palestinian state, but because it’s been doing this for several decades, and has accelerated its efforts in recent years.

The daily news from Gaza is numbing. After 18 months of devastation, Israel agreed to a ceasefire in March, only to break it and intensify their plans to ethnically cleanse and annex large swathes of territory. Daily, there are reports of Israeli bombings or shootings killing scores of Palestinians at shelters or food distribution sites. The Israelis at first deny each instance, then deny that they had anything to do with it—blaming Hamas or arguing their soldiers “were forced to shoot in the air” to control unruly crowds. When all else fails, they announce a military review panel is looking into it (coupled with the charge that anyone prejudging public issuance of findings is guilty of harboring anti-Israel bias). There is never accountability and the killings continue.

The Netanyahu government’s plan for Gaza is taking shape. The now-established Israeli-US “humanitarian mission” in Gaza will facilitate their “ethnic cleansing.” First, the Israelis are conducting “mopping up” operations in the north, evicting as many Palestinians as possible from 80 per cent of Gaza and forcing them into congested areas along the southern border. Then, after denying Palestinians food aid for three months, these Israeli-run food distribution sites are established in the south as the only place to access food. As throngs of desperate Palestinians mass at the sites, the Israelis use live ammunition as crowd control. The entire enterprise is criminal, yet it continues.

The situation in the West Bank has gone from bad to worse. Months of raids have killed 1,000 Palestinians and destroyed the homes of 40,000. The Israeli government has authorized the establishment of 22 new settlements, confiscation of more Palestinian lands, and construction of more Jewish-only roads. This furthers the cantonization of the West Bank, isolating Palestinian population centers from one another.

Israel is following the “Drobles Plan,” devised in 1978 by Mattityahu Drobles of the World Zionist Organisation. He envisioned total conquest of the West Bank through establishing Israeli settlement blocs connected by highways and infrastructure, dividing the area and making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. In the 1970s, Israel’s Labor governments rejected this idea, building settlements along the 1967 lines. When Likud came to power, they embraced Drobles and began its implementation without formally acknowledging it. Now they have.

Palestinians in East Jerusalem fare no better. They face threats of home and property confiscation and the weaponized archaeology as Israel seizes important historical sites, while ignoring their importance to Palestinian Muslims or Christians. Christians and Muslims seeking to pray on their holy days are violently assaulted or harassed, while Jewish worshippers who violate the previously accepted “status quo” at the Haram al Sharif are protected by the Israeli military. In the past, a handful of Jewish religious extremists committed such violations, but now thousands, including government officials, annually invade the Haram.

And so, the upcoming UN sessions will be a test of wills, pitting the Israeli government, backed by the US, against the rest of the world. We know Israel’s playbook. The question is: will other nations find the resolve to confront Israel and take action? More than recognition of Palestinian rights, verbal protests, or resolutions disapproving of Israeli policies is required. Europe can’t protest settlements and genocide in Gaza, while continuing to be the largest buyers of Israeli-made weapons. Without applying sanctions (like Spain) or boycotting settlement products (like Ireland), nothing will change.

What is at stake in next week’s UN sessions is more than recognition of a Palestinian state; it’s the survival of the rule of law and human rights covenants and the integrity of the United Nations.

The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute