Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, has told Al Jazeera that recognition of a Palestinian state by Western countries is “motivated by a desire to be seen to be doing something but will not stop the genocide in Gaza”.

“I think they’re under increasing pressure from the international community and also from their local populations to do something,” he told Al Jazeera. “This is, I think, their way of doing something or saying that they did something without actually taking substantive action.”

Elmasry said he could think “of a dozen things these countries could do to actually affect conditions on the ground” — including closing off airspace to Israel, severing economic and diplomatic ties, or calling for a peacekeeping force or a no-fly zone.

“There are all kinds of things they could do that would hurt Israel and force … the eventual end of the genocide,” the Doha academic was quoted as saying.

“We’re all left to wonder why they think this particular action is the appropriate one when more than 140 countries have already recognised the Palestinian state — that hasn’t done anything — and at a time when Israel has basically rendered the possibility of a Palestinian state completely impossible.”