JERUSALEM — Already under global pressure over the mounting toll from the war in Gaza, Israel slipped further into international isolation on Wednesday after three European countries broke with their main European Union partners and decided to recognize a Palestinian state.

The move, described by an Israeli government spokesperson as “obscene,” will have little practical impact either in the ruins of Gaza or the occupied West Bank. Squeezed by Israel, the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority in the West Bank struggles to pay its own civil servants.

But it follows a steady build-up of problems, from Washington’s warnings over withholding arms if the war in Gaza continues and sanctions against violent settlers to accusations of genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and a possible arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Mr. Netanyahu has long resisted the so-called two-state solution and his resistance has increased since he went into government with a clutch of hard right religious nationalist parties at the end of 2022.

His government remains deeply suspicious of the Palestinian Authority, set up three decades ago under the Oslo interim peace accords, accusing it of hostile actions from paying the families of armed militants killed by Israeli forces to encouraging antisemitism in schoolbooks.

Mr. Netanyahu himself described the decision by the three countries as “a reward for terrorism,” and said a Palestinian state would “try to repeat the massacre of Oct. 7 again and again.”

That comment underlined how bitter the climate surrounding the war in Gaza has become and how distant the prospects of a political settlement based on an independent Palestinian state existing alongside Israel now appear, with peace talks seemingly hopelessly blocked. 

As well as recalling its ambassadors from Oslo, Madrid and Dublin, the foreign ministry summoned the Norwegian, Irish and Spanish ambassadors in Israel to be shown video footage of the attack on Israel by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct. 7.

Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, said the three countries’ decision was “diplomatically bold but emotionally tone deaf and unproductive.”

“For Israelis it will increase paranoia, reinforcing Netanyahu’s argument that Israelis stand alone,” she said. “For Palestinians, it falsely raises expectations, without defining a pathway toward realizing legitimate national dreams.”

LONGER TERM PRICE
For Mr. Netanyahu, struggling to hold together a fractious wartime coalition and widely blamed in Israel for the disaster of Oct. 7, Wednesday’s announcement may provide a temporary lift, by reinforcing an image of defiance in the face of a hostile world.

“This really strengthens the narrative which we have been hearing since Day One of this war that in the end, we can only depend on ourselves,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations specialist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “And I think that this can even assist the Israeli government’s explanation and description of what it’s doing in this war.”

However, the longer term price to Israel of standing in the way of moves towards a Palestinian state may be heavier, starting with the prized goal of normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu’s top foreign policy goal before the attack.

Appearing before a Senate committee on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that for an agreement to be reached with Saudi Arabia, there would have to be calm in Gaza and a “credible pathway” towards a Palestinian state.

“And it may well be…that, in this moment, Israel is not able or willing to proceed down that pathway,” he added.

For Israelis, the images of Oct. 7, when Hamas-led gunmen rampaged through communities around the Gaza Strip, killing around 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages into captivity, remain deeply traumatic.

But outside Israel, the images of the suffering in Gaza, where the relentless Israeli campaign launched in response has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and destroyed much of the heavily built-up enclave, have helped fuel an expanding protest movement on US college campuses and the streets of European cities.

For both the US administration and other governments like Germany that have traditionally been friendly to Israel, the often-angry protests have imposed an increasingly heavy political cost.

Both countries say recognizing a Palestinian state must be the result of negotiations rather than unilateral declarations, and other major European countries like France and Britain also declined to join the trio granting recognition.

But for Alon Liel, a former director general of Israel’s foreign ministry and a critic of Netanyahu’s government, the recognition of Palestine by individual countries was less important than the broader context, including cases against Israel and its leaders at the international tribunals in the Hague.

“If it’s part of a wider move that’s triggering momentum and part of the ICC, ICJ moves, sanctions on settlers and so on, there’s a chance that Israel will notice that the world exists,” he said. — Reuters

MELBOURNE — Your morning coffee could help the planet.

That’s the promise of an Australian university turning used coffee grounds into a material that can be added to concrete to make it stronger and more sustainable, potentially lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Concrete production, which involves mixing sand and gravel with cement and water, is a major producer of greenhouse gases, responsible for around 7% of the world’s emissions, according to the United Nations.

Researchers at Melbourne’s RMIT University heated coffee waste without oxygen, a process known as pyrolysis, to create a substance called biochar that can replace up to 15% of the sand used in concrete.

The inclusion of the biochar makes the concrete 30% stronger and reduces the amount of cement needed by up to 10%, said lead researcher Rajeev Roychand.

“This ticks all the boxes,” he said. “You preserve carbon and you are getting significantly higher strength.”

Roughly 50 billion metric tons of sand is dug up each year, mostly for use in concrete, a 2022 U.N. report said. Its extraction is often environmentally destructive and it is in increasingly short supply, the report said.

Cement production, which involves heating a mixture of limestone and clay to around 1,500  degrees Celsius (2,732°F), is responsible for most of concrete’s emissions.

The Macedon Ranges Shire Council near Melbourne used the coffee concrete earlier this month to construct a footpath.

RMIT is talking with several construction firms and concrete makers and with Starbucks to take its waste coffee grounds, and could form a company to make biochar, Roychand said. Starbucks did not respond to a request for comment.

Australian infrastructure company Bild Group said it planned to trial the concrete and hoped to use it on major road projects. Construction giant Arup supported the research.

Millions of tons of used coffee grounds are produced globally and most are sent to landfills where they emit methane as they break down.

Australia generates around 75,000 tons of waste coffee grounds a year and biochar made from this could replace up to 655,000 tons of sand in concrete because it is a denser material, Roychand said. Globally, coffee-waste biochar could replace up to 90 million tons of sand in concrete, he said.

Food waste accounts for around 3% of Australia’s emissions, according to the government, and most could eventually be made into biochar, Roychand said.

“We anticipate that about 60-70% (of organic waste) we can divert from landfill into concrete applications,” he said.

Other international universities are also researching the potential of biochar and other bio-engineering in concrete. RMIT was the first to use waste coffee grounds in this way, Roychand said. — Reuters