I would quote my colleague former ambassador Allen in saying that recognizing Palestinian statehood is important because it provides a “horizon for peace”. There is an extreme shortage of hope for the Palestinian people. I think that's obvious in the way they speak about what they have endured for many decades now.
I think it's incumbent on states that retain hope and peace, and that retain hope and justice, to act in accordance with both peace and justice. I think providing people who have been stripped of their hope with a degree of hope that a two-state solution is in fact possible is critically important at this moment. One way of doing so is to actually recognize the Palestinian state now and then to continue the hard work of negotiating the parameters of what those two states look like.