UK recognises Palestine, breaking with Israel

In September, the United Kingdom formally recognised the State of Palestine as a sovereign state. For decades, the UK’s policy had been that conferring recognition on Palestine must only be the culmination of the peace process. Somehow, this was inapplicable to Israel, which was recognised by the United Kingdom in 1948.

The Labour Government of the UK announced in July that the UK would recognise Palestine before the United Nations General Assembly met in September unless Israel took certain steps. London was giving Tel Aviv the opportunity to obviate recognition of Palestine if the Israelis declared a ceasefire and took serious steps to allow in humanitarian aid.

The Netanyahu Administration has continued its bestial attacks upon defenceless civilians. It has blocked food aid, medicines, and even wheelchairs. Since July, the Israelis have murdered several thousand more civilians.

British recognition of Palestine is particularly significant inasmuch as the United Kingdom is the erstwhile colonial metropole of Palestine and Israel. It was the British Government’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 that led indirectly to the declaration of Israeli independence in 1948.

The United Kingdom is still a country of some consequence. It is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it has nuclear weapons, and it is the sixth biggest economy in the world. The UK was one of the countries most favourably disposed towards Israel. The UK was a major export market for Israeli military industries. Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad shared intelligence with the British foreign intelligence service MI6. The UK also has the fifth biggest Jewish community in the world.

Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK, made the decision because Labour MPs were demanding it. Labour is also worried about Labour voters defecting to parties that advocated for the recognition of Palestine, i.e. the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. There are five independent pro-Palestine MPs, all of whom are Muslims and all of whom were elected in previously Labour-held seats.

Some big beasts of the Labour Party are under threat from pro-Palestine independent candidates next time: Jess Phillips and Wes Streeting. There is also a faction that has broken away from Labour, provisionally called ‘Your Party’. Your Party has not yet decided its formal name. This far-left groupuscule is led by the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and includes a British Pakistani MP who used to be in Labour: Zarah Sultana.

Labour made this decision for cynical reasons. It was about electoral calculation.

The British Foreign Office statement on the recognition of Palestine included a fiery condemnation of Hamas. This was to appease Israel. Hamas’s actions pale into insignificance compared to Israel’s far larger-scale crimes against humanity.

Sir Keir Starmer’s wife is Jewish. But neither she nor her husband seems to be Zionist.

The Conservative Party is the official opposition of the United Kingdom. The Conservative Party is very Zionist. The Conservatives have denounced the recognition of Palestine. That party is very unpopular, and there is no prospect of it forming a government for at least a decade. Even then, the party may accept fait accompli and say the recognition cannot be undone.

British recognition of Palestine is not in isolation; around the same time, several other UN member states recognised Palestine. These include France and Canada. These countries were all friendly towards Israel.

The recognition of Palestine is a disaster for Israel. Israel’s massive-scale state terrorism has prompted recognition of Palestine. Israel lobbied very hard to persuade other countries not to recognise Palestine. Tel Aviv now pretends that British recognition of Palestine is a nullity. But having made such strenuous efforts to prevent British recognition of Palestine, it is asinine and dishonest of Tel Aviv to pretend it does not matter. If it were of no consequence, then the Israelis would not have striven with all their might to convince the British not to do it.

What effect will London’s recognition of Palestine have? Israel is under greater pressure to end the war now. Moderate Israelis have more reason to say that Netanyahu’s war of annihilation has backfired, inasmuch as it has caused previously pro-Israeli governments to recognise Palestine. Palestine will be able to call its Representative Office in London an embassy.

A two-state solution has been touted as the way to peace for decades. Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed for decades to forfend the establishment of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu, the world’s number one terrorist, said that recognising Palestine was rewarding terrorism. But to fail to do so would be to reward the world’s most infamous terrorist organisation: the Israeli military.

Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank since 1967. It has continued armed robbery to this day. Palestinians have their houses stolen at gunpoint. Palestinian civilians are routinely murdered by Israeli illegal immigrants there. The Israeli police and army, at best, do nothing and often murder unarmed Palestinians themselves.

Israel is considering formally annexing the illegally occupied West Bank. This would be to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank controls only a small fraction of the West Bank. The land it controls is broken up into little segments. The Palestinian Authority has almost no authority.

In October 2023, Israel said Hamas had 25,000 fighters. Israel says the great majority have been killed, wounded, or captured. Hamas has almost no arms left. On most days, no Israeli soldier is killed in Gaza and on some days, none is wounded. This is not a war. It is a massacre. Almost all the violence is inflicted by Israel.

Hamas is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. Faced with an egregiously brutal foe, the Palestinians had little choice. As Nelson Mandela said, ‘there comes a time when a people must choose to submit or fight.’ Israel is a rogue state. It disregards judgments of the International Court of Justice established by the UN, despite founding its own legitimacy on the United Nations. It is in breach of more UN General Assembly resolutions than any other country. It illegally occupies some of Lebanon and Syria, which even Israel recognises as sovereign states. In the last month alone, it has attacked Iran, Qatar, Syria, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Israel is ultra-aggressive. The Israeli people have knowingly elected war criminals again and again.

Israel wants the release of a few dozen hostages. Yet the Israelis hold over 11,000 hostages. Over 400 of them are children. These people are held mostly without trial or charge. If they are tried, it is before a kangaroo court: a totally biased Israeli Military Tribunal without the normal safeguards for the defendant. The Israeli Supreme Court found that Israel was illegally depriving the Palestinian hostages of sufficient nutrition.