Tomorrow Sir Keir Starmer will formally announce that Britain will recognise Palestinian statehood. While symbolic in most respects – Britain ceased to be the colonial power in the region in 1948 – there will be at least one real world impact: Hamas will be able to point to a tangible outcome of its terror campaign against Israel, and claim its tactics work.
The Prime Minister is also understood to be preparing further sanctions against Hamas, the first to be imposed by this Labour Government. Hamas is already a proscribed terror group in the UK, with multiple tranches of British sanctions against members and funders set out in the past, but these additional sanctions are welcome as far as they go. Yet we must accept that they will make no significant impact to Hamas’s prospects, and will do little to accelerate the defeat of a genocidal terror group that unleashed latter-day Einsatzgruppen on Jewish civilians on October 7 2023.
In doing so, it seems likely that Sir Keir is striving to appear even-handed, betraying our erstwhile ally Israel while hoping to sweeten the pill by simultaneously hitting Hamas. He surely hopes that this combination will placate the US administration and signal to pro-Israeli British voters that he isn’t singling out the Jewish state for opprobrium, while also demonstrating to far-Left and Israelophobic elements that he agrees with their absurd worldview.
This attempt at having his cake and eating it, first seen at this week’s press conference with President Donald Trump, will convince nobody. The premature and unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state is one of the gravest errors in British foreign policy of the past 50 years. It is a shameful moment for this Government and country, and a fundamental rupture with our past approach.
A two-state solution has long been desired in Britain, and used to be supported in Israel too. The prerequisites were extensive: recognition was to be part of an effective package when a new dispensation could be found. Peace and agreed borders would come first. Crucially, Palestinian elites would accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in defensible borders. Palestinians would cease to be refugees claiming a “right to return” to Israel, and in return have an independent state as a permanent home, with trade deals, aid and global recognition following. Crucially, attempts to negotiate this outcome stumbled on the intransigence of a Palestinian elite that hated Israel more than it loved the idea of its own nation.
As a result these steps have not happened. The ultimate diplomatic prize, recognition, is now being squandered with nothing gained in return. Moreover, there is no prospect whatsoever that Israel and the United States will allow a terror organisation fanatically dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state to claim the trappings of statehood in any meaningful sense. If peace is ever realised in the Middle East, it will have nothing to do with Sir Keir’s cakeist foreign policy.
Tomorrow Sir Keir Starmer will formally announce that Britain will recognise Palestinian statehood. While symbolic in most respects – Britain ceased to be the colonial power in the region in 1948 – there will be at least one real world impact: Hamas will be able to point to a tangible outcome of its terror campaign against Israel, and claim its tactics work.
The Prime Minister is also understood to be preparing further sanctions against Hamas, the first to be imposed by this Labour Government. Hamas is already a proscribed terror group in the UK, with multiple tranches of British sanctions against members and funders set out in the past, but these additional sanctions are welcome as far as they go. Yet we must accept that they will make no significant impact to Hamas’s prospects, and will do little to accelerate the defeat of a genocidal terror group that unleashed latter-day Einsatzgruppen on Jewish civilians on October 7 2023.
In doing so, it seems likely that Sir Keir is striving to appear even-handed, betraying our erstwhile ally Israel while hoping to sweeten the pill by simultaneously hitting Hamas. He surely hopes that this combination will placate the US administration and signal to pro-Israeli British voters that he isn’t singling out the Jewish state for opprobrium, while also demonstrating to far-Left and Israelophobic elements that he agrees with their absurd worldview.
This attempt at having his cake and eating it, first seen at this week’s press conference with President Donald Trump, will convince nobody. The premature and unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state is one of the gravest errors in British foreign policy of the past 50 years. It is a shameful moment for this Government and country, and a fundamental rupture with our past approach.
A two-state solution has long been desired in Britain, and used to be supported in Israel too. The prerequisites were extensive: recognition was to be part of an effective package when a new dispensation could be found. Peace and agreed borders would come first. Crucially, Palestinian elites would accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in defensible borders. Palestinians would cease to be refugees claiming a “right to return” to Israel, and in return have an independent state as a permanent home, with trade deals, aid and global recognition following. Crucially, attempts to negotiate this outcome stumbled on the intransigence of a Palestinian elite that hated Israel more than it loved the idea of its own nation.
As a result these steps have not happened. The ultimate diplomatic prize, recognition, is now being squandered with nothing gained in return. Moreover, there is no prospect whatsoever that Israel and the United States will allow a terror organisation fanatically dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state to claim the trappings of statehood in any meaningful sense. If peace is ever realised in the Middle East, it will have nothing to do with Sir Keir’s cakeist foreign policy.