British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under pressure from senior members of his own government, as well as by French President Emmanuel Macron, to declare that the United Kingdom recognizes a Palestinian state.
The UK premier said Thursday that “statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people,” in a statement decrying the humanitarian situation in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire, but he has not committed to a timeframe for recognizing a Palestinian state.
Bloomberg reported Friday that the UK’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn, and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy have all called on Starmer to move more quickly on the matter.
On Tuesday, in remarks decrying “Israel’s attacks on health care workers as well as other innocent civilians,” Streeting said in the House of Commons — where 60 Labour MPs have also called for Palestinian statehood recognition — that Britain should recognize a Palestinian state “while there’s still a state of Palestine left to recognize.”
On Thursday, Macron announced France will recognize a Palestinian state in September at the UN General Assembly, a plan that drew strong condemnation from Israel and the US.
The French president, who, together with Saudi Arabia, will host a confab in New York on the two-state solution this month, has been pressing Starmer to make the same move, according to Bloomberg.
On Friday, Starmer was set to speak with Macron, as well as with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, about the situation in Gaza.
Successive British governments have said they will formally recognize a Palestinian state at the right time, without ever setting a timetable or specifying the conditions for it to happen.
“We want Palestinian statehood, we desire it, and we want to make sure the circumstances can exist where that kind of long-term political solution can have the space to evolve,” British science and technology minister Peter Kyle told Sky News on Friday.
“But right now, today, we’ve got to focus on what will ease the suffering, and it is extreme, unwarranted suffering in Gaza that has to be the priority for us today.”
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy made similar remarks on Tuesday, telling the BBC: “We don’t just want to recognize symbolically, we want to recognize as a way of getting to the two states that sadly many are trying to thwart at this point in time.”
Some opponents of countries unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state maintain that the move is merely symbolic when done without cooperation with Israel, adding that a Palestinian state can only be the result of negotiations between both sides of the conflict.
But supporters of the move say the current Israeli government is uninterested in such talks or a two-state solution and that the framework can therefore only be advanced through diplomatic pressure.
“We say that recognizing Palestinian statehood is a really important symbol that you can only do once. But if not now, then when?” one minister said in a recent cabinet meeting, according to The Guardian.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan also called on Wednesday for the government to move forward with statehood recognition.
Norway, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia all announced recognition of a Palestinian state following the outbreak of the Gaza war, along with several other non-European countries.
Overall, at least 142 countries now recognize or plan to recognize Palestinian statehood, according to an AFP tally.
Israel has rejected calls to recognize a state of Palestine, arguing that this would endanger Israel’s security and that recognizing one in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught that started the ongoing war would reward the terror group for its bloody rampage, even while it still holds hostages.