British MPs have called on their government to declare Palestine an official country while “there is still a state to recognise”.
In strongly worded report the Foreign Affairs Committee has accused Whitehall of dithering by waiting for the “perfect time for recognition”. It said that was unachievable and that meanwhile illegal settlers were annexing much of the occupied West Bank, with Gaza in their sights too.
The call came as French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would recognise Palestine at a meeting in New York in September, in a move that he has described as a "moral duty" and a "political necessity."
Mr Macron hopes that the UK will follow suit. Speaking to the House of Commons earlier this month, the French president said that "working together in order to recognise the dtate of Palestine and to initiate this political momentum is the only path to peace."
Despite the increasingly grim humanitarian crisis, with the death toll approaching 60,000, Israel was still refusing to listen to calls to bring about a ceasefire with Hamas.
“It seems that the Israeli government is not listening to the UK,” the Foreign Affairs Committee (Fac) stated, adding that while it did pay attention to Washington, “it only does so sporadically”.
The MPs will hope that Downing Street listens to their urging that, along with France, they take the significant step of recognising a Palestinian state, to put even greater pressure on Israel.
“The UK, along with France – the co-signatory of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement – should now recognise the state of Palestine while there is still a state to recognise,” the MPs wrote. “An inalienable right should not be made conditional.”
That message appeared to have been picked up by Prime Minister Keir Starmer who suggested that a Hamas agreeing a ceasefire could rapidly lead to the UK recognising statehood that he repeated was the “inalienable right of the Palestinian people”.
“A ceasefire will put us on a path to the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis,” he said in a statement issued by Downing Street.
But the “unspeakable and indefensible” starvation in Gaza has led Britain to host an emergency call with the E3 partners, Britain, Germany and France, on Friday.
“While the situation has been grave for some time, it has reached new depths and continues to worsen,” he said. “We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe.”
The E3 meeting will discuss what the European countries can to “urgently stop the killing and get people the food”.
“We all agree on the pressing need for Israel to change course and allow the aid that is desperately needed to enter Gaza without delay,” he stated.
Whitehall sources have told The National that exasperation with Israel has led to serious consideration by the UK of Palestinian state recognition, but that has yet to be announced.
Further pressure has been put on Prime Minister Keir Starmer after London Mayor Sadiq joined a growing number of senior Labour figures demanding that the government “immediately recognise Palestinian statehood”, arguing that there “can be no two-state solution if there is no viable state left to call Palestine”.
While the government has said it “plans” to defy Israel and join the other 147 countries who have declared Palestine a state, it will only do so “at the point of maximum impact”. But the Fac report argued that the government “cannot continue to wait for the perfect time” because experience showed “that there will never be a perfect time, and in hindsight it is possible to see times when it should have occurred”.
However, the National Jewish Assembly, an organisation of British Jews, told the MPs that premature recognition of Palestinian statehood would be “a catastrophic error” which would legitimise “a leadership that has failed its people for decades”.
Emily Thornberry, the Fac chairwoman, said immediate recognition would “signal the UK’s desire to work urgently towards a two-state solution”. Her committee's report on the Israel-Palestine conflict urged Mr Starmer “to kick-start urgently the process of preparing the ground for negotiation of a long-term two-state resolution to the conflict, without waiting for a ceasefire”.
“There is undoubtedly huge frustration among many of the British public that the government has consistently acted too little, too late,” she said. “And there is huge frustration that the far-right government currently in charge in Israel is refusing to listen to its historic friends and allies.
“But we must not shrug our shoulders in despair and say that there is nothing we can do. This report puts forward practical suggestions for how the British government can make a real difference.”
She added that the UK government must also use its historic Middle East legacy as a convening power “to bring together conflicting and diverse parties” and “must act more boldly and bravely” to leverage Britain’s influence.
