It is a historic moment, triggered by tragedy. At a time when the very future of the Palestinian people is mortally threatened by what the United Nations calls “the worst-case scenario of famine currently playing out in the Gaza Strip”, a British prime minister declares that the state of Palestine will be formally recognised. Most likely, Britain will join with France at the UN General Assembly in September in taking this step, so long in the making.
Yet Sir Keir Starmer was also right to clearly offer the Israeli government – and, to Hamas, additional incentives – to do what they should be doing in any case: to implement an immediate ceasefire and to release all the hostages. If those things should come about – although the record suggests it probably will not in the short-term – then that will in itself represent progress towards peace.
If not, and Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas prove as obdurate as they usually are, then the diplomatic path forward is clear. Formal recognition of Palestine as an aim will still be in place.
Perhaps the most significant detail in what the prime minister said was his clear message that, in organising the future governance of Gaza, Hamas cannot be a part of it. Recognition, if it goes ahead, will be with the Palestinian Authority and its president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah (just as Emmanuel Macron has said).
Sir Keir and President Macron, the historic “entente” set once again to work, will not be alone in their task. Some 140 nations, including Spain, Ireland, Poland, Sweden and Norway in Europe, already recognise a sovereign, independent Palestine, and almost the whole international community wants an end to the famine conditions, the fighting and a start on a new pathway.
Any peace plan, any “coalition of the willing”, and any number of economic incentives that might be part of a deal cannot hope to succeed without the decisive support of the United States. Although Sir Keir was reluctant to disclose his recent conversations with Donald Trump, the initiative is clearly going ahead after consultations during their meetings in Scotland. Indeed, the president helpfully stated that he was content that Britain should “take a position” on recognition. It was another diplomatic breakthrough, and testament to the trust that’s developed between the British and US leaders.
It is heartening in many ways to see the major European powers, including the UK post-Brexit, asserting themselves as a unified force for good in the world. Yet, since the Suez crisis of 1956 finished off any post-imperial delusions still held by the British and the French, it is the United States that has been the permanent and, so far as any peace initiatives are concerned, the indispensable superpower in the region.
With varying degrees of success, most presidents since Richard Nixon have, with equally varying degrees of enthusiasm, found themselves brokering peace, or even fighting wars in the region. Some have made progress that has lasted to this day; other interventions made matters incomparably worse.
The British have sometimes partnered in these episodes, but it has always been as the junior partner, such as when Tony Blair made the strategic decision to break from EU partners and unequivocally join President George W Bush in the invasion of Iraq and the “war on terror”, two decades ago.
Sir Keir is the first British premier in many decades to try and play a leading role in the Middle East peace process, and the closer he is to President Trump in this effort the more chance of success he will have.
After all, no previous attempt to turn the increasingly empty slogan of “a two-state solution” embarked on its task against such an unpromising backdrop. It is not just that so many innocent civilians have perished, nor that the territory of Gaza has been turned to dust in an unprecedented fashion (outside the use of nuclear weapons in 1945), or even that Mr Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former defence minister of Israel, stand accused of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. That is desperate enough; far worse are the very real hatreds that have been born and exacerbated in every corner of Israel and Palestine since 7 October 2023, growing as they do upon generations of injustices, grievances and persecutions.
Realistically, hopes cannot be high. The present Israeli government doesn’t even support the idea of a two-state approach, arguing that any Palestinian state would only be a launchpad for the attempted destruction of Israel. And yet the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October, and many other such attacks, were not from a fully secure and stable legitimate Palestinian state.
That is the difference. Israel can only become truly safe from terrorist attack and invasion from its neighbours if the region becomes stable, and the international community – including the other powers surrounding it – guarantees borders and human rights.
The logic of the two-state solution is as unavoidable as ever. It needs a powerful and respected leader to restate the case in calm and compelling terms. If that cannot, for the time being, be a US leader, then it can be a British one. It falls to Sir Keir because he has so rapidly established himself on the world stage, he carries the confidence of President Trump, and is, in a sense, discharging Britain’s historical role.
It was, we may recall, a British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, who in 1917 declared that: “His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Now, the time has come to establish a national home for the Palestinian people – and to honour the full text of that famous document.
It was also Britain, the last colonial power, that hurriedly abandoned Palestine to the UN in 1948, and left behind so much that remains unsettled. Sir Keir is taking a risk, both in the region and within his own party at home. He deserves unqualified support.
Why has it been so difficult for Britain to recognise the state of Palestine?
Why I’ve changed my mind about a state of Palestine
Lady Starmer deserves better than putting up with ‘banter’ from Donald Trump
Has Trump just become the very model of a modern liberal leader?
Finally, Mr Trump has made an important break with the Israeli government
Starmer must take a strong line with Trump to relieve the suffering in Gaza
