What does recognising Palestine as a state actually mean?
The UK will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire and a two-state solution in Gaza, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed.
The prime minister said Benjamin Netanyahu’s government must end its starvation tactics and allow the supply of aid into the embattled enclave after a UN-backed food security body said the “worst-case scenario of famine” was playing out in the territory.
The announcement on Tuesday came after an emergency virtual cabinet meeting where Sir Keir laid out his plan for peace in the Middle East, agreed over the weekend with French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Sir Keir has come under mounting pressure from his own party to recognise a Palestinian state, which has only grown since Mr Macron announced France’s intention to do so by September.
In addition, Britain’s foreign secretary David Lammy is attending a United Nations conference in New York on Tuesday to urge support for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
Here, The Independent asks experts about what the UK recognising Palestinian statehood would mean in practice.
Dr Julie Norman, an associate professor at UCL specialising in Middle Eastern politics, said it looks likely that the UK will recognise Palestine as a state, which would mean voting for this at the United Nations – but it would be unlikely the UN would be able to recognise Palestinian statehood due to the probability of the United States blocking the move.
However, she said countries such as the UK and France voting for recognition at the UN would be a “significant” move.
And she said the UK officially recognising Palestinian statehood would still be of “value”, even if the reality is that not much would change on the ground, with Israel still “fully rejecting” the prospect of recognition.
Speaking of British recognition, Dr Norman said: “It would be a strong moral commitment and stance to Palestine at a moment when it’s never been more fraught in Gaza and the West Bank.
“In the short term, it’s a diplomatic stance, and it makes room for policy changes.
“And, if and when parties come back to discuss the long-term conflict, it would put Palestine in a better position. So it wouldn’t change things immediately, but I would say it still has value.”
She added that the move might initially see more change in London than in Ramallah, a city in the central West Bank, which serves as the administrative capital of Palestine – with, for example, the opening of an embassy in the UK capital. This would not mean recognition of Hamas.
The idea of dividing the Holy Land goes back decades.
