What impact would recognition of Palestine really have?

The issue being discussed by the British government is twofold — whether the UK will bilaterally recognise Palestine “state to state”, and whether it will support its elevation from observer to member state status at the UN.

Britain, like France, has up to now refused to recognise Palestine in the absence of a long-term settlement to its eight-decade dispute with Israel.

Their decision to do so – which in Britain’s case has conditions attached – is an attempt to wrench the most intractable conflict of our times out of its interminable rut.

Their preferred two-state solution currently seems impossible, given Israel’s insistence on security control over all the territories it seized in the Six Day War of 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It has annexed the latter two.

The United States attempted its own solution in 2020 with President Trump’s “Abraham Accords”, “normalising” relations with such Arab countries without a formal settlement, leaving the details till later. That has not worked so far.

The Palestinians are divided among themselves. The Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank, is universally derided as corrupt and incompetent. The flaws of Hamas, whose leaders thought they could shelter in tunnels as their people were bombed, need little further description.

But, France and Britain argue, no one has yet suggested any plausible long-term settlement other than the two-state solution.

The question remains whether recognition by Britain or France will make any difference, when Israel rejects it and the US vetoes any attempt to impose it on the United Nations. Israel says it will make matters worse: Hamas will be emboldened and will double down in its demands both now, during ceasefire talks, and when longer-term issues are discussed.

Hamas murdered 1,200 men, women and children during its attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. Is it now to be rewarded?

Britain and France’s response is that it is not Hamas that is being rewarded – Hamas, which never signed up to the two-state solution – but rather the Palestinian Authority, which does recognise Israel. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, makes little distinction between them.

Britain’s decision in particular has resonance, as the former colonial power whose Balfour Declaration of 1917 first promised Jews a state in Palestine. But Balfour does not make Britain any more popular with Israel, which remembers instead that we abstained in the vote that approved its accession to the UN in 1949.

Some say that Palestine is effectively a state already, meeting the terms set out in international law, most clearly defined by the Montevideo Convention of 1933: it has a defined territory, a permanent population, a government and a capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Pro-Israel scholars challenge the idea it has a “defined territory” – at least as things stand.

Were Britain to go ahead with recognition in September, it would mean the Palestinian mission to the UK would become an embassy. Britain would be obliged to promote Palestine’s presence on international committees that require members to have statehood.

It would not make a difference, yet, to Palestine’s presence at the UN. It is an “observer state”, not a “member state”, so it cannot vote, lodge motions, or take a rotating seat on the security council. The US would veto any challenge to that.

But by acting together, France and Britain, both permanent members of the security council, have put the Palestinian ball back in the court of Israel and of the US, its backer of last resort.

The Times