Note that this post has been amended.
Now that it is Government policy (albeit conditional) to recognise Palestine, arguments are going to be raised against it – so be prepared!
Before yesterday’s announcement by Starmer, two arguments had been mentioned rather tentatively by the distinguished, retired diplomat Lord Darroch on Radio 4’s The World At One on 25 July. I say ‘tentatively’ because he felt it necessary to point out in the interview that many of his diplomatic colleagues, both serving and retired, disagreed with him. These arguments were picked up by our very own Lib Dem peer Baroness Sarah Ludford and disseminated on social media. She succinctly summarised them as follows – without, so far as I could see, any gloss of her own:
Lord (Kim) Darroch tells #r4 that recog of a Palestinian state at this point:
a) might create initial jubilation among some but disillusion when it’s clear that nothing has changed on the ground
b) would set a precedent in breaching the normal criteria for existence of a state— Sarah Ludford 🇬🇧 🇮🇪🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@SarahLudford) July 25, 2025
Since then a third argument has been made, namely that recognition would be “rewarding terror”. This seems to be gaining rather more traction than the other two, since it has been endorsed by the families of some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped on 7 October.
What weight do these arguments carry? The first argument is essentially political, while the second is legal and the third is perhaps best described as a moral argument. Let’s deal with the legal argument first, because it is also relevant to the moral argument, and then finally turn to the political argument.
As long ago as 2006, the late James Crawford, the leading authority on statehood in international law, Cambridge professor and subsequently Australian judge at the ICJ, provided a cogent reply to the legal argument:
There may come a point where international law regards as done that which ought to have been done, if the reason it has not been done is the serious default of one party and if the consequence of its not being done is serious prejudice to another. The principle that a State (e.g. Israel) cannot rely on its own wrongful conduct to avoid the consequences of its international obligations is capable of novel applications, and circumstances can be imagined where the international community would be entitled to treat a new State (e.g. Palestine) as existing on a given territory, notwithstanding the facts.
Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law, 2nd ed, 2006, pp. 447-8.
This is crystal clear. Since Israel is in unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and has frustrated the self-determination of the Palestinian People over many years, it is high time for the international community to apply Crawford’s reasoning and recognise Palestine as a state on the whole of the OPT alongside Israel. For that reason Sir Ed Davey got it absolutely right when he said that British recognition should have happened now, rather than waiting for UNGA in September as Starmer intends.
Having disposed of the legal objection, let’s turn to the moral argument, that recognition would reward terror. This is also refuted by the words of Crawford quoted above. How can the massacre and hostage taking carried out by Hamas alter in any way the fact that the state of Israel cannot rely on its own wrongful conduct to avoid the consequences of breaching its international obligations? We might also remember that for years Netanyahu acted in ways that had the effect of strengthening Hamas precisely in order to avoid Israel’s obligation to facilitate the self-determination of the Palestinian people under its occupation, as Adam Raz has pointed out in Haaretz.
Finally, the political argument: ” (recognition) might create initial jubilation among some but disillusion when it’s clear that nothing has changed on the ground”.
This is an Aunt Sally argument, in other words an argument with no validity but intended to distract from the main issue. The starving people of Gaza and the people of the West Bank who are currently suffering pogroms [officially encouraged riots] have many reasons to be angry with Britain, but they are well aware that Britain has very limited power today. I therefore do not believe British recognition will raise unrealistic expectations.
Yet British recognition will force us to treat the Occupied Palestinian Territory as the sovereign territory of Palestine. This would mean, for instance, making us take proper measures to ensure that Israel does not continue to try to infiltrate settlement products into our markets by describing them as Israeli products (even if their postcodes indicate they come from settlements). All British agreements with Israel would have to be checked to make sure they do not violate Palestinian sovereignty – this would include Palestinian territorial integrity, and apply to economic, cultural, social and civil relations.
Most importantly, however, recognition would send a powerful warning to existing and potential settlers. They will now know that in the view of Britain, they are living on the territory of a sovereign State (Palestine) occupied by another State (Israel). Palestine is analogous to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia which retained their legal persona during the cruel decades of illegal Soviet occupation. When they regained their de facto independence, they had jurisdiction over the Russians who had been settled on their territory. The Israeli settlers will have been warned that British recognition of Palestine makes it increasingly likely that it will be the same for them one day.
* John McHugo is a former chair of Putney constituency party. His next book, provisionally titled "How Hell came to Israel and Palestine: the conflict between Zionism and Islamism", will be published by Hurst later this year. He is a member of Lib Dem Friends of Palestine and the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum. The views expressed in this article are his alone.
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14 Comments
John McHugo reminds us that one of the Israeli responses to Sir Keir Starmer having finally conceded that the UK might have to recognise Palestine is that it “rewards terror” . But not recognising Palestine, and remaining silent while Israel completes the annexation of the whole of Mandate Palestine would be to ‘reward’ Israel for what it has been doing. Of course, for some there is the presumption that anything Israel does is OK, because it is the “only democracy in the Middle East” – little comfort to those being starved, I imagine.
One definition of war is “state-sanctioned murder”, but many would argue with that. In the massively unequal war in Gaza, where civilians are sitting ducks for one of the world’s most sophisticated armies, it’s a definition many would uphold, and does anyone want to ‘reward’ that?
Ed Davey is making Lib Dem policy on recognition of Palestine very clear, while also standing up to Trump bullying in his latest social media post. 👇
https://bsky.app/profile/ldfpalestine.bsky.social/post/3lvbaeestoc2g
JohnMcHugo’s argument is absolutely compelling and deserves a much wider audience. Recognition of Palestine is a start, but Israel needs also to understand that in the short term humanitarian action is urgent , while in the longer term that pressure will be increasingly exerted to bring it step by step back within conformity of international norms and laws, as set out in the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024.
I can be as critical as the next person about the actions of the Israeli government, not just post the Hamas terror attack, but from the earliest days of the very existence of the creation of the state of Israel. Recognition of a state of Palestine is all very well but I suggest it ignores a very large elephant in the room; namely the refusal
by the Arabs to recognise the existence of Israel as a sovereign state
John Boss, in September last year the Jordanian envoy to the United Nations offered Israel a way to end the war; recognising Israel’s ‘fear of annihilation’ as one of the factors, he said he had the support of the entire Arab League in offering to defend Israel in future, provided it stopped the war and agreed to talks about the two-state solution. The hyphenated beginning to the phrase “two-state solution” carries a meaning which seems to have eluded you in your search for an elephant.
I would also respectfully point out that in addition to being unevidenced, groundless, and virtually meaningless, an accusation apparently encompassing all so-called “Arabs” has a racial element which some would find offensive, and which you might do better to avoid in future.
@John Boss – John, with respect I disagree with your assertion that “the Arabs” have “refused to recognise the existence of israel as a sovereign state”. This just does not accord with the historical facts; as an assertion it just does not hold water.
As long ago as the Lausanne conference in 1949, the Arab League was prepared to negotiate with Israel for a final settlement but Israel was not prepared to accept that this meant allowing the return of a large number of Palestinian refugees to their homes and a territorial compromise. Egypt, Syria and Jordan all made separate peace overtures to Israel in the period 1948-50.
After the 1967 war, the Israeli cabinet knew that Jordan and Egypt were prepared for talks that might have led to peace but concealed this from the Israeli public, preferring to paint the Arab states as intransigent because of their public “three noes” at the Khartoum conference that year.
In 2002, the Arab League peace plan offered Israel full peace and normalisation of relations with all Arab countries in return for a full withdrawal from all occupied territory and the mutual recognition of the rights of all parties in international law.
No one has been an angel, but Israel, cannot blame “the Arabs” for blocking peace. On the contrary, peace has failed to come because Israel has been unprepared to recognise the rights of the Palestinian people.
John Boss 31st Jul ’25 – 5:20pm…… Recognition of a state of Palestine is all very well but I suggest it ignores a very large elephant in the room; namely the refusal by the Arabs to recognise the existence of Israel as a sovereign state…
What seems to have become confused by those stating, “It rewards Hamas” is the fact that Hamas do not support a Palestinian state (which is why Netanyahu’s Likud party initially supported them)..
The more moderate PLO, who do support a Palestinian state, have recognised the right of Israel as a state since the Oslo Accord..
Must be backed by Hamas agreeing to a cease fire, disarmament and International control for a period of time. Probably quite a few years.
I think that the Israeli government will continue to find ways to thwart it.
Any solution that involves recognising Palestine as a state should and almost certainly would also exclude Hamas from government of said state. (Likewise for Israel and the people/parties comprising the present Israeli government.) This kills the “rewarding terror” argument, and it’s also a major reason neither government wants a two-state solution. Both the Israeli government and Hamas want the same sort of thing, namely a single theocratic state “from the river to the sea”.
One former Hamas hostage compared Starmer’s tentative recognition of Palestine to allowing the Nazis to continue in power in Germany in 1945. Actually it’s the opposite, and more like what actually happened there, which was the rebuilding of the state excluding the former totalitarians from power.
May I respond to the posts by Andy Daer and John Mchugo. In my defence, I was simply making what seemed self evident that Israel was one of the states in any two state agreement.More specifically. I do not understand how my use of the term ” Arabs ‘ is racist. I used it as a generic short hand word to describe the various Arab countries, {not forgetting Iran of course]who at various times and to varying degrees have opposed the existence of the state of Israel. Likewise, I am aware of course of the numerous occasions over the decades of attempts to reach some rapprochement between the two sides all of which have failed due to their more extreme elements who present mirror images to each other in their policies and their behaviour
Good to see Ed Davey’s stronger statements.
We need to realise that opinion in the Democratic world has shifted enormously since the war on civilians conducted by Israel in Gaza as some sort of collective punishment for October 7th. At the weakend 60,000 people marched accross Sydney Harbour Bridge in torrential rain in support of Palestine.
And as for getting aid in, then why are we asking Israel to co-operate with aid supplies all the time? Gaza is not their territory, so if Egypt was happy to let the lorries leave then they could be protected by a multi national force and enter Gaza via the Rafa crossing. Would the IDF be ordered to fire on UN backed troops escorting aid convoys? Somehow I doubt even Netanyahu would be that stupid.
@John Boss, your clarification is welcome, and I regret the slightly sarcastic tone in my original attempt to remind you that many Arab states have accepted the idea of Israel as a sovereign state. John McHugo, a noted historian of the Middle East, put it better in his comment.
I didn’t actually mean to call you racist when I said there was a racial element in the use of the word Arab. I did so because many Israelis refer to Palestinians as “Arabs” in the belief that Jews are a superior ‘race’, whereas in fact what separates Israelis from the people of surrounding countries is differing belief systems, not innate biological differences. For Israelis to go down the same path used to promote belief in the superiority of the so-called “Aryan race” is a mistake they really ought to have the good sense to avoid.
Andy Daer. I am most grateful for your last Post. Sadly there is absolutely no sign at present of the Israeli government recognising the need to reach some accommodation regarding a Palestine state.
Surely one of the functions of the UN is to decide on who is in charge of a piece of land? When South Sudan was created it voted for it to become a state. Is Palestine unique in not being independent and not part of another state?