Britain’s deputy prime minister said on Sunday that recognising a Palestinian state would not bring one into existence “overnight”, stressing that recognition must be part of a broader peace process.
“Any step to recognise it is because we wish to keep alive the prospects of a two-state solution,” David Lammy told Sky News, adding that prime minister Keir Starmer would be making a decision on recognising a Palestinian state later on Sunday.
Mr Starmer said in July that Britain would recognise Palestine unless Israel reached a ceasefire with Hamas, let more aid into Gaza, made clear there would be no annexation of the West Bank and committed to a peace process delivering a “two-state solution” – a Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel.
“Since that announcement in July, in fact, with the attack on Qatar, a ceasefire at this point lays in tatters, and the prospects are bleak,” Mr Lammy said, adding that Israel had also moved forward with a settlement plan.
The senior Palestinian diplomat in the UK said recognition would correct a colonial-era wrong dating back to the Balfour Declaration supporting the creation of a Jewish state in 1917.
The Palestinian head of mission Husam Zomlot told the BBC: “The issue today is ending the denial of our existence that started 108 years ago, in 1917.
“And I think today, the British people should celebrate a day when history is being corrected, when wrongs are being righted, when recognition of the wrongs of the past are beginning to be corrected, and when taking responsibility of that colonial era, because that era has led us directly to the genocide in Gaza today, and that era has led to the ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the Palestinian people during the Nakba and during the British mandate.”
Nakba is the term used to describe the mass displacement of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 after the end of the British Mandate.
Mr Zomlot said “the hands of British history” were on the whole conflict.
He added that recognition was a “foundational step” towards establishing a sovereign state of Palestine “and anybody who argues against that is somebody who wants to see us moving backward rather than forward”.
The UK’s health minister, Dr Zubir Ahmed, said, in comments made before his appointment to cabinet earlier this month, members of the Israeli government have “genocidal intent”.
Dr Ahmed, the MP for Glasgow South West, was appointed as a health minister in the prime minister’s re-shuffle brought about by the resignation of Angela Rayner in early September.
The UK government has been reticent to describe the crisis in Gaza as a “genocide”, despite activist calls and Scottish first minister John Swinney taking such a step.
Speaking to Holyrood magazine in an interview conducted days before he was appointed as a minister, Dr Ahmed said: “The arc of this, even in the last couple of months, has gone into places that are unconscionable, horrendous and really are, you know, things I thought I would never see in a so-called western democracy.
“We have members of that government [Israel] who certainly have genocidal intent – members of that government indicted by the International Criminal Court. It’s an unprecedented diplomatic position to be in.”
Dr Ahmed said he would have been in Gaza with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians the day before the election last year had the Rafah crossing in the south of the territory not been closed two weeks before.
The MP added that he felt “relatively powerless” about the situation in Gaza.
“There’s not a singular military solution that the British government can enact to stop this and that is a really, really painful thing to say, to be in the place of power like we are right now and to tell you that I am relatively powerless in this conflict,” he said.
“That does not mean I’m not responsible.
“It doesn’t mean I don’t have any agency and I don’t need to strive to make a difference, but to tell you that I feel relatively powerless in the place of power in the UK is painful.”
The UK government has been contacted for comment. – Reuters