'Keir Starmer's Palestine Recognition Delay Is Obscene - The UK Must Act Now Without Conditions'
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Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that the UK Government will unilaterally recognise the State of Palestine. However, the announcement was tainted by a grim caveat: that his Government will move down this path unless Israel takes "substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza" and commit to a two state solution, effectively making the recognition of Palestine contingent upon Israeli good behaviour.
This is of course obscene, considering that Israel has already massacred well over 55,000 Gazans, and is now subjecting them to what the World Food Programme has described as a "man-made famine," in which "more than 500,000 people - nearly a quarter of Gaza's population - are enduring famine-like conditions, while the remaining population is facing emergency levels of hunger."
Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu - who, let us not forget, has an ICC arrest warrant out on him for crimes against humanity - has openly stated his intention to ensure the people of Gaza have no homes to return to.
For decades, successive UK Governments have insisted that recognising a Palestinian state must wait until the right political conditions emerge, as part of a negotiated peace deal. Indeed, Starmer's spineless announcement - in the face of what UN experts have called a genocide - is but a continuation of that same policy.
The Palestinians - who are being relentlessly bombed in their homes, hospitals and streets, and now starved to death en masse - must wait for the "right conditions" before their dystopian nightmare ends and they are finally given what they have been calling for since 1948: a state of their own.
There are, however, some signs of a rising tide of morality among British politicians: more than 200 MPs from across the political spectrum publicly called on the Government to recognise the State of Palestine.
UK Charity Sanctioned Over 'Distressing' Fundraising Video for Israeli Military
The action by the Charity Commission followed a Byline Times investigation into the video, which appeared to show a Palestinian being hit by Israeli munitions
Iain Overton
Starmer's weak-kneed policy looks a lot like an attempt to placate those voices, while at the same time not frustrating the Trump administration which would likely oppose any immediate recognition, as it has with France's decision to recognise Palestinian Statehood in the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in September.
While Starmer's aides are said to have dismissed the French move as mere "symbolism," this is trivial and misses the point. Across Europe, the tide appears to be turning: Spain, Ireland, Norway and others have given recognition and 147 of the UN's 193 member states - that's over three-quarters - now recognise Palestinian statehood. Canada is the latest UK ally to announce its intention to formally recognise Palestine.
Change at Home
There is of course an almost incomprehensible brutality fuelling this urgency. Alongside the famine itself, since Israel canceled the UN's aid delivery mechanism into Gaza in May, the IDF has shot dead over 1,000 Palestinian civilians trying to access the little bit of food that has managed to enter the war-torn strip.
A leading expert on food health recently said, "there is no case since World War II of starvation that has been so minutely designed and controlled," as what Israel is currently doing in Gaza. Cases of malnutrition among children have increased by over 300% since May of this year.
In the face of this unbridled barbarity, British Government equivocation must end. The British public is no longer fooled by arguments that this is all in the name of Israel's "self-defence". Poll after poll shows that a growing majority among Britons want their Government to stake a morally decisive stance.
Cambridge University Takes Own Professor to Court for Joining P...
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
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Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that the UK Government will unilaterally recognise the State of Palestine. However, the announcement was tainted by a grim caveat: that his Government will move down this path unless Israel takes "substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza" and commit to a two state solution, effectively making the recognition of Palestine contingent upon Israeli good behaviour.
This is of course obscene, considering that Israel has already massacred well over 55,000 Gazans, and is now subjecting them to what the World Food Programme has described as a "man-made famine," in which "more than 500,000 people - nearly a quarter of Gaza's population - are enduring famine-like conditions, while the remaining population is facing emergency levels of hunger."
Israel's leader Benjamin Netanyahu - who, let us not forget, has an ICC arrest warrant out on him for crimes against humanity - has openly stated his intention to ensure the people of Gaza have no homes to return to.
For decades, successive UK Governments have insisted that recognising a Palestinian state must wait until the right political conditions emerge, as part of a negotiated peace deal. Indeed, Starmer's spineless announcement - in the face of what UN experts have called a genocide - is but a continuation of that same policy.
The Palestinians - who are being relentlessly bombed in their homes, hospitals and streets, and now starved to death en masse - must wait for the "right conditions" before their dystopian nightmare ends and they are finally given what they have been calling for since 1948: a state of their own.
There are, however, some signs of a rising tide of morality among British politicians: more than 200 MPs from across the political spectrum publicly called on the Government to recognise the State of Palestine.
UK Charity Sanctioned Over 'Distressing' Fundraising Video for Israeli Military
The action by the Charity Commission followed a Byline Times investigation into the video, which appeared to show a Palestinian being hit by Israeli munitions
Iain Overton
Starmer's weak-kneed policy looks a lot like an attempt to placate those voices, while at the same time not frustrating the Trump administration which would likely oppose any immediate recognition, as it has with France's decision to recognise Palestinian Statehood in the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in September.
While Starmer's aides are said to have dismissed the French move as mere "symbolism," this is trivial and misses the point. Across Europe, the tide appears to be turning: Spain, Ireland, Norway and others have given recognition and 147 of the UN's 193 member states - that's over three-quarters - now recognise Palestinian statehood. Canada is the latest UK ally to announce its intention to formally recognise Palestine.
Change at Home
There is of course an almost incomprehensible brutality fuelling this urgency. Alongside the famine itself, since Israel canceled the UN's aid delivery mechanism into Gaza in May, the IDF has shot dead over 1,000 Palestinian civilians trying to access the little bit of food that has managed to enter the war-torn strip.
A leading expert on food health recently said, "there is no case since World War II of starvation that has been so minutely designed and controlled," as what Israel is currently doing in Gaza. Cases of malnutrition among children have increased by over 300% since May of this year.
In the face of this unbridled barbarity, British Government equivocation must end. The British public is no longer fooled by arguments that this is all in the name of Israel's "self-defence". Poll after poll shows that a growing majority among Britons want their Government to stake a morally decisive stance.
Cambridge University Takes Own Professor to Court for Joining P...
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