Starmer’s Palestine gamble Recognition without reform is doomed

Yesterday three of Israel’s closest allies — Britain, Canada, and Australia — formally recognised the State of Palestine. In a highly choreographed display, designed to coincide with Tuesday’s meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, each leader gave the move their own political framing. But at the heart of it all was a fastidiously articulated desire: to rescue the two-state solution from the bloody smear of Gaza, and to resuscitate the moribund peace process.

In and of itself, this is extraordinary. For decades, the recognition of formal Palestinian statehood was held out as a reward for a final treaty between the two sides. Now, though, the message to Israel (and indeed the United States) is unmistakable: the old orthodoxy has failed, and recognition is now not the prize for peace, but a means through which to obtain it.

Complicating it all — as always in the most mediated and fraught conflict since 1945 — is emotion: on both sides. On the one hand, everyone from Hamas to the Green Party is delighted. On the other, the Israeli government, Jewish diaspora communities, and those rightly fearful of Islamist terror, are enraged, arguing that the move rewards Hamas for its barbarism on October 7.

For his part, Keir Starmer was at fastidious pains to deny this was the case. “Hamas is a brutal terror organisation,” he said. “This solution is not a reward for Hamas… Because it means Hamas can have no future. No role in government. No role in security.” Either way, his move was inevitable. The cumulative toll of Israel’s campaign — tens of thousands of dead, alongside the absence of any realistic plan to end the war and indeed Benjamin Netanyahu’s explicit opposition to Palestinian statehood — has had its effect.

In this sense, it’s clear that recognition is a rebuke of Israel more than an expression of unqualified support for Palestine. Though other Western countries from Sweden (in 2014) to Ireland (in 2024) had already gone down this path, London, Ottawa and Canberra all held out. This was partly due to strong relations with Jerusalem, especially on security coordination, as well as a desire not to upset the United States.

But with the US still against recognition, and Israel intransigent, the three middle powers decided this was the time to move. Sources tell me that the Government feels that recognition may be the only leverage they have left to try and change Israeli behaviour on the ground.

Then, of course, is the question of domestic politics. For Labour voters, Palestine is not just a cause célèbre: it is a hugely effective mobilising tool. They want action. And with sectarian issues now front and centre for parts of the Muslim vote, and indeed costing Labour parliamentary seats, it’s no surprise that the party has moved to shore up its Left flank.

That said, it’s important to understand what recognition does  and doesn’t do. In the end, there is no escaping the fact that the state of Palestine is simply not a reality on the ground. Gaza is a war zone; the West Bank is ruthlessly contested. For now, recognition is solely a legal and political act. It won’t create mutually agreed borders, kick out settlers, and rid both the Israelis and the Palestinians of Hamas. Nor does it end the war or solve Israel’s legitimate security concerns.

Recognition does, however, do three concrete things. First, it formalises Palestine’s diplomatic relationships with the rest of the world. Embassies replace missions; ambassadors present credentials. That matters for everyday statecraft: aid, trade, consular issues, and the slow, tedious work of institution-building.

Second, it reframes the conflict politically. By declaring Palestine a state, these three governments must now judge Israeli actions not merely through the lens of counterterrorism and occupation, but also inter-state norms. More robust pressure around the recognition of borders based on 1967 lines will follow — as will intensified scrutiny of settlement expansion, and more explicit linkage between Israeli policy and Western support.

Third, recognition pressures the Palestinians. Officials from London and Canberra alike know that recognition without reform will go nowhere. But by recognising Palestine now, there is a political (and moral) imperative on its officials to ensure that it begins to function like one.

This will require two changes above all else. First, a decisive break with the tactics of October 7. Many Palestinians — and millions of their supporters globally — are desperate to relativise a massacre that was undoubtedly a crime against humanity. A leadership that cannot take an unequivocal stance against such violence must forfeit the support of the very states now recognising it.

Second, Palestine needs serious governance reform: both in the West Bank and Gaza. The antisemitic school curricula; the Palestinian Authority’s “pay to slay” policy of making payments to the families of those killed or wounded during terror attacks; not to mention the widespread Islamist and jihadist presence across both territories — all this must go. A technocratic interim leadership, with a mandate to unify the security services and hold proper elections, is the minimum diplomats must demand in exchange for recognition.

That is currently impossible, what with a murderous Hamas and a corrupt and sclerotic Palestinian Authority. Britain, Australia and Canada will therefore now need to pour in yet more cash, designed to both build and increase institutional capacity into the nascent state — and this time ensure that it doesn’t disappear into the pockets of corrupt officials or unable yet more extremism.

Israel’s response to all this has been predictably furious. Netanyahu and those around him feel that Hamas is being rewarded for October 7. According to a Netanyahu spokesperson, the Israeli Prime Minister’s message to nations recognising Palestine is that “the people of Israel aren’t going to commit suicide because of the political needs of European politics”.

While Netanyahu lashes out, Israeli opposition figures blame him for what has happened. In a tweet, Yair Golan, leader of The Democrats Party, said that recognition was a “direct result of Netanyahu’s political abandonment: refusal to end the war and the dangerous choice of occupation and annexation”.

But Israel’s problems run deeper than internal dissension. I have seen, first hand from on the ground, how the country’s choices since October 7 have been driven by trauma. From the very beginning, the operational logic to destroy Hamas collided with humanitarian catastrophe, the absence of a plan and a nation’s collective anguish.

The longer Israel fights without a credible political solution, the more it loses the goodwill of those it needs most: the Arab states who signed normalisation to better contain Iran; the Europeans who defended its right to self-defence; and even parts of the Pentagon security establishment that have stuck with it for so long.

UK government sources have repeatedly made one thing clear to me in recent weeks. Recognition, they explain, is a warning from friends: security without politics produces only perpetual war and international isolation.

Israel also has another problem. Recognition happened despite US objections. Traditionally, the Anglosphere follows Washington on Israel-Palestine. But yesterday, it didn’t, a divergence that says two things. First: the Gaza war has disordered not just Middle Eastern but Western politics. Western leaders are recalibrating their positions in light of domestic opinion and international law. Second: the US monopoly over the Israel-Palestine “peace process” is gone. If Washington cannot or will not propose a credible pathway, others will try to improvise one, and publicly too.

Critics question why, if the UK, Australia and Canada were really so determined to put recognition on the table, they couldn’t at least dangle it as a prize for releasing the hostages. They also argue that recognition rewards intransigence: that it will embolden maximalists on both sides. Some of this will prove true. Israeli far-Right ministers are already spouting annexationist rhetoric; hardline Palestinian factions will claim the world has moved their way without the need for genuine concessions. And, of course, a Donald Trump who feels snubbed may offer yet more support to Netanyahu out of pure spite.

But those who support recognition will feel justified in arguing that the status quo led only in one direction: further West Bank annexation, more Gaza bloodshed, and decades more conflict. In the end, then, recognition is not a peace plan: but a stratagem to force one. The gamble, and it is a big one, is that it’ll finally force the Palestinians to accept serious, political and ideological reform — and Israelis to accept that perpetual war and endless occupation are not strategies worth pursuing. Whether or not it is realistic, this is now the policy. And, for the sake of both sides, we must hope it works.

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