The government must step back from gesture politics, and move towards substantive measures that end this war and put us on the path to a lasting peace
September 22, 2025 09:50
The UK Jewish community’s urgent desire is for a lasting and durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We want an end to the suffering on all sides of this conflict.
Yet the Government’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state in the wake of the atrocities of 7 October, while Hamas still holds 48 Israeli hostages, does little to advance this goal - and may even have set progress backwards.
Since the Government first announced this measure in response to political pressure in July, most indices have moved in the wrong direction.
Seeing the pressure being leveraged only on Israel, Hamas pulled back from the hostage-ceasefire talks, claiming that the plans of the UK and other countries’ decision to recognise a Palestinian state were “the fruits of October 7”.
The only hostages released since that day were the bodies of hostages brought back by Israeli military operations.
The incentives have all gone in the wrong direction.
The UK Government must step back from gesture politics, and move towards substantive measures that end this war and put us on the path to a lasting peace.
There needs to be concrete measures to pressure Hamas, and their backers in Qatar, to release the hostages and cease their reign of terror in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Authority must be forced to prove that it can be a partner for peace, by ending its policies of incitement and its practice of bankrolling terror through their infamous policy of “pay to slay” - where they pay the families of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned for murdering Israelis. Indeed, it took nearly 2 years, to June 2025, for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to condemn the October 7 atrocities for the first time.
The UK Government must not ignore the ongoing threat of Iran and its proxies across the Middle East and - as our security agencies have warned - to our own country. The Government was right to impose snapback sanctions on Iran over its intransigence in the nuclear talks. Additional measures should be taken, like proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and bringing an end to the terrorist government of the Houthis in Yemen, whose missiles and drones force Israeli families into bomb shelters nearly every day.
In far too many cases, those expressing solidarity with Palestinians here in Britain also reject Israel’s very existence, and polarisation and disinformation around this conflict are fuelling hostility towards British Jews who are deeply connected to Israel through family and social networks as well as our religious, ethnic and cultural traditions. We need to see a robust response to antisemitism and extremism in all their forms.
The consensus view of our vibrant and diverse UK Jewish community is around four priorities: getting the hostages home; ending Hamas’ threat to Israel; getting food and other humanitarian aid into Gaza without it being stolen by Hamas; and creating conditions for a long-term peace deal between Israelis, Palestinians and the wider Middle East.
A majority of the Israeli public, in common with most people in Britain, want this war to end with a ceasefire deal to get the hostages out. Our fear is that the government announcement today will delay, not hasten, this process. We urgently call upon the UK government now to outline how it will use Britain’s leverage to bring the release of the hostages, two of whom have British family, end Hamas’ reign of terror, and meaningfully enhance conditions for the lasting peace and security that Israelis and Palestinians sorely deserve.
Phil Rosenberg is President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews
To get more from opinion, click here to sign up for our free Editor's Picks newsletter.
