It is hard to imagine a more self-defeating foreign policy move. Promising statehood unless a ceasefire is reached all but guarantees that Hamas will keep rejecting the very truce Britain says it wants
July 30, 2025 09:20
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has threatened – there seems no better word – that Britain will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September unless Israel reaches a ceasefire and meets other conditions. If we understand the logic correctly, it runs as follows: if Hamas – after months of rejecting ceasefire proposals – were to reverse course, accept a deal, and release its hostages, Britain will not recognise a Palestinian state. But if Hamas continues to torture captives in its tunnels, reject diplomacy, and prolong the war, Britain will.
It is difficult to imagine a more counterproductive approach to foreign policy. These upside-down incentives, if they influence anything at all, will encourage Hamas to harden its position and further delay the very ceasefire the British government claims to seek. This is not diplomacy, it is diplomatic malpractice.
Even the French, who led the push for symbolic recognition and have lobbied Britain to join them, have acted with marginally more responsibility. Their position, however misguided, has already been baked into the diplomatic equation. It no longer alters Hamas’s calculus. But Britain's threat is still pending. For Hamas, that means a simple calculation: hold out until September, and secure another political prize for intransigence.
Britain’s limited diplomatic leverage in this conflict should be used to encourage peace, not to reward rejectionism. Yet the pressure is being directed almost exclusively towards Israel, the only party that has accepted the ceasefire framework proposed by the US and endorsed by Egypt, and Qatar and even made additional concessions. The idea that more pressure on Israel, or further appeasement of Hamas, will lead to a breakthrough is pure fantasy.
Worse still, the broader push to recognise a Palestinian state at this moment reflects a fundamental misdiagnosis of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It also implies, if not explicitly states, that the lack of a Palestinian state is what provoked Hamas’s atrocities. That is historically and morally backward. The conflict long predates Israel’s conquest of the West Bank and Gaza. And Israel unilaterally withdrew from the strip 20 years ago. Palestinian leaders have rejected every serious offer of statehood, including those made by Israel. The central obstacle has never been the exact contours of future borders. It is the refusal to accept Israel’s existence in any borders.
The conflict persists not because a Palestinian state does not exist, but because the Palestinian leadership have repeatedly rejected one as part of a compromise to coexist in peace with Israel. A political culture that glorifies martyrdom, preaches antisemitism in schools, and celebrates terror is not fertile ground for peace. To grant sovereignty to such a state now – especially if Hamas ends up ruling the West Bank, adjacent to Israel’s population centres – is not a step toward peace and stability but toward even greater mayhem than we already experience now.
No Israeli government – left, right, or centre – would accept the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state under current conditions. Many Israelis who once backed a two-state solution in good faith have lost hope that it would bring peace. Why should they believe otherwise, when every concession has been met with rockets, every withdrawal with war?
The hard truth is that peace and a two state-solution will only become possible when a majority of Israelis can be persuaded that a future Palestinian state will not be a launching pad for more attacks, but a responsible neighbour. That requires a transformation in Palestinian political culture – a rejection of terror, the embrace of coexistence, and a serious overhaul of what is taught in schools and preached from pulpits. It is difficult work. But it is necessary work. And it is work Europe has long refused to seriously push for, preferring lofty declarations and reflexive criticism of Israel.
As remote as a negotiated two-state solution may seem today, Britain’s move would only push it further out of reach. It would vindicate Hamas’s claim that only violence works. Worse, it would signal that the more grotesque the violence, the greater the reward.
To look at the long arc of this conflict and conclude that October 7 should become effectively Palestine’s independence day is an abdication of strategic judgment, driven by ideology and domestic electoral considerations. It does not advance peace. It undermines Britain's credibility and weakens the moral authority of this country on the world stage.
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