On 21 September 2025 the UK government, led by Prime Minister Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer MP, made the fateful decision to recognise a Palestinian state. This decision comes after an almost two-year battle by the IDF to rescue hostages seized during the illegal and unprovoked invasion of Israeli border communities by Hamas on 7 October 2025. The attacks by the Hamas terrorist organisation and its associates led to the killing of 1,274 people, and the capture of 251 hostages. 24 of these hostages are still thought to be alive in the Gaza Strip. If an attack of equivalent scale occurred in the UK, the death toll would be about 57,000. I do not think that any Prime Minister would be able to countenance indifference faced with an incursion of similar proportions. I am going to examine whether the UK recognising a Palestinian state enhances the prospects of peace or rewards terrorism.
In recognising a Palestinian state, I think we have to first define the qualities of a nation state. Article one of the Montevideo Convention dictates that a state should have "a defined population,a defined territory, government" and "the capacity to enter into relations with other states". If we consider Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza as constituting a Palestinian sovereign entity, it is clear that this state meets the criteria of having a population.
The Palestinian Authority has also demonstrated a capacity to enter into relations with other states. Dr Husam Zomlot is an example of a foreign representative of a Palestinian entity. Therefore it also has a defined population. Perhaps more importantly though, the Palestinian state many countries are rushing to recognise, including most recently France on 22 September 2025, does not have a defined territory, uncontested by neighbouring states.
Five serious attempts have been made to define the borders which would need to be agreed to create a Palestinian state. On each occasion, notably including the Olmert Plan which would have offered a Palestinian state on 93-95% of the West Bank and sovereignty in Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, attempts to delineate an agreed upon border failed. If the territorial debate underpinning the dispute cannot be resolved, any recognition is flawed. According to Article 16 of the Hamas Covenant, the UN partition plan, and any future attempts to reach a conciliatory peace agreement are "null and void."
The proposed Palestinian entity does not possess a single government able to exercise a monopoly of the use of force over the entirety of its claimed territory. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, is currently in the twentieth year of his four year term. The Oslo Accords of September 1993, from which the Palestinian Authority and Presidency were created, were intended as a road map to a potential co-existance of an Israeli and Palestinian state. Currently, Mahmoud Abbas presides over a Palestinian Authority unable to even collect all of its own taxes, where "Israel collects, processes and transfers to the PA taxes imposed on Palestinian international imports and exports, including those from Israel." If we correctly conclude that Israel is a fait accompli, and therefore any Palestinian state will exist alongside Israel, it is difficult to see how any lasting peace can be achieved in such circumstances.
It is clear that the Palestinian Authority does not aspire to the democratic principles espoused and purportedly encouraged by the West. Hamas is, notionally at least, still in charge of the Gaza strip. This means that the proposed entity currently has two governments, neither of which recognises the legitimacy and jurisdiction of the other.
In attempting to achieve a two state solution, I think it is important to reflect on its external origins, and that it was never endorsed by the region to which it relates. Important parallels can be found in the partition of India. While having domestic proponents, it was imposed by the British Raj as an imperfect solution to expedite Britain's withdrawal from the Indian subcontinent.
The two state solution is the result of a combination of externally imposed factors. Under the Ottoman Empire, states in our current day understanding did not exist. In 1864, Ottoman reforms created administrative subdivisions called Vilayets, (ولایت in Ottoman Turkish), more akin to administrative provinces than states possessing agency.
The future British mandate would have been located largely within the Vilayets of Beirut and Damascus and the Mutasarrifate (a subdivision below Vilayet) of Jerusalem. None of these entities resembled a fully sovereign state, or were called Palestine. The Sykes-Picot agreement between the UK and France created areas of influence following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Notably, once again, entities similar to sovereign states were not created within the British mandate. The British mandate included the modern day Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, clearly discrediting claims of historical geographic continuity.
The Balfour Declaration which aspired to the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was the starting point for the modern conception of the two state solution. The British Government's Peel Commission of 1937 concluded that partition was the only logical solution for the contradictory aspirations of the Arab and Jewish populations within the mandate.
In the wake of World War Two, the British Government notified the UN of its intent to leave the region, leading to the formation of a UN Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP). This body concluded that a two state solution was necessary, with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum (Latin for separate entity). This was confirmed in United Nations Resolution 181.
In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip, as a test of what a future Palestinian state could rassemble. The following year, rather than seeking a peaceful and diplomatic future, Gazans elected Hamas. Subsequently, no further elections have taken place and Gaza has been used as a bastion for launching terrorist attacks at Israel ever since. With potentially the exception of the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty, ceding territory, whether by withdrawing from Lebanon in 2000 or Gaza in 2005, has never led to peace. Given that the Hamas Convenant precludes a lasting peace with Israel, how can we expect recognising a Palestinian state at this juncture, especially since 7 October 2023, will bring peace.
Recognising a Palestinian state while Hamas is still in control of any part of the Gaza Strip is illogical. Hamas, is a Palestinian jihadist organisation, with its overarching objective being the destruction of the State of Israel. Making peace with Israel would be antithetical to its core values. Article 13 of the Hamas' charter states "initiatives, and so called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles" of their movement.
Conclusion
In recognising a Palestinian state, Prime Minister Starmer is giving the wrong message, rewarding terrorism. He is saying that violence, and not negotiation, brings results. He is undermining those seeking a genuine regional peace. Lasting peace – if indeed it is even possible – will only come to the region with the defeat of the Islamist ideology which underpins groups like Hamas. Peace cannot be imposed from outside the region. Recognition is only credible once the borders of a future Palestinian state are agreed by all actors, including the State of Israel.
References
Montevideo Convention https://www.ilsa.org/Jessup/Jessup15/Montevideo%20Convention.pdf
Hansard Record on deaths on October 7 https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-10-07/debates/F87D0013-071A-4CDB-9463-66201032A7AB/HamasAttacksFirstAnniversary
Regarding the number of presumed living hostages still alive https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-next-24-these-are-the-remaining-hostages-presumed-alive-in-gaza/
Doctrine of Hamas https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hamas
Hamas Covenant 1988 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp
Balfour Declaration https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125415/8008_Balfour_Declaration.pdf
Political economy of Palestine Critical, Interdisciplinary, and Decolonial Perspectives https://pal.k0de.org/Tartir%2C%20Alaa%2C%20Tariq%20Dana%2C%20and%20Timothy%20Seidel%20%28eds.%29%20-%20Political%20Economy%20of%20Palestine_%20Critical%2C%20Interdisciplinary%2C%20and%20Decolonial%20Perspectives%20-%20Palgrave%20Macmillan%20%282021%29.pdf#page=268
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