If you listened to the news this morning, you would think that Keir Starmer has recognised Palestine.
He has not.
He has come nowhere near recognising Palestine.
He is playing games with Palestine.
He is saying he might recognise Palestine if Israel does not do what he wants.
He is giving Israel the right of veto over his policy.
He is giving in to Israel because he is saying that if they simply end the current genocide without in any way offering reparations for all the harm that they have caused, he will reward them.
He is also delaying the potential recognition of Palestine until the time when very large numbers of people in Palestine will have died as a consequence of genocide.
And please, let me emphasise, nobody anywhere should be talking about famine in Gaza, any more than anyone should ever refer to famine in Ireland in the 1840s. The people in Gaza are subject to a genocide, and not a famine, just as Ireland was back then. Starvation might be the consequence in both cases, but the causes are fundamentally different.
Starmer does not appear to be recognising that.
He is even placing conditions on Palestinians as part of this extraordinary game that he is playing, which appears, as ever, to be a part of his utterly inappropriate Zionist policy.
He is saying that he will recognise Palestine, and is simultaneously saying that the Palestinian people do not have the right to choose whoever they so wish as their next government. He is ignoring the fact that in South Africa, after apartheid, the ANC moved from being a terrorist organisation, and out of prison, to form the government under Nelson Mandela. And he's also ignoring the fact that in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin moved from being a banned organisation to providing Martin McGuinness, an admitted terrorist, as deputy first minister; they were the people's choice, but Starmer will not recognise the right of Palestinians to choose. He has said that Hamas must have no role in Palestine in the future, as a result, failing to recognise all the precedents from history.
He has even said that there is no equivalence between Hamas and Israel, which is also completely untrue. I am not in any way condoning deaths and attacks by Hamas. Let me be clear. Hamas leaders were charged with committing war crimes, although those responsible are now dead. But, there is an equivalence, because Israel has committed some of the most grossly offensive war crimes we have seen. Of course, they are not alone in doing such things, but that is no defence, and what they have done is, if anything, very much worse than what Hamas did, and again, I make those comments without in any way using it as justification for anyone. I am making the point that what Starmer is saying is wrong.
Starmer did not, then, recognise Palestine. He treated it as the powers that be in London have always done, as if it were a political pawn, a plaything, a piece to be used in their manoeuvres, without ever recognising that there are people, a nation, and a valid claim of title to land involved. It is as if we, as a country, and most especially he, as well as his cabinet, have learned absolutely nothing. Their contempt for the Palestinian people is matched only by their support for everything Israel has done. Remember, they only stopped flights to support Israeli action in Gaza three days ago.
So, what should Starmer have done?
He should have unambiguously and without conditions attached, recognised Palestine now.
He should have made clear that Israel is an invading force and is not undertaking self-defence.
He should have said that Israel is committing war crimes.
He should have called out genocide.
He should have committed British troops to defending Palestine by literally sending them in, as part of what I would hope would be a multinational force, with facilities and supplies into Gaza to relieve the victims of genocide.
He should have said that the UK will enforce any demands from the International Court of Justice for arrests for suspected war crimes.
He should have imposed sanctions on Israel until it surrenders those who are guilty of war crimes.
He should have imposed sanctions on Israel until it ends its apartheid regime and withdraws from all occupied territories, including all the settlements on the West Bank.
He should have said that he recognises Israel inside its pre-1967 borders.
But he said none of those things.
He failed the Palestinians.
He failed us.
But most especially, he gave a lifeline and a veto on his actions to those committing genocide, and as a result, offered no help whatsoever to those who are dying as a consequence of it. And that was unforgivable because this was not a plan for peace. This was an act that supports an ongoing aggressor.
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Sadly Starmer appears very much bought & paid for by Israel probably through Labour Friends Of Israel. This would most likely explain Labour’s witch hunt against Corbyn & those on the left & Labour’s seeming inability to act in any way other than in Israeli Zionist interests.
Agree 100%.
Starmer is a made-man, made by the Zionists. They control him & own him body & soul (eh?). Any substantive change in policy is not possible, given these circumstances. Last year’s election was in reality a vote for agents of the state of Israel to run the UK wrt middle-east policy in a way that favoured Israel. (not that UK serfs understood this).
It is not so different in other countries, e.g. Germany (who 70 years after 1945 still give 100% “benefit-of-the-doubt” ref genocide to Israel and its actions). Likewise, the EU institutions are fully penetrated by Zionist orgs. A month or so on from Oct 2023 one could see the zionist/Israeli agenda – but no gov was functionally capable of calling Israel out for the reasons given. In the 1980s there was great worry that govs had SovU spies. Well we are discovering now that European govs have been penetrated by agents & orgs of a different state – the state of Israel – ensuring that this state continues to get carte blanche for the most henious of crimes: genocide.
Sorry to cut in at the top of the post and I agree with it all just to say that for me this is all about real-estate theft? Starmer is tip-toeing around vested interests.
This to me is what is unforgivable about it all and the Jewish Left has always argued that when their community looses its roots in mixed communities and claims a land of their own, only pain and suffering will follow.
Deep rooted Western anti-Semitism and maybe guilt has resulted in Israel existing at all but also I would say racism as well I’m afraid and if it is bunch of brown-skinned people (Muslims and Christians) that must pay the price for Zionism then the West seems not to be too bothered. That too is utterly unforgiveable.
I see no redemption on the horizon for this at all. It is…………. shattering, that’s all I can say.
Who is next?
This is why Starmer instructed Labour candidates at the General Election to ‘stick to local issues’ in campaigning.
He is also deeply racist, true to his ‘unqualified, zionist’ credentials.
After the First World War, the League of Nations set up ‘Mandate territories’ -parts of the former German colonies like Tanganyika, Cameroon and South West Africa and parts of Ottoman Empire.
The concept was that these states were not capable of self government and needed mentoring by western nations, mainly Britain and France but also Australia, Japan,USA and South Africa. They would be offered the right of self determination.
All of these states were to gain independence including neighbours of Palestine. The last to do so was Namibia (former south West Africa ) with the end of Apartheid. Palestine was one of those mandate states. They have had the right of self determination for over 100 years. It is not something we have just invented.
The Balfour Declaration spoke of a homeland for Jews-not a state.
The UN partitioned Palestine giving about half to the Israelis who only controlled about a quarter or less of the land. There was no consultation with the Palestinians. The Israeli militias took even more of the territory. They now have 78% of the former territory plus settlements in the West Bank.
In 1948 the UN did not include most of Africa. South America largely followed the American lead, Europe and USSR also voted for partition. Asia had or was acquiring independence. Nehru PM of India was opposed as were the Muslim states.
In my opinion it is NOT a matter of deciding if we should recognise Palestine or whether they meet the demands of Israel/US. They have the right of statehood.
I agree
Thank you
I think you are being unduly kind when you say that, ‘most South American countries followed the American lead’ It appears that the US Government put heavy pressure on a number of wavering South and Central American countries to vote in favour on penalty of sanctions. One Jewish pressure group put out a statement that any nation that voted against Partition was ‘an enemy of the United States’, while the Chairman of Firestone Tyres threatened the President of Liberia with withdrawal of his business unless they voted ‘yes’ to the resolution. The eventual vote was: For 33 (72%), Against 13 (28%), with 10 abstentions (the UN was a relatively small club in 1947). In order to pass the vote required a 2/3rds majority. If two countries had voted No instead of Yes the world would be in a very different place today. The Wikipedia entry on the UN vote is worth reading as it details each Country’s vote and any pressure put on them to vote the ‘right’ way.; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine
Thank you. you are probably right. I hadn’t read the wiki entry but I assumed there was American diplomatic pressure.
George Marshall who was Chief of Staff in WW2 and then Secretary of State was against recognition of Israel but then backed down.
I didn’t know about the private pressure listed in wiki but the UN is based in New York which had a large Jewish population and I also assumed they would pressure their Congressmen and Senators.
I did read, some years ago Against our Better Judgement : the hidden story of how the US was used to create Israel by Alison Weir which lists ways some American journalists were demonised for their criticisms of Zionism.
At the end of the Mandate did we not promise to protect the Palestinian people?
Don’t forget that Israel’s original governors were also known terrorists.
And, unlike all the other states that evolved into something better, they’ve come full circle and turned the government into a terrorist state.
Yes…. it’s seems hard to determine when (or why) Zionist terrorists that have committed countless killings and maimings of British nationals over the years have morphed into “friends and trusted allies”.
Starmer is turning “recognition of Palestine” into a cross between a threat and a bargaining chip?
With Israel in the driving seat as to whether UK recognises Palestine (E Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza)?
With even “recognition” not including self-determination?
Evil AND stupid.
He has to go.
You want the most useless government since Pitt to recognise a state of Palestine within its pre-1967 borders.
That sounds colonial to me.
The reason I say that is Palestinians themselves when asked at elections do not recognise those borders.
We’ve had many versions of colonialism but this most modern one really irks, it’s so arrogant.
Noted
But what do you suggest?
It’s probably naive and now, given the passage of time, impracticable but for thousands of years Palestine has, like most countries on the planet, been a multicultural, multi faith one and it is this that the 1967 borders make no recognition of, but perhaps should do.
The opinions of the Palestinians should have been canvassed at the time of the Balfour Agreement over how they wanted to take their country forward and it is this that the West should have enabled. Instead Zionism has been brutally imposed on Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.
Given such a profound, fundamental injustice as this, perpetrated over several generations, many of us finding ourselves in the same circumstances would react with varying levels of aggression.
Can you imagine the outcome if the English started to use Zionist principles and processes to enforce a claim on Scotland and Wales?
Many Palestinians have resigned themselves to losing 78% of their country just to get the nightmare to stop but the deep-rooted, intergenerational feeling that all of Palestine is theirs, for once more peaceful coexistence of all faiths, is not going to readily be dispensed with…. and neither should it.
If the Democratic Confederalist model employed by the Democratic Autonomous Assembly of North and East Syria was extended throughout the region it could provide a just and lasting peace for all ethnic groups with resorting to the false idol of nation-state status. It would be a no-state solution to the Palestinian problem.
I would urge interested readers to seek out the works of Abdullah Ocalan, which explain the paradigm very well.
I am sorry – but nation status is not a false idol. It is essential.
There has been no Israeli recognition of Palestine’s right to be a state.
The PLO did that for Israel in 1988. The Arab offered to recognise Israel in its 1967 boundaries in 2002.
For the last thirty years Israeli settlements have grown in number. As we know they are illegal. There are now circa 700,000 Israelis in the West Bank compared to 2.75 million Palestinians.
Israel is colonising the West Bank and using force to do so. The Palestinian population live under martial law. Any resistance is called terrorism. ( It convinces many Conservative politicians ) Last week Settlers burnt out an Arab Christian village. It is ethnic cleansing in plain sight.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eOM5F-0DiDY
There is a suggestion that the state of Israel is based on 19th Century Colonial Ideology.
Looking at what has already been said on this thread it is arguable that the State of Israel actually has less of a right to exist than a Palestinian state
Given that and its current behaviour its clearly possible that an idea that the State of Israel has no right to exist could gain widespread support.
If Israel had been made to ‘play nicely’ by its supporters I suggest that that would have done much more to ensure the long term survival of Israel than what is happening at the moment.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/a-betrayal-of-the-victims-of-the
Well worth reading. And by a Jew quoting a Jew. Saying what I am cannot be anti-Semitic.
I picked up my newspaper today before reading your blog, and was sickened. Starmer is basically saying to Palestinians, you either get a ceasefire or UK govt recognition of your state. And you can do nothing about it, it’s up to the govt of Israel. Unjust and inhuman. This man was a human rights lawyer? He thinks he’s a leader? Ach y fi!
“He should have committed British troops to defending Palestine by literally sending them in”
So you want Starmer to get Britain to declare war on Isreal. and to side with Hamas. Have you lost your mind?
No. It would be a humanitarian relief force.
What is the difference between the army and a humanitarian relief force? You want British troops to face off with the Israeli army? And on the side of Hamas. That’s the reality once the words have being dissected. It is utter madness…
That is nonsense
First, Israel has no right to be there. If we recognise Palestine – and we mist – we should be willing to defend it from an illegal aggressor.
In the face of a multinational force Israel would back off
And this is not to support Hamas – this would be to relieve a genocide
Does genocide not worry you? If n0pt, why not? Are you capable of human emotion in that case?
Richard by sending troops into Isreal you risk being drawn into a conflict with the USA. You really are not thinking rationally. Also “genocide” is all around us continuously in Africa, in China and all over the middle east, happening in States which we formally recognise. It seems Palestine is a pet love of the the far left. Why do you want to risk war with the USA and yet never mention “genocide” in other regions?
I am thinking rationally
I am thinking about ending genocide
Tell me what your priorities are? Appeasing a fascist, it would seem. Is that what you call rational?
And of course I have concern elsewhere. Please don’t patronise me,Mir call me far left. I am a moderate social democrat, but you reveal yourself to be far right.
Steven, Britain did send troops to the then Palestine after WW2 to keep the peace between Palestinians and immigrating Jews. The Irgun and Stern gans of Jewish terrorists killed many British troops, often hanging them and booby trapping their bodies to maim anyone cutting the bodies down. The Irgun terrorists blew up the King David Hotel killing many, they assassinated Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish mediator. These terrorist acts help create the state of Israel. One such terrorist, Begin, became prime minister. Whatever Hamas has done pales against their crimes. As in the late 1940s, a humanitarian force would be there to protect the Palestinians against today’s Zionist terrorists, from the IDF, to Netanyahu and to the armed to the teeth West Bank settlers who daily terrorise and kill Palestinians in the West Bank, where there is no Hamas government. Anyone who seriously thinks Israel is in any way a positive for humanity or the world has clearly lost their mind.
JohnA the world looks at Hamas slaughtering innocent jews at a music festival and no the world does not want to side with Hamas.
Ian
You were called Penny just now. How quick was the gender reassignment? Or are you just a charlatan?
Richard
I agree with Richard about sending in a peace keeping force ( preferably UN and multi national). I take your point about attacks on British troops in Mandate Palestine, however, if the force was to defend Gaza’s border from within and to enable food and resources via Egypt or by sea, plus a no-fly zone overhead, thus restricting direct contact between UN Forces and the IDF/other players, hostile actions would, hopefully, be contained. As an aside Starmer frequently raises the ‘appalling atrocities’ carried out by Hamas on 7/10. For an alternative view see Max Blumenthal; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFEurGy05ps&rco=1
Ian Mchay – actually the world now knows that at least half if not more of the people slaughtered at the music festival were killed by the IDF with tanks and helicopter gunships. The world also knows that the majority of the people there were actually members of the Israeli military not innocent civilians as Hasbara trolls would have the world believe.
The world now sees how the IDF and Israeli government are openly slaughtering genuinely innocent Palestinian women and children via snipers, bombing and starvation tactics.
The world also hears how Israeli spokespersons and defenders of Israel, such as Times columnist Melanie Phillips and Radio presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer, claim the images of severely emaciated children are fakes and Hamas propaganda. They are beyond evil. And beyond humanity.
I cannot confirm the truth of the above claims. But do I believe the Israelis were aware of this action 8n advance? The evidence for that appears to exist.
Richard i am astonished that you publish JohnA comments and worse endorse them. It is sad how this site has gone from
producing thought provoking discussion to becoming a propaganda machine for the far left.
That looks to me like a discussion of what happened.
Since when was factual based observation far left?
Have you lost touch with reality? Is that how far right you are?
Modern Britain, banning us from “harmful online content” while selling harmful offline real world weapons used to kill civilians. Images of starving children on the news but no nudity online. What a world.
And Wikipedia under threat of being closed down…
What!
It is considered to have over 18 content on it. Heaven knows what it is.
So it will now be subject to govermment new age related access rules and it cannot see how it can manage that so it might have to deny access in the UK.
Hague-bound Kid Starver. A forlorn hope.
There has been some comment about the right of the State of Israel to exist. It is commonly assumed the reason for an Israeli state was to provide a homeland for Jews who had suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany. There was enormous sympathy for Jews. I remember my parents discussing the issue. A Jewish homeland was universally accepted. There is an alternative point of view.
I have a book written by Sir Ronald Storrs. First Governor of Jerusalem after WW1. It was a chronicle of his career. This is what he wrote about the implicit purpose of the Zionist colonisation of Palestine.
” it formed for England a little ,loyal , Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”.Storrs drew a parallel between a Jewish settlement during the 20th Century and the plantations in Ireland’s Northern Counties by Scottish and English Protestants in the 17th Century.
I was given the book by an old lady who was the daughter of a British diplomat to the Ottoman Court .
Storrs was a loyal colonial satrap. His view of Palestine would be widely accepted by the establishment. Note how he refers to the government as English. Not British. He obviously regarded the English as superior.
The true reason for the existence of the state of Israel was to keep control of the Middle East. The British empire has a lot to answer for.
The long and very detailed UN document The Question of Palestine contains many discussions in the House of Commons about possible ways forward for Palestine, the pressures brought to bear on Britian by quite the recently formed (1897) World Zionist Organisation for the creation of an Israeli homeland in Palestine. Promises were made and broken, words were turned on their heads, the “homeland” became a “state” and, although there were voices speaking out for Palestine self-determination, in the end they were too few. Fast forward to 1945, the horror of the holocaust, many people’s genuine sympathy for the jews and their wish for a home country (preferably somewhere quite far away), the mostly unspoken aim of keeping a strong proxy presence in the Middle East which continues to this day, and we find ourselves now unashamedly supporting the eradication of the Palestinian people.
[…] have issued this morning's blog post on Starmer's decisions on Palestine as a video this evening, with a poll […]
A bit of, “Well, I can’t be sure,” coming from the comments here. Perhaps these links might be helpful.
What I believe to be a fair summary of the IDF report from February this year on the 7 October incursion from Gaza:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/28/what-has-the-report-into-israeli-military-failures-on-october-7-said
Failures of intelligence, failure of the overall commander, and the Hannibal Directive called on average every 15 minutes.
https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-armys-7-oct-probe-further-confirms-implementation-of-hannibal-directive
The latest in negotiations:
https://jstreet.org/key-issues-in-ceasefire-negotiations-jspc/
Netanyahu will not agree to any Gazans remaining in the Strip, and even if he’s prepared to a ceasefire it will *not* be permanent, even if Hamas hand over all hostages and permanently cede to a technocratic government.
On the two-state solution: February 2024.
“In light of this, the US and British foreign ministers announced their idea of recognising a **demilitarised** Palestinian state as a solution to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and the recurring Gaza wars.
“However, these promises, which have been repeated for decades, hit obstacles that are difficult to overcome, starting with the position of Netanyahu and his partners in his government, the most extreme in the history of occupation governments, including the Religious Zionism Party, which is given a biblical religious aspect and which believes in the right to establish the Greater State of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates and refuses to demarcate the borders. Netanyahu personally bragged that he rejects the Oslo Accords, 30 years after it was signed between Rabin and Yasser Arafat through the mediation of President Clinton in 1993, which led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu also boasts and publicly reiterates his rejection of the two-state solution because it threatens Israel’s security, providing the example of Hamas’s operation against Israel as the Al-Aqsa Flood.”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240205-illusions-and-obstacles-to-the-two-state-solution-initiatives-after-the-gaza-war/
For Zionists before 7 October, a State of Palestine would only be acceptable as a colonial territory. From 2015:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/next-threat-too-many-them-resource-scarce-future
“Documents from past negotiations reveal what “de-militarised” actually means for Netanyahu and the Israeli right: Israeli negotiators have previously used “de-militarisation” to demand Palestinian acceptance of continued Israeli control of Palestinian airspace, an ongoing Israeli army presence in the West Bank, the right to unilaterally deploy Israeli troops into Palestine in the event of an “emergency,” and the power to dictate what, if any, weapons could be used by the security forces of the proposed “sovereign” Palestinian government.
“In other words, the “state” Palestinians are being expected to gratefully agree to is not even “sovereign,” but simply a re-configuration of Israel’s occupation under a novel framework of legal colonialism.”
My opinion of Starmer? He’s not a humanitarian lawyer, he’s not a statesman, he’s beyond the Pale (a phrase I use advisedly).
Thank you.
Folk refer to the post WWII settlement but the history of the region in the last millennium BC is really messy and even I have a lot of trouble keeping track and I did my PHD on the subject.
But essentially there were two kingdoms forged out of the old United Israel of David and Solomon ( who were legends, but probably represented a composite of real kings ) around 800 BCish : Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The Philistines ( Phoenicians ?) occupied what is now the Gaza Strip. This is generally the geography on which Zionism is based : Judea and Samaria/Galilee.
So then we have invasions by the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and eventually the Romans under Pompey around 65BC
All this rather breaks up the tribal structures in those parts and leaves us with two main languages : Aramaic and Greek.
The Levant is run by client kings and the satraps and provinces change with the new overlords.
The OT in its last books takes us right up to the end of the Seleucid ( Greek ) kingdom and the imminent appearance of the Romans. The Maccabeans, around 100BC, overthrew the Seleucids and briefly created a United Israel until Pompey turned up.Bookshelves
The Jewish War of 70ish AD of course meant that the Romans had had just about enough and took over direct control, destroying Jerusalem, the Temple and with it the central pillar of Judaism.
It is important to remember though that this whole stretch of country used Greek as the common language. Even the Romans did all their business in Greek in the eastern part of the empire.