What does a Palestinian state mean?

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced that the United Kingdom will recognize a Palestinian state in September, unless Israel meets certain conditions, including accepting a cease-fire in Gaza and rejecting the prospect of a two-state solution.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted furiously to the announcement, saying that the decision rewards “monstrous terrorism of Hamas”.

What would it mean if recognition takes place and what difference would it make?

Palestine is a state that exists and does not exist.

It has a wide degree of international recognition, diplomatic missions abroad and teams participating in sports competitions, including the Olympic Games.

But due to the long -standing dispute of the Palestinians with Israel, it has no internationally agreed borders, no capital and no army. Due to the military occupation of Israel, in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority, set up following the peace agreements in the 1990s, does not fully control its land or its people. Gaza, where Israel is also the power of occupation, is in the midst of a devastating war.

Given its status so as a quasi-state, recognition is inevitably somewhat symbolic. It will represent a strong moral and political declaration but will change little on the ground.

But symbolism is strong. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out, David Lammy, during his speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, “Great Britain is carrying a special burden of responsibility to support the two-state solution”.

He then quoted the declaration of Balfur of 1917 – signed by his predecessor as Minister of Foreign Affairs Arthur Balfour – who first expressed the support of Great Britain to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.

But this declaration, said Lammy, came with a solemn promise “that nothing will be done which could harm the civil and religious rights of the existing non -Jewish communities in Palestine”.

Supporters of Israel often stressed that Lord Balfour did not explicitly refer to the Palestinians or said nothing about their national rights.

But the territory previously known as Palestine, which Great Britain ruled by a mandate from the League of Nations from 1922 to 1948, has long been considered an unfinished international enterprise.

Israel was born in 1948, but the efforts to create a parallel state of Palestine blew, for a multitude of reasons.

As Lammy said, politicians “got used to pronouncing the words” a solution to two states “”.

The sentence refers to the creation of a Palestinian state, alongside Israel, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, largely in the sense that existed before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967.

But international efforts to provoke a solution to two states have spoke nothing and the colonization by Israel of large parts of the West Bank, illegal under international law, transformed the concept into a largely empty slogan.

The state of Palestine is currently recognized by 147 of the 193 UN member states.

At the UN, he has the status of a “permanent observer”, allowing participation but no right to vote.

France also promising recognition in the coming weeks and assuming that the United Kingdom takes place with recognition, Palestine will soon benefit from the support of four of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the other two being China and Russia).

This will leave the United States, the strongest ally of Israel from afar, in a minority of one.

Washington has recognized the Palestinian authority, currently managed by Mahmoud Abbas, since the mid -1990s, but has ceased to recognize a real state.

Several American presidents have expressed their support for the possible creation of a Palestinian state. But Donald Trump is not one of them. Under its two administrations, American policy has strongly supported Israel.

Without the support of the nearest and most powerful ally of Israel, it is impossible to see a peace process leading to a possible solution to two states.

Successive British governments have spoken of recognizing a Palestinian state, but only in the context of a peace process, ideally in conjunction with other Western allies and “at the time of the maximum impact”.

Simply doing it as a gesture, according to governments, would be a mistake. It could make people feel virtuous, but it wouldn’t change anything on the ground.

But events have clearly forced the hand of the current government.

The scenes of creeping famine in Gaza, the assembly of anger against the military campaign of Israel and a major change in British public opinion – all these elements influenced the thought of the government.

The clamor, among the deputies and even the bench before the cabinet, has become deafening.

During a common goods debate last week, Lammy was bombed on all sides by questions asking why the United Kingdom still did not recognize a Palestinian state.

The health secretary Wes Streting summarized the opinions of many deputies when he urged the government to recognize Palestine “when there is still a state of Palestine to recognize”.

But the United Kingdom did not simply follow the example set by Emmanuel Macron of France last week or the governments of Ireland, Spain and Norway last year.

Sir Keir has chosen to render its conditional commitments: Great Britain will act unless the government of Israel is taking decisive measures to end the suffering in Gaza, reaching a cease-fire, refrain from annexing the territory in the West Bank-a movement symbolically threatened by the Parliament of Israel.

Downing Street knows that there is practically no chance that Netanyahu is engaged in the next six weeks in this type of peace process. He has repeatedly excluded the creation of a Palestinian state.

British recognition of Palestine therefore certainly arrives.

For all the relentless opposition of Netanyahu, Sir Keir hopes that it is indeed a “maximum moment of impact”.

But Great Britain in 2025 is not the Britain of 1917 when the Balfur declaration was signed. His ability to fold others to his will is limited. It is difficult to know, at the moment, what will really be the impact.