UK Must Resist the Call to Recognize a ‘Palestinian’ State

French President Emmanuel Macron has decided that peace and stability will be achieved in the Middle East by the recognition of a “state of Palestine.” He apparently thinks Israel, where 80% of the population now opposes such a state, can be forced to accept it. He hasn’t yet told us what the boundaries of that state will be, or who will govern it, or how the Palestinians can be persuaded not to use the state as a base from which to attack Israeli civilians. Why should Macron bother with such details when the idea itself is so merveilleux and flunkies can deal with the fine print? Now Macron has been trying to persuade British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to join him in this call for a “Palestinian” state. John Woodcock, the former head of Labour Friends of Israel, thinks Starmer must resist Macron’s folly. More of his argument can be found here: “Recognising Palestine will consign Britain and France to total irrelevance,” by John Woodcock, Telegraph, July 20, 2025:

…It is barely believable that any liberal democracy would think that this could be the moment to reward the terrorist regime and its proxies by recognising the state of Palestine – before any peace deal or path to stability is agreed, and while the region is a tinderbox and the butchers of October 7 2023 are still keeping hostages from their families after the horrendous mass murder and rape of Jewish civilians.

Yet that is precisely what Macron is continuing to press on Sir Keir. The Prime Minister deserves credit for resisting so far. But the fact that France is stepping up the campaign for recognition, rather than stepping back, continuing to lobby the UK and the EU, shows that Starmer must go beyond privately saying “pas encore” to this absurdly damaging suggestion.

To be clear, as a former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, I am deeply committed to the ultimate goal of two sovereign states, Israel and Palestine, living securely and independently at peace. The alternatives are either a greater Israel with no justice for Palestinians, or the terrorists’ goal of wiping Israel off the map completely. Both are unconscionable.

I beg to differ with John Woodcock here. A Palestinian state would inevitably become, like Gaza became after 2005 when the Israelis withdrew, a launching pad for attacks on Israel. And even if the Israelis somehow changed their minds and accepted a Palestinian state, they will never give up territory essential to its defense, such as the Jordan Valley. Israel will never allow itself to be squeezed within the 1949 armistice lines, that Abba Eban described as “the lines of Auschwitz.” That would leave Israel with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. Furthermore, it is in Judea and Samaria, not in Tel Aviv and Haifa, that Jewish history has been made. Jews have been living in that territory between “the river and the sea” for 3500 years; Muslim Arabs arrived there only 1400 years ago. The League of Nations, recognizing that long history of the Jews in that area, assigned all the land “from the river to the sea” to Mandatory Palestine, which was then supposed to become, in time, the Jewish state, the State of Israel. The best solution for the “Palestinians,” the one least likely to result in a continued conflict, is that repeatedly proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said that “I think Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten us.” He means that they will have full control over their own lives, including a police force, but will not have a military that could pose a threat to the Jewish state. Given that Israel has had to fight four wars for its very existence — in 1948, 1967, 1973, and 2023-present — and in addition, fought many campaigns against the terrorists killing its civilians, including the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Netanyahu’s formula for peace between Israel and the “Palestinians” seems eminently reasonable.

Now back to John Woodcock. Mainstream British voters, repelled by the pro-Palestine marchers who are causing such mayhem, will react badly if Starmer appears to be caving to them by calling for a “Palestinian” state. And Nigel Farage and others in the Reform Party will be there to remind those voters of Starmer’s pusillanimity.

Macron’s Folly, as it should be known, should be rejected by Starmer. Otherwise, Hamas will interpret his joining the French leader in a call for recognizing a “state of Palestine” as a victory. Right now, when Israel is being buffeted by unjust criticism of everything it does in the Middle East, including its attempts to feed the people of Gaza and to protect the Druze in Sweida, is still being attacked by the Houthis, and is being threatened by Iran with a terrible revenge, while the country still waits and waits for the return of the hostages, is not the time to further pressure the Jewish state.