When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly lacerated Sir Keir Starmer’s decision late on Tuesday to recognise Palestinian statehood, it was not a surprise in Downing Street.
Starmer had already spoken to Netanyahu that afternoon ahead of his statement in a diplomatic nicety that jars with Israel’s increasing world isolation.
“Starmer rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism and punishes its victims. A jihadist state on Israel’s border TODAY will threaten Britain TOMORROW,” the Israeli leader wrote. “Appeasement towards jihadist terrorists always fails. It will fail you too. It will not happen.”
Starmer, having seen Israel’s reaction to French president Emmanuel Macron’s recognition of Palestine, knew the reaction would be furious. It was already priced in.
But whereas even a few weeks ago the arguments put forward by Netanyahu were carefully weighed, the scales have tipped against Israel.
A wave of anger toward Israel is washing over Netanyahu’s administration in direct proportion to the horrors in Gaza. Emaciated infants, children in soup lines, and men fighting over flour. Deadly shootings at aid points and hungry foreign volunteer doctors have focused minds in capitals around the world, not least in London.
In Israel too, sentiment is shifting. Earlier this week Israel’s main TV channel aired a segment on how hunger in Gaza is portrayed globally, including in British newspapers. As it ended, news anchor Yonit Levi looked up and remarked: “Maybe it’s finally time to acknowledge that this isn’t a public relations failure, but a moral one.”
She appeared to capture a moment when Israelis are now openly articulating that what was once seen as a just war and retaliation for the 7 October attacks has tipped into an unjust and unequal persecution. While in 2023 the Hamas attack killed 1,200 people, with 250 taken hostage, the subsequent Israeli offensive has killed nearly 60,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Meanwhile Netanyahu has faced protests at home, blamed for the fact Hamas is still imprisoning 50 Israeli captives, with around 20 believed to be alive. Over 400 Israeli troops have died.
Back in London, while the Israeli reaction had been expected, UK diplomats had been keeping a watching brief on the US, waiting to see what the reaction would be from Israel’s staunchest ally.
The early signals from the US aren’t as bad for Starmer as perhaps they could have been. Although Trump said the Prime Minister didn’t mention Palestinian statehood during their Monday talks in Scotland, and agreed the move could reward Hamas, he was also not incredibly rude about Starmer in the way he had been about Macron for pursuing Palestinian recognition. At least not yet.
Unlike Macron, Starmer does enjoy a genuinely good working relationship with Trump, even if the President isn’t above giving him a kicking sometimes. Trump has also grown tired of defending the indefensible. On Monday, he rebuked Netanyahu for asserting there is no starvation in Gaza.
This anti-Israeli contagion has also spread to Trump’s base of Maga Republicans who eschew foreign wars even if they have been traditionally pro-Israel.
Far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene this week pushed to cancel $500m in funding for Israel’s rocket defence system and has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.”
And even while Tammy Bruce of the US State Department said on Wednesday Starmer’s decision was a “slap in the face” for the victims of Hamas attacks, one UK Government insider noted there a “lots of voices” in the US administration and they don’t always say the same thing.
What is more puzzling to Westminster observers is why Starmer decided Tuesday was the time to expedite his position on Palestinian statehood, having been seemingly steadfast in his determination it would only be a symbolic act.
Critics suggest it’s the latest example of the premier caving to pressure from Cabinet ministers and his Labour backbenchers. But his allies insist that is an unfair characterisation: Starmer has been as appalled as anyone else by the reports of starvation, they say. Inside No 10 there was also a sense the prospect of a two-state solution and a peace process was fast slipping away.
The controversial but largely symbolic move is only one of the steps the British Government is taking. Amid the rubble, disease, rubbish and tents of Gaza, there is no actual Palestinian state to currently recognise.
According to the 1933 Montevideo Convention, which defined a state in international law, an entity needs four characteristics to qualify. The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have the first – a settled population – but lack the other three elements: a government, defined borders, and the capability to enter into agreements.
While the Brits acknowledge the US will ultimately take the lead in dealing with Israel, as the Trump administration had been focused on the – now paused – ceasefire talks alongside the Qataris, there is still a wider question of what happens to Palestine the day after an end to active combat.
So Starmer spent Wednesday making call after call to international allies, seeking support for his plan which involves settling which countries might guarantee security in the region. Inside Government, comparisons are being made with the Balkans, where Britain has taken part in a Nato-led peacekeeping role.
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In his calls with the leaders of Australia and New Zealand, on Wednesday and after speaking to the United Arab Emirates leader on Tuesday night, Starmer has started with the more persuadable international allies whom he hopes will fall in behind his plans.
In the readout of the calls, he also sought to stem criticism that all his demands are directed at Israel and none towards Hamas. Instead Starmer insisted the hostages be released. As a terrorist organisation, the UK Government argues, Hamas simply won’t be involved in talks. But Hamas’s leadership and ideology won’t simply evaporate because ministers wish it.
Earlier this year president Mahmoud Abbas took steps to make his Palestinian Authority an internationally credible option to take over Gaza by ending a programme to provide payments to families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israel, known as the “martyrs’ fund” and dubbed “pay for slay” by the US.
But as someone who has repeatedly distorted and downplayed the Holocaust, and who has faced Palestinian protests for corruption, Abbas hardly commands the respect of either side.
Nonetheless, Israel’s diplomatic isolation is worsening, demonstrated by Britain joining France in recognising Palestine. For Starmer, keeping the impetus going for the next six weeks is key. His move doesn’t mean other members of the G7 will follow suit.
The road to a peaceful solution has been paved with failure. The two-state solution’s chance was lost following the failure of the negotiating process in the 1990s.
And it’s no wonder an increasingly isolated Netanyahu rejected Starmer’s conditions and lashed out. To have acceded would have meant his government would have fallen because he relies on the backing of ultra nationalist extremists who want to seize the occupied lands and evict Palestinians, not give them their own state.
Slowly, surely, international pressure is building. Starmer is right to hit the phones even as getting aid into Gaza is the world’s number one priority.
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