By Catarina Demony and Bhargav Acharya
LONDON/TORONTO (Reuters) -Britain, Canada and Australia all recognised a Palestinian state on Sunday in a move borne out of frustration over the Gaza war and intended to promote a two-state solution but which is also bound to anger Israel and its main ally, the United States.
The decision by three major Western nations, which have been traditional allies of Israel, aligned them with about 140 other countries also backing Palestinians’ aspiration to forge an independent homeland from the Israeli-occupied territories.
Britain’s decision carried particular symbolism given its major role in Israel’s creation as a modern nation in the aftermath of World War Two.
“Today, to revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis, and a two-state solution, the United Kingdom formally recognises the State of Palestine,” said Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“The man-made humanitarian crisis in Gaza reaches new depths. The Israeli government’s relentless and increasing bombardment of Gaza, the offensive of recent weeks, the starvation and devastation are utterly intolerable.”
Other nations, including France, are expected to follow suit this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Israel’s Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the decision taken by Britain, Canada and Australia was a reward for “murderers”, a reference to the Hamas militant group whose October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the nearly two-year war.
That assault killed 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s ensuing campaign has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gazan health authorities, and has spread famine, demolished most buildings and displaced most of the population – in many cases multiple times.
PALESTINIANS WELCOME RECOGNITION
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the move to recognise a Palestinian state, saying it would help pave the way for the “State of Palestine to live side by side with the State of Israel in security, peace, and good neighborliness”.
Starmer wrote to Abbas to confirm Britain’s decision, noting that London had backed a Jewish homeland in 1917 while also pledging to protect the rights of non-Jewish communities.
“I reaffirm the United Kingdom’s commitment to a Palestinian State for the Palestinian people, and our enduring support for a two-state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in peace and security,” he said in the letter.
Western governments have been under pressure from many in their parties and populations angry at the ever-rising death toll in Gaza, images of starving children and their states’ inability to rein in Israel, even continuing to provide arms.
Londoners voiced mixed reactions on Sunday.
“A whole lot needs to happen and peace needs to come to that region,” said 56-year-old charity director Michael Angus. “This is the first step in actually acknowledging that those people have a right to have somewhere to call home.”
Announcing his country’s decision, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said it would empower those seeking peaceful co-existence and the end of Hamas. “This in no way legitimises terrorism, nor is it any reward for it,” he added.
Following Sunday’s recognitions announced simultaneously in the three capitals, Israeli minister Ben-Gvir said he would propose that the cabinet apply sovereignty in another Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory, the West Bank. That would represent de facto annexation of land seized in a 1967 war.
Ben-Gvir also said the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule in the West Bank, should be dismantled.
BRITAIN PLAYED A KEY HISTORIC ROLE
British troops captured Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire in 1917, and in 1922 the League of Nations awarded Britain an international mandate to administer Palestine during the post-war deal-making that redrew the map of the Middle East.
Mandy Damari, the British mother of released British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari, told Reuters on Sunday that Starmer was “under a two-state delusion” given that the Gaza Strip’s government was still Hamas whose mission was to destroy Israel.
“He is rewarding Hamas for the 7th October barbaric and savage attack on Israel when the hostages are still not back, the war is not over and Hamas are still in power in Gaza.”
Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid also criticised the “unilateral” recognition of a Palestinian state in a post on X but he also blamed the Netanyahu government, saying it “could have prevented this through professional diplomatic dialogue”.
Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, watched on his phone as Starmer announced Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
At the London headquarters of the mission, which may now be upgraded to an embassy, there were smiles and embraces.
“We realise that the recognition will not bring (back) lives that we have lost,” he told Reuters. “Because of the lack of this recognition … things have been left to fester all the way to genocide being committed in full view of the world.
“Today is a moment when the UK Prime Minister and the British government, on behalf of their people, stand and say: ‘We must correct history, we must right the wrongs.”
(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Andrew MacAskill, Hannah Confino, Alistair Smout, Marissa Davison and Vitalli Yalahuzia, Bhargav Acharaya and Alexander Cornwell, Writing by Andrew Cawthorne,Editing by Gareth Jones)
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