Britain and France Have Pledged to Recognize a Palestinian State. What Would It Mean?
The announcements reflect deep frustrations with Israel’s conduct in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank, experts say.
By Ephrat Livni
Britain on Tuesday said it would recognize a Palestinian state if Israel did not reach a cease-fire agreement on the war in Gaza by September. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s move followed France’s announcement last week that it would officially acknowledge Palestine statehood.
Both announcements reflect the deep frustrations by both nations with Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, analysts say, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and left a population of about two million in a state of extreme privation and hunger.
They also came in response to Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank: Its military activity there has displaced Palestinians en masse this year, settlement plans have expanded, and violence by settlers against Palestinians has risen since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel ignited the war. That assault killed about 1,200 people and led to the abduction of about 250 others to Gaza.
The announcements raise questions about what the recognition of a Palestinian state would mean and what it can actually do.
What is a state?
The criteria for statehood were laid out in an international treaty in 1933.
They include four elements: a permanent population, defined territorial boundaries, a government and an ability to conduct international affairs.
Recognition is an official acknowledgment that a would-be state broadly meets those conditions. It can occur even if an element is in dispute, including territorial boundaries.
Like all legal questions, “interpretation matters,” said Zinaida Miller, a professor of law and international affairs at Northeastern University.
The criteria for recognizing a Palestinian state have been met at a basic level, many experts on international law say.
A permanent population and land exist. The borders, while disputed, are broadly understood to be in Israeli-occupied territories, including the West Bank and Gaza, which was seized in 1967 in a war with a coalition of Arab states; as well as East Jerusalem, which Israel has effectively annexed.
The Palestinian Authority is a government body that administers part of the West Bank and represents Palestinians. Its creation was authorized by the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents Palestinians internationally.
While there are limits to what the Palestinian Authority can do, given the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Hamas’s control of Gaza, foreign recognition of a Palestinian state would mean the establishment of direct diplomatic contact between the Authority and the recognizing nation.
Recognition would also send diplomatic and political messages. It would acknowledge the Palestinian right to self-determination and reject the positions and actions of the Israeli government that undermine that right, Ms. Miller said.
‘A basis for added pressure.’
A major consequence of recognizing Palestinian statehood is that it provides a basis for “a complete revision of bilateral relations with Israel,” said Ardi Imseis, an associate professor at Queen’s University Faculty of Law in Ontario and a former United Nations official.
A country that recognizes Palestine has to review agreements with Israel to make sure they do not violate its obligations to the Palestinian state. This would include political and territorial integrity, as well as economic, cultural, social and civil relations, he said.
For example, if an aspect of trade aids or assists Israel in violation of the rights of a Palestinian state, then the recognizing nation would have to cease that exchange.
“Practically speaking, recognition would provide a basis for added pressure to be brought to bear by civil society and lawmakers in the recognizing state” to change policies and align them with other requirements, Mr. Imseis said.
A recognizing nation would not have to stop all trade with Israel, said Paul Reichler, a lawyer who represents sovereign states and has argued for the state of Palestine at the International Court of Justice.
But if, for example, a country that recognizes a state of Palestine imports agricultural products from farms belonging to settlers in occupied territories, those agreements would be aiding and abetting the commission of a wrongful act, he said.
International law experts note that an advisory ruling from the International Court of Justice last year concluded, among other things, that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories violated a prohibition on territorial conquest.
A U.N. majority for recognition already exists.
Most countries in the United Nations — 147 out of 193 — already recognize a Palestinian state.
Britain and France would be joining them, and their position has extra heft because they are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the power to veto any substantive Council resolution, including on the admission of new member states.
The two countries would be bolstering the stance taken by most other nations and sending a political message, but their shift would also have a practical effect. They would join China and Russia in recognizing a Palestinian state and leave the United States as the sole permanent member of the Security Council with veto power that is holding out.
The state of Palestine currently has observer status at the U.N., and that will not change if the United States maintains its opposition to full membership.
What is the goal of recognition?
It is part of a political, diplomatic and legal push to reach a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite resistance from Israel’s current government.
“There are two peoples living between the river and the sea, not one, and they are entitled to separate states in which each of these peoples enjoys the full panoply of civil and human rights,” Mr. Reichler said.
“The only solution is two states, and it so happens that is what international law requires and is reflected in U.N. resolutions and in determinations of the I.C.J.,” he said.
Although the declarations of Palestinian statehood may appear symbolic, “small steps” like recognition “make a contribution” to the goal of establishing two states, he said.
Some nations. like Norway, once held off recognizing a Palestinian state in the belief that recognition would someday emerge from a negotiated peace process. With such a process seemingly currently out of reach and outrage over Israeli policies growing, some countries have put recognition first in the hope that it would lead to a peace process.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that the establishment of a Palestinian state would endanger Israel’s security, and he has rejected the notion, particularly since the war in Gaza began. His governing coalition includes far-right ministers who are settlers and staunchly oppose to a Palestinian state, and he risks their abandoning the bloc if he indicates a willingness to consider it.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu said Britain’s announcement “rewards Hamas’s monstrous terrorism & punishes its victims.”