Recognition of the State of Palestine is back on the international agenda. David Cameron, the UK’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, told the Guardian during a recent visit to Lebanon that while there would be no recognition of the State of Palestine while Hamas remained in Gaza, recognition could take place while Israeli negotiations with Palestinian leaders continue following a cessation of hostilities.
The UK is not the only country considering recognition. Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, has reportedly asked the State Department to conduct a review and present policy options on possible US and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza. Significantly, in addition to recognising the State of Palestine bilaterally, this could include voting in favour of a UN Security Council resolution recommending the admission of the State of Palestine to membership of the United Nations.
In December, the Spanish government also spoke out in favour of recognising the State of Palestine and has made it clear that should the EU not reach a common position, it would act unilaterally, with the possible support of Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, and Slovenia.
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It is significant that Cameron is holding firm on recognition, despite pushback from detractors within the Conservative Party. His insistence on keeping recognition on the table would indicate that discussions with the United States and other like-minded nations are at an advanced level. These talks may have been galvanised by the remarks made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December 2023, when he told a press conference that he was “proud” to have prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state and put “the breaks” on the Oslo Accords, which he described as a “fateful mistake”.
Recognition of a Palestinian state has also been linked to possible normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, brokered by the United States, which were suspended following the attacks on 7 October 2023. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, told the World Economic Forum at Davos on 16 January that any potential normalisation agreement with Israel would be conditioned on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Three days after Al Saud’s remarks, Netanyahu publicly rejected, yet again, the establishment of a Palestinian state after the conflict in Gaza ends. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has since double downed in its demand, making it clear on X in a statement dated 7 February:
there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Despite his vehement opposition to Palestinian statehood, Netanyahu cannot stop states from recognising the State of Palestine or block UN membership — if the United States agrees to let a resolution pass in the UN Security Council. While recognition is bilateral, membership of the UN requires the affirmative votes of 9 of the 15 members of the Council, including the concurring votes of its five permanent members and a two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly.
Learning the lessons of 2012
Palestine applied for UN membership in September 2011, when its application was considered by the Committee on the Admission of New Members. The Committee was unable to reach unanimous agreement on Palestine’s application, due to US opposition, but suggested that, “as an intermediate step, the General Assembly should adopt a resolution by which Palestine would be made an Observer State”.
On 29 November 2012, the UN General Assembly decided “to accord to Palestine non-member observer State status in the United Nations”. 138 states voted in favour of that resolution, including states that had not previously recognised Palestine — these included Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
The UK abstained from the vote. David Cameron was then prime minister. William Hague, who was Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, told the House of Commons that the UK’s vote for the resolution was dependent on public assurances from Palestinian leaders that they would commit to return immediately to negotiations, without preconditions, and that Palestine would not submit an application to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) that would give the court jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine. The UK’s view was that membership of the ICC, immediately following the UN vote, would make a “return to negotiations impossible”.
These conditions were reiterated by the UK at the United Nations in its explanation of the vote following the adoption of the resolution according Palestine observer state status.
Victor Kattan (left) with Dr Saeb Erekat (1955–2020) at PLO Headquarters in Ramallah. (Supplied by Victor Kattan)
In November 2012, I was a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiations team on secondment from the UN Development Program. My responsibilities included advising the Palestinian leadership on treaty accession, including the Rome Statute of the ICC and membership of UN’s Specialized Agencies, among other matters. In this role I was privy to exchanges on Palestine’s “statehood bid” at the UN with other countries — including the UK, France, Brazil, Norway, and the “Quartet”. The late Dr Saeb Erekat was director of the Negotiations Affairs Department. My role was to report to him, sometimes directly.
Prior to the UN vote on 29 November, there had been a flurry of diplomatic activity. Cameron’s government had made it clear that the UK would not vote against the resolution according Palestine observer state status. But, to secure a positive vote, the UK wanted the assurances mentioned in Hague’s speech to the House of Commons. Nine days prior to the vote, Alistair Burt, the UK’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) met with Erekat in his Jericho office, along with Sir Vincent Fean, the British Consul General to Jerusalem, and a number of other officials.
At the time of the Jericho meeting, another armed conflict was underway in Gaza: “Operation Pillar of Defence”, during which Israel first deployed its Iron Dome missile defence system on a wide scale. Netanyahu was facing another election. The UK wanted an assurance from Palestinian leaders that Palestine would not join the ICC immediately after the vote. The Palestinian leadership was of the view that the timing of the conflict — which began with an Israeli pre-emptive strike which killed Ahmed Jabari, commander of Hamas’s militant wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades — was connected to the looming UN vote.
Given the scenes of destruction and death coming from Gaza — which was all too apparent from Al-Jazeera’s live coverage of the conflict on a large television screen in Erekat’s Ramallah office — the Palestinian leadership reiterated their steadfast opposition to the assurances the UK was seeking.
During the meeting in Jericho, Erekat told Alistair Burt that I was in the process of drafting letters for Palestine to accede to the Rome Statute. Although I was of the view that Palestine should have considered the assurances the UK was requesting — because I believed that a UK vote might bring more votes than the 138 states who eventually voted for the resolution, and that Palestine could always join the ICC at a later stage — I drafted the requested accession letters for Erekat. He asked me to date the letter 30 November 2012 (the day after the UN vote) along with a second letter backdating the Court’s jurisdiction to 1 July 2002 (the date the Rome Statute entered into force).
The letters came in handy when President Mahmoud Abbas showed them to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Ramallah. According to contemporary reports, the Israeli and US governments were putting pressure on the Palestinian leadership not to press the issue to a vote and threatened significant retaliation — mainly in the form of punitive financial measures. The Palestinian leadership did not yield, and the vote went ahead.
Recognition is a question of judgement, not legality
What was significant about the events I have just described is that the UK — as well as the countries who voted in favour of or abstained from the resolution — said nothing about whether Palestine met the “legal criteria” for statehood as framed in Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. Only Israel mentioned these criteria in the debate to support its claim that Palestine was not a state.
Already, in November 2011, the UK judged that “the Palestinian Authority largely fulfils criteria for UN membership, including statehood, as far as the reality of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories allows”. Accordingly, the UK must have already made a legal determination that Palestine was a state because it was prepared to vote in favour of the resolution according Palestine observer state status if its conditions were met— even though its territory remained occupied by Israel.
For the UK recognition of Palestine had become solely a matter of political judgement. The UK already considered that Palestine met the legal requirements for statehood but decided to withhold recognition to give it political leverage, which it is now using as an incentive to help end the fighting in Gaza. In other words, recognition needs a political decision and Cameron is indicating that he may give it. This is in furtherance of the government’s position: “The UK will recognise a Palestinian state at a time of our choosing, and when it best serves the objective of peace”.
Then and now
Much water has passed under the bridge since November 2012. Many of the initial concerns about the ICC and negotiations are now moot. Palestine has since acceded to a plethora of treaties, including the Rome Statute, and is a member of multiple UN agencies. Negotiations have gone nowhere. As Netanyahu has made abundantly clear, he will never allow an independent Palestinian state to emerge while he is in power.
The question is whether recognition of a Palestinian state by the UK, the United States, Australia, and other like-minded states in 2024, and Palestine’s admission to membership of the UN, will best serve the interests of peace.
It is highly likely that Netanyahu will not be prime minister of Israel for much longer. The conflict in Gaza will come to an end. But what happens then? Who will fill the power vacuum? Who will fund reconstruction? Who will provide security for the Palestinians (from Israel)? And who will ensure security for Israelis, such that another 7 October will not happen again?
Will the recognition of a Palestinian state contribute to these aims? Will recognition of a Palestinian state contribute to closer relations between Israel and other Arab and Muslim-majority nations? The answer to these questions, in my view, are an emphatic yes.
Victor Kattan is Assistant Professor in the School of Law at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891–1949, and the co-editor of Making Endless War: The Vietnam and Arab-Israeli Conflicts in the History of International Law, The Breakup of India and Palestine: The Causes and Legacies of Partition, and Violent Radical Movements in the Arab World: The Ideology and Politics of Non-State Actors.