JJP lobbies Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs to support recognition of the State of Palestine

On 15 July 2024, JJP emailed all Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, urging them to argue that our new government should quickly recognise the state of Palestine. The email presented eight arguments that recognition should occur sooner rather than later.

Our email to the Labour MPs is below

Dear [name of Labour MP]

I’m writing to you on behalf of the Executive Committee of Jews for Justice for Palestinians – the UK’s largest Jewish organisation campaigning for human rights and justice for Palestinians. We have more than 2000 members living in virtually every part of the UK, including your constituency.

As a pro-justice organisation, we are ‘committed to the Palestinians right to a viable state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza’.

We also ‘support the right of Israelis to live in peace and freedom within Israel’s 1967 borders’.

We believe that ‘lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians requires justice, mutual recognition and respect’.

We also believe that it is ‘crucial that Jews speak out for Palestinian human rights’ and in favour of ‘ending Israel’s illegal occupation and settlement’ of the Palestinian lands that it took over in 1967. (All these statements are promoted on our website: https://jfjfp.com/ )

We are delighted that, in its election manifesto, the Labour Party committed itself “to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to a renewed peace process”.

(In the email to Liberal Democrat MPs, this sentence was replaced with “We are delighted that, in its election manifesto, the Liberal Democrats committed themselves to supporting the idea that the UK should officially recognise the state of Palestine”.)

We are therefore writing to you to ask for your active support In helping to ensure that such recognition occurs as soon as possible, hopefully within the next few months. We view recognition as being an important early part of revitalising the peace process rather than it being a part of that process’s latter stages or indeed merely a consequence of it.

We fully recognise that there are a variety of opinions as to the timing of recognition.

So this note is to present to you our eight arguments for thinking that recognition should occur sooner rather than later.

We hope you find the material below of interest and of use:

(1) If the West or at least parts of the West (including the UK) wish to be regarded as honest brokers in any future peace process, it is essential that we are seen to treat both sides with equal respect. The UK has quite rightly recognised the State of Israel for the past 76 years, while always refusing to recognise its Palestinian counterpart – the State of Palestine (recognised by increasing numbers of countries since 2012). In order for us (the UK) to be a genuinely non-partisan honest broker, capable of genuinely helping in the peace process, it is therefore crucial that that discriminatory behaviour comes to an end – and that we therefore join the 145 countries that have already recognised the Palestinian state.

(2) One of the major impediments to relaunching the peace process is that successive Israeli governments have often claimed that there is no credible Palestinian partner to negotiate with. Over the years, Israel has sadly done everything it can to help divide Palestinian society (politically, economically and ideologically) and to weaken the Palestinian government so as to try to justify the Israeli claim that there is no credible Palestinian negotiating partner. UK recognition of the State of Palestine would substantially help to increase the international and diplomatic status of the Palestinian government and would therefore also help increase Palestinians’ confidence in it. That would in turn assist in driving forward the peace process.

(3) If Donald Trump returns to power in America, the Palestinians and the Arab street in the Middle East in general, will turn even more against the West. That will be good news for Russia and China. We therefore need to demonstrate that at least some key parts of the western world are sincere about pushing for peace between Israel and Palestine – and in believing that recognition is a key part of that process. We should therefore regard recognition as a matter of geopolitical urgency, to be implemented by the UK before the US elections in November.

(4) Recognition will strengthen the peaceful alternative to armed resistance as a means of obtaining justice for Palestinians. The only antidote to despair and violence is hope and political progress – and a UK recognition of the State of Palestine would symbolise such hope and progress. Recognition would be a move against violence and therefore in favour of greater peace and security in Israel and Palestine. It would be part of a process to rekindle Palestinian hope, reduce political despair and promote peace and the emergence of a genuinely independent and viable Palestinian state.

(5) In order for peace to develop, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza will clearly need to end. Recognition of Palestine (ie., a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders) will therefore demonstrate the UK’s support for peace and for a two state future.

(6) The State of Palestine is now recognised by 75 percent of countries, who see recognition as an essential prerequisite to restarting the peace process. The UK should not stand aloof from the global move towards recognition. What’s more, the 75%/25% global split on recognition sadly reflects a fundamental and very regrettable continuing wider global division. Most of the countries which recognise Palestine are non-white nations (often suffering from poverty and international exploitation) – while most of those countries still refusing to recognise Palestine are predominantly white and comparatively rich – and, in many cases, are former European imperial powers. In our view, that division (along ethnic and historical lines) is tragically regrettable and outdated – and the UK’s failure to recognise Palestine merely reinforces and helps perpetuate it.

(7) At present the Israeli government feels emboldened to do whatever it wishes – at least partly because most of the western world always acts (albeit sometimes reluctantly) in accordance with Israel’s wishes. Recognition of the State of Palestine (consisting of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza) would clearly demonstrate that the world is losing patience with Israeli intransigence – and would indicate to the Israeli government that it can no longer rely on all of the West’s willingness to acquiesce in that intransigence.

(8) It is morally right that the new UK government should do everything in its power to try to promote justice in our world. One of the ways of doing that is to push for greater justice for the Palestinians. From the Nakba of 1948 to the slaughter of more than 38,000 Palestinians in Gaza in 2023/2024, the Palestinians have suffered terrible injustice. As Jews, we feel an obligation to abide by the biblical teaching that “Justice, justice, you shall pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). A key part of implementing justice for the Palestinians is to respect their right to national self-determination – and part of achieving that is surely for our country, the UK, to urgently recognise Palestinian statehood.

We therefore ask you to do everything you can within the Parliamentary Labour Party to try to ensure that the government act rapidly on its manifesto commitment to recognise the State of Palestine.

If you have any queries or comments, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We would also love to know what you, as a Labour MP, are planning to do to speed up the process of recognition.

Many thanks for reading this e-mail,

Best wishes,

David Keys

On behalf of the Executive Committee of Jews for Justice for Palestinians