Ministers are pushing for action after calling Israeli attacks on Palestinians at aid stations “intolerable”
Cabinet ministers are putting pressure on prime minister Keir Starmer to recognise the state of Palestine.
According to the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar, Starmer is understood to have been urged by several senior ministers in different cabinet meetings over recent months that the UK should take a leading role in issuing recognition.
This comes as a UN conference on Palestine, co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, is set to take place on 28 and 29th of this month in New York.
The conference was initially scheduled to take place in June, but was postponed when Israel initiated a military operation against Iran.
Starmer has previously said he would recognise Palestine as part of a peace process, but only in conjunction with other Western countries and “at the point of maximum impact”.
The Guardian reports “a growing sense of desperation and horror inside the Labour Cabinet in recent weeks”, particularly on Israel’s killing of starving Palestinian civilians and its attacks on humanitarian agencies.
“We say that recognising Palestinian statehood is a really important symbol that you can only do once. But if not now, then when?” one cabinet minister said.
In a Commons intervention yesterday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has received thousands in donations from the pro-Israel lobby over the years, called for the recognition of Palestine.
He said: “I sincerely hope that the international community can come together, as the Foreign Secretary has been driving towards, to make sure that we see an end of this war but also that we recognise the state of Palestine while there is a state of Palestine left to recognise.”
Even the Daily Express ran a front page today showing a starving Palestinian child with the headline: ‘For pity’s sake, stop this now’.
The government may have suspended 30 Israeli arms licences last September, but it is still supplying weapons to Israel and offering it political cover while its brutal attacks on Gaza continue.
Earlier this month, Labour proscribed activist group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, a decision which has been widely condemned.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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