Palestine - UK Relations
The UK works to improve the United Kingdom’s security and prosperity through a just peace between a stable, democratic Palestinian State and Israel, based on 1967 borders, ending the occupation by agreement. International opinion swung in favour of a separate Jewish state after the revelation of the holocaust. The aim is to improve the ties of friendship between the Palestinian and British peoples. The UK’s programming in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) aims to protect Palestinian rights and increase economic opportunity and resilience; limit the erosion of a future Palestinian State; and reduce drivers of instability and extremism. This supports the foundations for the UK’s long-term policy of a two-state solution (2SS).
Britain conquered the territory then known as Trans-Joran from the Ottoman Empire during 1917-18. Following the Great War, British rule in Palestine was administered under a League of Nations ‘Mandate’ until 1948. Britain, however, had contradictory obligations to Arabs and Jews. The British had attempted to give Arab leaders the impression that their support during the war would be rewarded by independence in some form, when in fact the Balfour Declaration of 1917 promised to support Jewish claims for a 'National Home' in Palestine.
Unlike other colonies, this Mandate aimed to lead the native population to self-government and independence. In Palestine, Britain was also committed to establishing a ‘Jewish national home’ by facilitating Jewish immigration and colonisation of Palestine. For decades, Britain sought, and even tried to force a compromise between Arabs, who feared displacement, and Jews, who wanted a safe haven from persecution. Britain also sought to protect its economic and political interests in this vital part of the Middle East.
British support for a ‘Jewish national home’ in Palestine originated in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which promised to protect the civic and religious rights of Palestinians, but not their political rights. Fearing displacement in their own country, Palestinians resisted British policy through non-violent diplomatic means, such as boycott and civil disobedience, and in 1936, by force of arms. Palestinians sought to stem mass Jewish immigration to the region, which peaked as a result of persecution in Germany and Poland. The Palestinian leadership organised under the ‘Arab Higher Committee’ launched a General Strike in 1936, which escalated toward revolt. By September 1936, two divisions of the British Army were deployed to restore order.
Following an Arab rebellion in 1936, Earl Peel oversaw a Royal Commission that recommended partition into separate Arab and Jewish states; the Peel report was published in July 1937. In 1937 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni, the leading Arab politician in Palestine, relaunched the Arab revolt against Britain and aligned himself with Germany during the war. Given the approach of war and the need to protect oil sources, Britain changed approach to soothe Arab opinion. A 1939 White Paper explicitly rejected a Jewish state and restricted immigration.
As this developed, Britain sought to augment the Yishuv (the Jewish population of Palestine) which had its own large army, the Haganah, which had over 3000 permanent and 16000 temporary personnel at its peak. There had been a ceasefire between both sides from 1940-1944. The Labour Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, attempted to negotiate a unitary state in which Britain played a part, but was continually frustrated. Violence increased and in 1946 the Irgun (The National Military Organization in the Land of Israel) blew up the Royal David Hotel, which housed the British administration. In September 1947, Bevin renounced the mandate and British troops withdrew the following year. Partition was then carried out under the United Nations.
The development and humanitarian situation across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) has been heavily impacted by restrictions imposed by Israel on trade and movement and access, recurrent hostilities, internal divisions, falling aid levels and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Palestinian Authority (PA) remains a critical partner for reducing poverty and improving development outcomes in the OPTs. Although the UK does not currently provide financial aid to the PA, it does support technical assistance programmes to deliver fiscal improvements and improve transparency and accountability. The British Support Team supports PA Security Services reform and capability. UNRWA – the only organisation with the mandate and reach to serve the needs of 5.9 million Palestinian refugees – is a core partner.
On 13 November 2023 British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sacked controversial interior minister Suella Braverman, replacing her with foreign minister James Cleverly. He also appointed former PM David Cameron to take over the UK's foreign policy dossier during a qwide-ranging cabinet reshuffle, Sunak's first government shakeup since entering office in October 2022. It was the latest reset for a prime minister whose party has trailed the main Labour opposition by double-digit margins throughout his time in power and is widely tipped to lose the next election slated for sometime next year. Sunak made additional changes to the government throughout the day, naming Victoria Atkins as the new health secretary and moving her predecessor, Steve Barclay, to the environment portfolio.
Cameron's return to government suggests Sunak wants to bring in more centrist, experienced hands rather than appease the right flank of his party that supported Braverman. His unexpected return to British politics comes after he spent the last seven years writing his memoirs and pursuing business interests. Cameron will be made a life peer in the House of Lords, Britain's unelected upper chamber of parliament, making him eligible to sit in government. It is rare for a non-lawmaker to take a senior government post, and it has been decades since a former prime minister held a cabinet job.
The British Prime Minister announced the dismissal of Interior Minister Suella Braverman after he and a large group of Conservative Party leaders ran out of patience, due to what some considered the controversial minister’s “many mistakes,” against the backdrop of her racist stances, which went so far as to accuse the police of favoring the pro-Palestinian marches in the country. The right-winger attacked her critics as liberal "tofu-eating wokerati" while saying shortly after she was appointed that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was her "dream" and "obsession".
After pro-Palestinian protests in London, she wrote an opinion piece for The Times of London, which blamed the police for “playing favourites” and for taking a lenient stance towards pro-Palestinian protests. She described the protesters as “pro-Palestinian mobs” and “hate marchers”. Sunak told reporters that Braverman had not run the article by his office, violating the ministerial code. Still, while Sunak was under pressure to sack Braverman, he had initially backed her.
Braverman’s removal and Cameron’s return angered some Conservatives on the right of the party. Member of Parliament and former Business and Trade Secretary Jacob William Rees-Mogg told GB News that sacking Braverman was a mistake that undermines Conservatives’ chances to win the next election. He added that Cameron’s appointment could shift the Conservative vote to Reform UK, the new Brexit party.
Braverman had accumulated a record of "mistakes" that led many to expect that she would not be able to remain in a sensitive and important position for a long time. On the other hand, analysts saw that the minister was flirting with the extreme right and within the Conservative Party to strengthen her chances in competing for the leadership of the party in 2024, after the general elections are held, which the Conservatives were expected to lose to the Labor Party.
From the beginning, Braverman chose to engage in battles that shocked many, especially against the Muslim minority in Britain and against refugees and immigrants. Many descriptions agreed that she was considered one of the most racist ministers in the history of the Ministry of the Interior, and these are some of the mistakes committed by this controversial minister. Since the first march organized in the capital, London, in support of Palestine, the Minister of the Interior entered into a fierce war of incitement against these demonstrations, describing them as “hate marches,” a description that shocked many, including the police chief himself, who considered this description “meaningless.”
Braverman tried with all her might to prevent these marches, and to persuade the police to prevent them on the grounds that they were “anti-Semitic” marches and called for the disappearance of Israel, while the demands of the march were a ceasefire on Gaza, and the minister remained insisting on describing them as “hate” marches despite All ministers, even the prime minister, disavowed this characterization.
Although Minister Braverman - of Indian origins - reached this important position because of Britain’s model of respecting cultural diversity, she delivered a shocking speech at the United Nations declaring the failure of this model and that it was no longer able to withstand, and she suggested that everyone who wants to reach the country adhere to With British values ??and the British way of life. These statements embarrassed even the Prime Minister, who considered that the model of cultural diversity is still successful in Britain, and everyone must respect and protect it.
In an article published in the Mail on Sunday on 28 January 2024, the foreign secretary said that Hamas must leave Gaza as part of this path to statehood: We have to see the key Hamas leaders leave Gaza. Israel has permitted safe passage for terrorists in the past—and the people responsible for October 7 have to go. We have to see the instruments of terrorism still in Gaza being dismantled. In the carnage of the past 100-plus days of conflict, it often goes unreported that Hamas rocket attacks against Israel have continued. And Hamas still wants to launch terrorist atrocities again. It must be put beyond doubt that this cannot happen. These steps would give Israel some of the reassurance it needs to end its military campaign. But the Palestinian people need reassurance too.
"We must give the people of the West Bank and Gaza the political perspective of a credible route to a Palestinian state and a new future. And it needs to be irreversible. This is not entirely in our gift. But Britain and our partners can help by confirming our commitment to a sovereign, viable Palestinian state, and our vision for its composition. And, crucially, we must state our clear intention to grant it recognition, including at the United Nations. The Palestinian leadership must help as well, by forming a new government which can immediately start to deliver."
In his statement to the House of Commons, Andrew Mitchell set out further detail on how the UK saw the path to a resolution of the conflict, including wider concerns such as post-conflict reconstruction in Gaza: "The government’s end goal is clear: Israelis should be able to live without fear of Hamas terrorism, and Gazans should be able to rebuild their lives....
"The British government have identified five vital steps for that to happen: a political horizon that provides a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution; forming a new Palestinian government for the west bank and Gaza, accompanied by an international support package; removing Hamas’s capacity to launch attacks against Israel; the release of all Israeli hostages; and key Hamas leaders agreeing to leave Gaza. All those things are intricately linked, and we cannot secure one without all the others. There are also many other elements to consider, such as Arab-Israeli normalisation, security guarantees, and financing the rebuilding of Gaza, but we need to generate momentum now towards a permanent peace. That is why pushing for a pause now is so important, and why we need a Contact Group meeting, bringing together the key players as soon as possible."
In further comments in Parliament, Andrew Mitchell has stated that the UK government is clear that “bilateral recognition alone cannot end the occupation”, and that “Britain will recognise a Palestinian state at a time when it best serves the objective of peace”.
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