Why some Palestinians aren’t convinced by Starmer’s promise

One of the most important reasons why British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – after France and then after Canada – had a plan to recognize a Palestinian state in the UN General Assembly in September, is to turn the two -state solution into a real diplomatic plan rather than the empty slogan where the Oslo Peace process fell into a blood case 25 years ago.

One day circulating in the West Bank reminds us how the facts created by Israel to stop the realization of the realization of the Palestinians to the rocky hills and valleys they want for a state.

The success of the great national project, which Israel began in the 1967 Middle East War, started in the Jewish settlements that are now home to more than 700,000 Israelis.

To get them there, a project that lasts for almost 60 years, attracts billions of dollars and condemnation from friends and enemies. Placing a invader’s citizens in the land where it takes is a violation of international law.

Last year, the International Court of Justice issued a consultation that says that the entire profession was illegal.

But Benjamin Netanyahu government is hungry for more settlements.

At the end of May, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that 22 new settlements will be built in the West Bank.

Katz said that the great expansion, the largest of the tens of years, was “a strategic movement that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that will endanger Israel and serves as a buffer against our enemies.”

“This is a Zionist, a clear decision on security and national response and the future of the country,” he added.

Next to Katz, there was Ultra Nationalist Leader Bezalel Smotrich, who lived in a settlement in the West Bank and believed that the land was given to the Jews by God. He is the Minister of Finance, but he is also the governor of the West with comprehensive forces on planning.

Smotrich described the reconciliation expansion as a “generation decision” and “The next step is sovereignty!”

Everyone in Israel and the Palestinians in the regions know that Smotrich and their allies mean annexation when they call “sovereignty”.

Smotrich wants all the lands for the Jews and clearly discussed to find ways to remove Palestinians.

On the hill after the hill in the West Bank, there are settlements from well -established small towns with mature gardens and schools, a handful of caravans and a militant who came together with religious Jewish nationalism, firearms and sometimes fatal aggression.

Statistics collected by the UN and Peace campaigns show that violent settlers have increased in attacks on Palestinian neighbors since the October 7 attacks.

I went to see how this affected Taybeh, a Christian village of about 1,500 people.

A quiet place with much more houses than inhabitants. After the occupation of Israel, which lasted for about six and decades, more Taybeh had to emigrate more than living in the village.

Two nights before the visit, the settlers entered the village when most people were in bed. They burned Kamal Tayea’s car and tried to enter a new home, a part of a pleasant development overlooking the acres of olive gardens. In Hebrew, sprayed with red paint, the walls larked the walls with graffiti.

Kamal, a middle -aged man who reassesses whether the decision to move his family to the edge of the village is wisely, sets up a network of security cameras.

“We were so scared,” Kamal said. “I have children and an old mother. Our lives were threatened and it was terrible.”

I asked him whether Britain’s plan to know Palestine would make his life easier.

“I don’t think it is a big step for a superpower like Britain to support us, but it doesn’t change much on the ground. Israel is not in compliance with any international decisions or laws.

“He does not listen to another country all over the world.”

The next night, the Jewish settlers raided neighboring Palestinian communities, burned a car and repulsed graffiti. This is just more than vandalism.

The settlers want the Palestinians to go out, and in some places in the occupied areas, in the distant villages, the Palestinians force them from their farms and steal their animals.

The Greek Orthodox priest was born in 74 -year -old David Khoury Taybeh. He told me that the settlers who threatened him and other inhabitants in his church were usually armed.

“Yes, they have weapons … If we argue with them, they will use them. They want us outside, they want us to leave.”

The old priest used to challenge.

“We are here, 2,000 years since Jesus Christ. Our roots are here. We cannot move. We will not move, even if we die here, we will not act here… How can we live in our Palestinian blood, without our blood?”

It wasn’t much to Ramallah, the actual Palestinian capital of the West Bank, but I couldn’t get there personally. Israel’s checkpoints can slowly and difficult to return to Jerusalem, so I reached the Husam Zomlot through Zoom. The President of the Palestinian delegation to the United Kingdom, the ambassadors in London. He returned home for the summer and was very pleased with England’s plan to get to know Palestine.

“This is a sign that Britain and the rest of the international community are really serious about the two -state solution.

He continued: “We see the recognition as a weapon for the implementation and establishment of the Palestinian state and to fulfill the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

Zomlot was happy. He said it was the first step, and England’s decision would make a real difference.

History is one of the powerful driving forces of this conflict. Between 1917 and 1948, Britain was atonement for the mistakes he made, while the Palestinians were imperial.

He was talking about the promises of Lord Rothschild, the leader of the Jewish community of the British Jewish community, signed by Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour. The letter said, “Declaration of sympathy for Jewish Zionist longings.”

Britain “for the Jewish people in Palestine of a national house would look in favor of the organization”.

Another promise watched this: “Nothing will be prejudiced with the civil and religious rights of non -Jewish communities in Palestine.”

The majority meant, even though the Palestinian Arabs did not name them, a point that still lists Zomlot after 108 years

This week, British Foreign Minister David Lammy, in the UN in New York this week, said Britain may be proud of helping to put the foundations of Israel after 1917. However, in the Balfour declaration, his promise to the Palestinians caused “a historical injustice that continues to emerge”.

In Knesset, Simcha Rothman, an ultra -nationalist deputy of the National Religious Party, had an imperial history of England in the Middle East. When the British and the French took the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire, which was dying during the First World War, they tried to correct the borders. England no longer could play the empire’s power.

Just like Benjamin Netanyahu and Party leader Rothman, Palestine said to recognize Hamas terrorism. Starmer rejected the recognition proposal if Israel accepted the revival of a full ceasefire and two -state solution in Gaza, as well as other conditions.

He continued: “Israel threatens the state of punishment and thinks that there is a way to bring peace to the Middle East. Not in a position to punish us and will certainly not bring peace.”

“And this justice is against history, religion, culture … Yahya gives a great reward for Sinwar [the Hamas leader who led the 7 October attacks and was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year].

“No matter where it is in hell today, he sees what Keir Starmer says – and says ‘good partner’.”

When I returned to Taybeh, I asked a leading local citizen who drank coffee in his office with the mayor what they thought about the recognition plan of England.

One of them is a local businessman, “Thank you Britain. But it’s too late.”

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