UK set to recognize Palestinian state despite opposition from the US : NPR

US President Donald Trump on the left, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer serve his hand during a press conference at Checkers near Aylesbury, England, on Thursday, September 18, 2025, at the end of President Trump’s second visit to the United Kingdom.

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London-The United Kingdom should recognize a Palestinian state later Sunday despite the opposition of the United States, after having judged that Israel did not fulfill the conditions that it set the war in Gaza.

Although the planned decision is largely symbolic, the United Kingdom hopes that it could increase diplomatic pressure for the end of the Gaza conflict and help open the way to lasting peace.

David Lammy David-Prime Minister, who was secretary of foreign affairs until the beginning of the month, said that an announcement on the recognition of a Palestinian state would later come from Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday.

“Any decision to recognize a Palestinian state, if it should take place later today, does not make a Palestinian state that takes place overnight,” he told Sky News.

He suggested that recognition would help maintain the prospect of a solution to two states and stressed that the identification of the Palestinian people suffering from Hamas was wrong.

In July, following intense pressure within his Labor Party in power, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the United Kingdom would recognize a Palestinian state unless Israel accepts a cease-fire in Gaza, allowed the UN to help you and did not take other long-term peace measures.

The decision scheduled before the United Nations General Assembly this week, where other nations, including Australia, Canada and France, are also preparing to recognize a Palestinian state.

Recognition by the United Kingdom of a Palestinian state comes only a few days after a state visit by US President Donald Trump, during which he expressed his disapproval of the plan.

“I have a disagreement with the Prime Minister on this score,” said Trump. “This is one of our rare disagreements, in fact.”

Critics, including the United States and the Israeli government, which have not shown no interest in a two-state solution, condemned the plans, saying that it rewards Hamas and terrorism.

Starmer insisted that Hamas will have no role in the future of the governance of the Palestinian people and must release the Israeli hostages that he held on attacks on October 7, 2023.

More than 140 countries have already crossed the measure of recognizing a Palestinian state, but the decisions of France and Great Britain are important because they are both members of the group of seven and the United Nations Security Council.

The displaced Palestinians flee the north of the Gaza Strip, on foot and in vehicles, carrying their personal effects along the coastal road, near Wadi Gaza, on Saturday September 20, 2025.

Abdel Kareem Hana / AP

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Abdel Kareem Hana / AP

The two countries have a historical role in the Middle East policy in the past 100 years, after carving out the region after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

As part of this sculpture, the United Kingdom became the power governing of what was then Palestine. It was also the author of the Balfur Declaration of 1917, which supported the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people”.

However, the second part of the declaration has been largely neglected over the decades. He noted “that nothing will be done, nothing that could prejudge civil and religious rights” of the Palestinian people.

Lammy, who will represent the United Kingdom at the UN this week, said in July that this had not been confirmed and represented “a historical injustice that continues to take place”.

The United Kingdom has been supporting an independent Palestinian state for decades for decades for decades, but recognition has insisted that recognition must be part of a peace plan to carry out a two-state solution.

However, British officials have become more and more worried that such a solution becomes almost impossible – not only because of the shaving of Gaza and the displacement of most of its population for almost two years of conflict, but because the Israeli government extends the regulations of West Bank aggressively, the land preseware wish their future state. A large part of the world considers the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as illegal.