Palestine–United Kingdom relations

The UK House of Commons voted in favour of recognising Palestine as a state in 2014, as a contribution towards achieving a negotiated two-state solution. However, the UK government continued its policy of reserving the right to recognise Palestine bilaterally at a more opportune time for peace efforts, until it eventually recognised Palestine on 21 September 2025. Palestine inaugurated its embassy in London on 5 January 2026.

History

After it promised to assist its allies in forming an Arab Union in return for them helping it defeat the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, the British government assumed control of a portion of the Southern Levant, later known as Mandatory Palestine, under the aegis of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and later the League of Nations. It effectively ruled the multiethnic region as a colony from 1920 onward, though it endorsed an eventual Jewish homeland in the area through the Balfour Declaration. The British government oversaw increased Jewish immigration, leading to intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine mostly between Arabs and Jews, culminating in the 1929 Palestine riots, the Arab revolt of 1936–39, and the Jewish insurgency of the 1940s. During the Second World War, the Palestinian Arabs were split on the issue of whether to support the British military or the Axis powers, with the Nashashibi family leading the moderate, pro-British faction and the al-Husayni family leading the hardline, pro-Axis faction; each faction tended to have different opinions about the Jewish settlers. When the war ended with the exchequer drained of financial resources, the British government attempted to defuse the issue of resolving the ethnic violence by referring it to the United Nations, which formed an Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question. Its partition plan, which created a two-state solution of a Jewish homeland (taking up 57% of the area) flanked by an Arab homeland (taking up 43%), called for the British to terminate its League of Nations mandate in May 1948, and fully withdraw the following August. The UK abstained in the UN partition plan vote on 29 November 1947, and the 1947–48 civil war broke out. The British withdrew their troops early by the end of its mandate in May, when the Jewish-majority State of Israel declared independence. The civil war intensified into a broader regional conflict, becoming the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The war ended in 1949, with Egypt occupying Gaza, Jordan occupying the West Bank, and both nations largely defining their present borders; Britain by then had supported the Palestinian right of return of refugees in voting for United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, and would later agree to the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 in which it would enforce the terms of the Armistice Agreement.

Since the Six-Day War of 1967 which saw Israel occupy the West Bank and Gaza, the British government has been active in achieving a diplomatic settlement of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The issue of a Palestinian state was raised already in July 1967 by Labour MP Paul Rose. Margaret Thatcher generally supported a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation and was willing to consider some Palestine Liberation Organization involvement in this solution.

In April 2013, then-Prime Minister David Cameron stated:

There is no more urgent foreign policy in 2013 than restarting Israeli-Palestinian talks and making substantive progress towards the two-state solution...we are concerned by developments that threaten the viability of the two-state solution, including the construction of settlements on occupied land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem...Our goal is a secure and universally recognised Israel living alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state, based on the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem the future capital of both states, and a just, fair and realistic settlement for refugees...The British government is clear that, ultimately, the way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is through direct negotiations between the parties. We continue to call on both sides to show the strong leadership needed to achieve peace, to take the necessary steps to build trust and to work towards the resumption of negotiations without preconditions.

In February 2021, the British Consul-General in Jerusalem, Philip Hall, condemned settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories as "illegal and an obstacle to restarting peace talks" between Israel and Palestine. That same month, the Court of First Instance in Nablus ruled that the British government's Balfour Declaration in 1917 was invalid and called on the British government to issue an apology to the Palestinian people. In April, the Palestinian government said that relations had reached a "low point" after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his opposition to an International Criminal Court investigation into alleged war crimes in the Israeli-occupied territories. In May, Pro-Palestinian protests were held in London during that month's Israel–Palestine crisis.

On 28 April 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammad Mustafa in Downing Street. Keir Starmer began by expressing his sincere condolences for the appalling loss of life in Gaza. He said that the UK does not support the resumption in hostilities, which are in nobody’s interests. He added that the UK will continue to press for a return to the ceasefire as a first step to a lasting peace, and reiterated that the return of humanitarian aid into Gaza is critical. He also said that we must not lose sight of the situation in the West Bank, where unlawful settlement and violence is of deep concern. Discussing the Arab Plan for Gaza, Keir Starmer shared the UK’s support for the Palestinian Authority’s reform programme, which he said is critical. The leaders agreed that a strategic political framework will be necessary as part of the implementation of a two-state solution, and that Hamas must have no role in Gaza’s governance. They both agreed that the UK would continue to work closely with the Palestinian Authority and regional partners to find a constructive way forward, and deliver lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.