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October 21, 2014
What would Arthur Balfour say?
IN HIS declaration of 1917 giving Britain’s backing for the creation of a Jewish homeland, Arthur Balfour, the then foreign secretary, undertook to uphold the civil and religious rights of the native population of Palestine. A century later after less than total success, Britain’s Parliament added national rights as well. On October 13th it voted by 274 votes to 12 to recognise a Palestinian state.
On the face of it, the backbench vote will have little impact. It is not binding, sets no deadline for recognition and will not change government policy, says David Cameron, the Conservative prime minister. Over half of MPs abstained.
We are the 89%
But as a barometer of European sentiment, the vote is telling. Since last summer’s Gaza war and recent appropriations of Palestinian land, even Israel’s allies have found its actions hard to stomach. “If it is losing people like me, it is going to be losing a lot of people,” said Richard Ottaway, the pro-Israel chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
To downplay the significance of the vote, Mr Cameron abstained. Yet this might also reflect growing ambivalence towards Israel, some claimed. After siding with Israel early in the Gaza war, Mr Cameron denounced Israel’s post-war landgrab as “utterly deplorable”.
That growing concern has had little discernible impact on relations. Bilateral trade has risen 28% year-on-year. And Israel can be thick-skinned about how the world views it. “There’s a bit of a tendency to write off Europeans as Nazi-hugging anti-semites,” says a Western diplomat in Tel Aviv. But the vote may encourage others in Europe to do more than just urge the parties to end Israel’s occupations by negotiation, as they have for 23 years. Earlier this month, Sweden’s new prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said his country, too, would recognise a Palestinian state. And when the issue of Palestinian UN membership next comes to the Security Council, as it may soon, the parliamentary vote might make it a bit harder for Britain to oppose it.
