On the 21st of September, Sir Kid Starver Prime Minister Kier Starmer of the United Kingdom, officially recognised the state of Palestine. He stood at his lectern and lectured us about peace and a “safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state”. For someone supplying Israel with arms and reconnaissance missions he was audacious, or malicious, enough to suggest that “ordinary” Palestinians deserve to live in peace. If he really believed this he would stop the supply of the bombs. It took less than a minute before he mentioned the “hostages” and the for the next two he went on to condemn Hamas, mentioning them at least five times. Starmer’s white saviour plan required Palestinians to be governed only by those deemed appropriate by the West. There was not a single mention of the thousands of Palestinian hostages, including children, who are locked up in israeli prisons. He then spoke about israel, pleading with them to “stop the unacceptable restrictions at the border. Stop these cruel tactics”. He didn’t mention forced starvation, ethnic cleansing or even genocide, apparently “tactics” was sufficient to cover the crimes of israel.

What does it actually mean for the UK to recognise Palestine? Surely the country that colonised Palestine in 1917 is aware of it’s existence. In that same year it issued the Balfour Declaration, supporting the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” on Palestinian land. Which border is it exactly recognising? 1916, 1946, 1947, 1967, 1993 or the 2012? As israel continues to annex the West Bank, turning it into what Gaza was before the current genocide, surrounded military and with settlers encroaching on the land, where exactly will this newly recognised state of Palestine exist? Gaza, has been demolished and Palestinians there are being ethnically cleansed. Occupied East Jerusalem, which was annexed by israel in 1980, is a part of the Palestinian territories according to international law, but under illegal occupation by israel. The King Hussain bridge, connecting the West Bank to Jordon, and the only entry and exit point from the West Bank, has been closed by israel as yet another method of collective punishment by israel. Rather than do anything practical to stop the genocide, the UK’s actions have resulted in its zionist ally tightening its grip around Palestinian necks.

Palestine exists. Moses describes it in the King James Bible as “a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt not eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass” (Deuteronomy 8:7-9). And if the Bible isn’t sufficient evidence, take the 1876 novel, Daniel Deronda, George Eliot’s novel, a fictional tale concerning the concept of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Or ask the Zionist who put together the plan to colonise it. Read their own literature anticipating ethnic cleaning and genocide in order to create a settler colonial, Jewish ethno-supremist state. What would have been more significant is if the UK actually sanctioned israel with consequences rather than empty gestures. A good starting point would be to stop selling the weapons that are killing Palestinians every single day. israel should be barred from all competitions, including Eurovision and FIFA, boycotts should be mandatory and all government departments should be divesting from their illegal, genocidal economy.

Lest we forget, the British and its fellow white European colonisers carved up the whole of Africa, and parts of Asia, creating borders and nations that are still in conflict today. What is the point of even learning history in Britain, if in 2025 we are still making the same mistakes as 1884. White men don’t get to tell us how to govern our lands. Sudan, Congo, Kashmir, and Palestine are live examples of the conflicts imperialism has left in its wake. Our blood is not cheap and our resistance is defined by us, not your recognition of us. What good is a fragmented Palestine, a demilitarised entity governed by a Western puppet? In the words of Kwame Nkrumah “The danger to world peace springs not from the action of those who seek to end neo-colonialism but from the inaction of those who allow it to continue.” Resistance is not terrorism, white supremacy and zionism are.

israel and its supporters have long peddled a myth about it being the only democracy in the Middle East, which has allowed it carte blanche to invade, bomb, annex and steal land from its neighbours as it sees fit, every time it deems its security under threat. Putting aside the notion that a “democracy” is an automatic elevated status, (after all Jim Crow laws were allowed in a democracy, as were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) the reality is that israel is an apartheid regime. Even before its existence, The King-Crane Commission of 1919, Arab political representatives from Palestine prophesied their destruction to the commission’s American diplomats: “If the Jews come to our land, they do not come to coexist and share it with us, but with the intent to wipe us out, and build their nation upon the ruins of our own.” and low and behold, that is exactly what ensued. israel exercises complete control over Gaza and the West Bank. israel controls everything entering and leaving Gaza and has complete authority over its land, sea and air. The West Bank and Gaza account for approximately 5 million Palestinians and then there are the other six million Palestinians who have been forcibly removed from Palestine and now exist as stateless refugees with absolutely no rights within Palestine, their homeland. The Nakba, in 1948, was the first step in forcing Palestinians out of their home and their land, and the continuous building of settlements, including in the West Bank, is how israel is continuing to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous population. The majority of the population, the Palestinians, are denied the right to vote, whilst their entire existence is controlled by israel.

There are no two states and creating them on the mass graves of Palestinians will never bring peace to the region. Palestine should be recognised, from the river to the sea, settlements need to be demolished, Palestinian refugees allowed to return. The UK has enough blood on its hands to last a few more centuries, maybe it just needs to sit this one out. It’s no longer the “white mans burden” to tell the rest of the world how to manage their affairs. israel is a settler colonial state, and it is in the interest of the whole world that its evil ideology of Apartheid and Jewish ethno-supremacy at the expense of indigenous Palestinian lives, be dismantled. In the words of Frantz Fanon “Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence”