Palestine

Please note that there was an accompanying slide show of maps and pictures referred to in the assembly.

This is Dale Vince, multi-millionaire owner and Chairman of Forest Green Rovers Football Club, standing outside the headquarters of his company, Ecotricity, about 2 miles down the road from us in the centre of Stroud. Over the summer holidays, the local Council ordered the large Palestinian flag adorning the front of the building to be removed on the grounds that it broke planning rules.

Vince said he was displaying the flag in a show of solidarity with Palestine.

Yesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer announced that “to revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis, and two state solution, the United Kingdom now recognises Palestine as a state”.

So what? Why does this matter? What is the two-state solution? And what impact will this have on anything?

The Region of Palestine is an ancient land, sometimes known as Judea, or the Holy Land (and we often hear it referred to as this in various Bible readings here in Chapel). On the map here, we can see this is us, and this is Palestine, in the far eastern Mediterranean. It is the birthplace of two of the world’s great religions, Judaism and Christianity.

Jerusalem, the city which lies at the centre of the region in modern day Israel, holds incredible importance for those two religions and Islam too. It is home to the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock temple (seen here) where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven for one night on his Night Journey in 621 AD. To Sunni Muslims, it is the third holiest place city after Mecca and Medina.

So Palestine is a place which holds immense historical meaning and attachment for many millions of people. Geography matters here.

The Palestine we see today, in 2025, is vastly different to what it has been for most of history. I’ve set myself the tricky task of trying to summarise for you how we got to where we are in just a few minutes, because in this situation, context matters. So here goes.

This is modern day Palestine as we recognise it. Israel in pink, and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, all sandwiched between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

It’s incredibly compact and you can drive top to bottom in about 4-5 hours and side to side in about an hour.

In 1917, before the end of the first world war, it looked like this: there was no Israel and the British had just captured the region from the Ottomans, ending formal Muslim rule. The Balfour Declaration was a pledge made by the British to establish a formal state homeland for Jewish people in Palestine.

Over the next 30 years, millions of Jewish people flocked to Palestine and in 1947, the United Nations proposed a division of the region into Jewish and Arab states but the proposals were never implemented. Intense conflict was ongoing and in 1948, the British withdrew their forces, and Jewish settlers declared the independent state of Israel which was immediately recognised by the US and Russia and many others.

Let’s fast forward several decades to today – in that intervening period, much has happened (which is quite an understatement but I don’t have time to go into the details!) and those of you who study the history of Israel-Palestine will know there have been several wars between Israel and its neighbours with various parcels of land trading hands in the process. At the same time, there has never been anything we might recognise as a lasting peace.

15 million Jews and Palestinians now live in this compact parcel of territory. For decades, peace has been sought, but never found. Ever since the British departed in the 1940s, the two-state solution has been seen as the right path by many countries and governments (and the UN) to a lasting peace: that is a Palestinian state established alongside Israel, all within this relatively small parcel of land at the far western edge of Asia.

In concept, it seems simple. It is anything but. The issue lies in where the borders of a Palestinian state would sit. Israel disagrees fundamentally with proposals relating to the West Bank, much of which is occupied by Israeli settlers.

And the big issue with the two-state solution is the West Bank, which would have to lie at the core of any Palestinian State. It is an area smaller than Devon, and has been ‘sliced and diced’ over the years into a jumble of different zones – we see here that Area C in purple makes up around 60% of the area and is under full Israeli control.

The other areas A and B are partly under Palestinian control…but there is no feasible way that a Palestinian State could be formed out of the disparate blobs of areas A and B. At least half a million Israelis live in the West Bank and they continue to establish settlements (some shown as red dots on the map on the right) across the territory, mainly on high ground – they tend to look like this…

When you hear the phrase “illegal settlements” in the news, it is these places they are referring to – most countries, the UN and the International Court of Justice view them as in contravention of International Law. The Trump Administration at present does not. Or at least has not come out against them.

It follows that creating a Palestinian state would require Israel to give up territory, tear down settlements and evict many tens of thousands of its own citizens from their homes.

But that would still leave tens of thousands of religious and ideological settlers who would not go quietly. It is inconceivable that any Israeli government under any prime minister would launch an operation forcibly to remove so many of its citizens.

Instead, Israeli ministers openly proclaim that the reason for expanding settlements is to make Palestinian statehood impossible.

So what does the UK recognising Palestinian statehood mean? In reality, very little. Most other states recognise Palestine already, although the US is firmly against doing so. States see it as a way of affirming their commitment to the two-state solution, but some others see it as a reward for Hamas, essentially supporting its cause.

The jury is firmly out on whether it helps chart a path to peace or not.

The Israeli-Palestine conflict is one where it is easy to take sides, but to do so, risks ignoring the complexity of the situation where both sides have valid claims to territory.

Palestinians argue that Israel is making the prospect of a two state solution impossible by occupying and dividing up the West Bank (and essentially flattening the Gaza Strip). Israelis say that whilst Hamas effectively runs the Palestinian territories, there is no partner for peace and so they will not negotiate. They also say that whomever fills the void once Hamas is eradicated (which is their current stated aim) will be corrupt and so, that they will not be fit to negotiate with.

So we end with a stalemate in which there are no winners, just continued death and destruction. It may need the strength and influence of the US to force a peace but that is some way off.

Until then, please take an interest and try to understand the situation within it’s historical, geographical and political contexts. Because there is no easy answer here.

Christian San Jose MA (Oxon)

Headmaster