The UK recognising the state of Palestine is long overdue

Palestinian self-determination is the key to a just peace in the Middle East.

- SIR VINCENT FEAN

The United Kingdom deprived Palestinians of that right, through its misconduct of the Palestine Mandate, before we cut and ran in 1948. It is 57 years since the Israeli occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. It is only right that we should now recognise the state of Palestine on those lands.

Spain, Ireland and Norway are the latest to have done just that, last week announcing that, from today, they will join the long list of countries that formally recognise a Palestinian state. They have set the example that the United Kingdom should have provided for the so-called two-state solution – and which we must encourage others to follow.

First, some clarity is needed on what we should envisage as the Palestinian state: namely, pre-June 1967 borders, with full territorial sovereignty, the free movement of people and goods, and control of administrative matters (a registry of births, and so on).

Security is fundamental to statehood. In January, the foreign secretary David Cameron said that the last 30 years had been a story of failure for Israel because it had not delivered that basic security requirement to its citizens. The reason for that failure is that Netanyahu and his peers have systematically deprived Palestinians of their rights – including their own right to security – by entrenched military occupation, blockades, the building of illegal settlements and much more besides.