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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/04/uk-palestine-conditional-recognition/
The UK's Decision to Recognize Palestine Is Reckless
(Washington Post) Tom Tugendhat - In saying that Israel could avoid British recognition of Palestine by securing a peace deal, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is not only giving Hamas inordinate leverage, he is transforming recognition from a statement of legal fact into a disciplinary tool. This is politics masquerading as law. The legal conditions for statehood are set out clearly in the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States of 1933. Four criteria are necessary: a permanent population, defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Recognition acknowledges these facts. It doesn't create them. International law has always been clear that statehood is recognized, not granted. The writer, a member of the British Parliament, is a former Security Minister.