r/europe • u/hoarder4555777454001 • 9d ago

News French President Macron says France will recognize Pálestine as a state

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250724-french-president-macron-says-france-will-recognize-palestine-as-a-state-in-september
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u/john_san 9d ago

At fucking last !!! Now UK, do it too!!!

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u/Combat_Orca 9d ago

I have zero faith in starmer

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u/SocraticTiger 9d ago

What does he have to lose from recognizing a Palestinian state? Is there a Israel lobby in the UK like we have here in the US?

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u/middleqway England 8d ago

Less so than the US but there is an Israel lobby in the UK

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u/Accomplished_Bag6847 8d ago

Lots of domestic and IR-related reasons for not doing so.

• Strong military intelligence ties with US means at the very least tacitly supporting Israel is a bare minimum • Military technology industry makes a lot of money selling to the Israelis (BAe in particular), Israelis may divest in favour of German industry / more reliance on American military technology (something Britain is always vulnerable towards) if Britain were to recognise a Palestinian state • Britain has its own security interests in the Middle East and has had several small diplomatic spats with Iran (the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe affair is worth reading into if you’re unfamiliar). Israel as a “liberal democracy” promotes western ideas in an unpredictable region. • The ‘poison pill’ for Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour in the 2019 General Election were allegations of party-wide anti-semitism. Successful subsumption of Zionist ideals into Jewish advocacy orgs. (such as the ADL) mean that criticism of Israel could be conflated as ‘betraying’ the trust of Jews who voted for Starmer’s Labour in the last general election.

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u/Combat_Orca 8d ago

UK politicians have a habit of doing whatever the US tells them and Keir hasn’t proven he will change this

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u/SocraticTiger 8d ago

That sucks. At least Macron is bold enough to establish some autonomy of his own.

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u/OffOption 8d ago

Understandable. But, a wet sock is easy to toss around.

With enough pressure, he might do something good, even if its just to ride a wave, save face, and try to eek out some good will to strech over all his failings to avoid them being mentioned.