Meeting of the Parliament 03 September 2025
I agree with the intervention that Alex Cole-Hamilton has described; it is one of a number of interventions that point to the facts that we can all see. They are there for us all to see—the question is whether we act. The First Minister has, today, set out not only the actions that the Scottish Government is taking, within our powers, but what we expect the UK Government to do, including joining South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice.
The United Kingdom bears a unique historical responsibility, as the former colonial power, over a territory that is so bitterly contested. The First Minister’s statement sets out what the Scottish Government can do within our powers. In effect, the pause on new support for arms companies linked to genocide constitutes the Scottish Government’s divesting its investment, exactly as the Scottish Greens’ amendment calls for. It is clear that the vast majority of the actions that the amendment calls for, such as sanctions, are outwith our powers and are—as the amendment itself notes—matters for the UK Government.
The motion for debate refers simply to the need for the state of Palestine to be recognised, and it is for the United Kingdom Government to take that decision. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK would recognise the state of Palestine at the General Assembly of the United Nations, unless the Israeli Government declared a ceasefire, allowed humanitarian access, halted West Bank annexations and showed genuine commitment to peace and to a two-state solution.
Although the Scottish Government has welcomed that decision, having repeatedly called on the UK Government to recognise Palestine, we are clear that recognition should not be conditional but should instead be a first step towards a two-state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully, side by side. Recognition is the right of every Palestinian in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Let us be clear. Netanyahu’s Government has rejected the United Kingdom’s conditions. The Israeli Security Cabinet took the chilling decision to seize Gaza City, which is home to around 900,000 civilians and is where the United Nations has declared that famine conditions exist. Israeli forces have since attacked Gaza City suburbs, killing civilians and ending humanitarian pauses. Those actions directly contradict the UK’s demands.
On 20 August 2025, the Israeli Government approved the massive E1 settlement project, which would likely make a two-state solution unviable. Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich said:
“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise”.
Those chilling words will resonate through the ages. We have been warned.
The UK, having authored the Balfour declaration, bears historic responsibility to uphold the principle of equitable rights—something that recognition of Palestine unconditionally would help to restore. Palestine is recognised by 147 United Nations member states, is a UN observer and is accepted by the International Criminal Court as a state entity. The UK’s history imposes a moral duty. The Balfour declaration’s promise of mutual rights cannot be realised without Palestinian statehood. That must be the starting position.
As well as genocide in Gaza, we see worsening settler violence in the West Bank. According to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 1,000 settler attacks have been recorded in this year alone. On Monday this week, the First Minister and I spoke to the Palestinian head of mission in London, Husam Zomlot, and he described to the First Minister and me, in heartbreaking terms, what he has witnessed recently in the West Bank. He was clear that the Israeli Government’s aim is to settle the entire West Bank. He described the West Bank’s economic strangulation of more than 50 per cent unemployment, of roadblocks and of Palestinian communities penned in behind walls and behind wire. That is his and nearly 3 million Palestinians’ home. Can any of us imagine what it must feel like for them to be systematically removed from their homeland and to have their homes and livelihoods destroyed and their children’s futures stolen while the international community fails to act decisively?