(31 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jerusalem – 31 July 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Julie Norman, associate professor of Middle East Politics at UCL:
"I think most people are very clear-eyed about the fact that this is not going to change conditions on the ground immediately. You know, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank will probably not feel the effects of this decision, and I think we all know that. With that said it is a very significant moral, political and diplomatic move that the countries that are making this move do believe can have some long-term impacts. That can be first on trying to, again, push Israel to reach a ceasefire, end the devastation in Gaza and I would add importantly, halt the annexation of land and violence in the West Bank and then start moving towards a two state solution. So, there is kind of immediate steps, but also more if and when some kind of negotiations do resume, probably not in the immediate future but at some point, it puts Palestine on much more equal footing. It has statehood as a starting point for those negotiations, rather than a certainly not assured endpoint. But mostly I think it was the international community, these friends, the UK, potentially Canada, really seeing that the policy they’ve always had, this idea of committing to a two-state solution to Palestinian self-determination, was going to be completely, it was going to be unable to be reached if the current policies from the current Israeli government continued and they felt the need to do this now, while there was still a possibility to do so."
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2. SOUNDBITE (English) Julie Norman, associate professor of Middle East Politics at UCL:
"There’s a couple of different ways to recognize a state. This probably will come from France and the UK in this UN vote. But again, France and the UK know that that does not mean Palestine will become a full state under the United Nations. They’re currently what’s considered an observer state, but they don’t have full membership as a voting member. To get that, you would need all of the Security Council members to agree to that and the United States has, you know, very consistently indicated they would not support that. But what this would do is put the US in the position to be the only state of the five members of the Security Council to still oppose this move. And it really does highlight how just isolated the US is in that decision in comparison to the rest of the world, quite frankly. So there’s that on that hand. At the same time, states can make bilateral moves also to recognize another state. That can be, you know, increasing the status of the current Palestinian mission in London to an embassy, potentially having some sort of ambassador role here in Palestine. No one is exactly sure what these steps would look like right now. Again, still pretty symbolic at the end of the day when we’re talking about the bigger issues here, but these kinds of indications and recognition that you’re dealing with a state partner rather than with kind of this unknown sort of entity that has been the Palestinian Authority for the last several decades."
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3. SOUNDBITE (English) Julie Norman, associate professor of Middle East Politics at UCL:
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4. SOUNDBITE (English) Julie Norman, associate professor of Middle East Politics at UCL:
"I’ve heard, you know, people in the region say this is just so Europeans can feel good and feel like they’re doing something and virtue signal and then the war continues and what have you. And again, I think that’s a very fair critique for the short term."
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