On July 30th 2025 the BBC News website published an ‘explainer’ article by Paul Adams under the headline “What does recognising a Palestinian state mean?”.
Since its initial publication, that article – which currently appears on the website’s ‘Middle East’ page – has been updated several times, including a recent amendment to its introduction:
Original [July 30, 2025]:
“Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced the UK will recognise a Palestinian state in September unless Israel meets certain conditions, including agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza and reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted furiously to the announcement, saying the decision rewarded “Hamas’s monstrous terrorism”.
What would it mean if recognition does go ahead, and what difference would it make?”
Latest [September 23, 2025]:
“The UK, Australia, Canada and France have recognised a Palestinian state, while more countries are set to do so in the coming days.
In his announcement on Sunday, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “In the face of the growing horror in the Middle East, we are acting to keep alive the possibility of peace and a two-state solution. That means a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the decisions would reward “Hamas’s monstrous terrorism”. The US has also voiced strong opposition to the move.
What will recognition mean, and what difference would it make?”
Although it clearly purports to provide BBC audiences with the background information needed to understand that current affairs story, Adams’ article in fact falls far short of doing so – largely due to a plethora of historical omissions and distortions.
Under the sub-heading “What does recognising a Palestinian state mean?”, Adams tells readers that: [emphasis added]
“But due to the Palestinians’ long-running dispute with Israel, it has no internationally agreed boundaries, no capital and no army. Due to Israel’s military occupation in the West Bank, the Palestinian authority, set up in the wake of peace agreements in the 1990s, is not in full control of its land or people. Gaza, where Israel is also the occupying power, is in the midst of a devastating war.”
Remarkably, Adams has nothing at all to tell BBC audiences about the fact that Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip two decades ago and that two years later, it was Hamas that brought Palestinian Authority control over that territory to an end in a violent coup.
Neither does he bother to mention the fact that under the terms of the Oslo Accords, the question of “control” of part of what the BBC partially chooses to term “the West Bank” – i.e. Area C – was defined as being subject to final status negotiations that were supposed to have taken place within five years of the signing of that agreement.
Failing to note that the aim of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine that Britain administered was to lay the groundwork for a national home for the Jewish people – or that Britain did not succeed in that mission – Adams goes on to tell readers that:
“But the territory previously known as Palestine, which Britain ruled through a League of Nations mandate from 1922 to 1948, has long been regarded as unfinished international business.
Israel came into being in 1948, but efforts to create a parallel state of Palestine have foundered, for a multitude of reasons.”
It would of course have been extremely helpful to readers had they been told that the “multitude of reasons” includes Arab rejection of the partition plans put forward in the 1937 Peel Commission report and the 1947 Partition Plan (UNGA resolution 181).
Adams also has nothing to tell his readers about the Palestinian refusal to reach agreements at the Camp David summit in 2000 or the Palestinian decision to scupper the Oslo Accords by igniting the second Intifada. The Palestinian Authority’s rejection of the 2008 Olmert proposal is completely absent from his account, as is the collapse of negotiations in 2013/2014 due to the PA’s decision to opt for ‘reconciliation’ with Hamas. Neither do the PA and Arab League rejections of the 2020 US ‘Peace to Prosperity’ proposal even get a mention from Adams.
Instead, Adams blames Israel alone for the absence of a ‘two-state solution’, while failing to note that “the lines that existed prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war” were ceasefire lines brought about by the 1948 invasion of the Gaza Strip by Egypt and the invasion of Judea and Samaria, together with parts of Jerusalem, by Jordan (with British help) – both part of wider Arab efforts to destroy the nascent Jewish State.
“As Lammy said, politicians “have become accustomed to uttering the words ‘a two-state solution'”.
The phrase refers to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, broadly along the lines that existed prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, with East Jerusalem – occupied by Israel since that war – as its capital.
But international efforts to bring about a two-state solution have come to nothing and Israel’s colonisation of large parts of the West Bank, illegal under international law, has turned the concept into a largely empty slogan.”
Notably, Adams provides no explanation his readers as to why a Palestinian state was not established during the nineteen years of Egyptian and Jordanian occupation of those areas.
Given the BBC’s record on the topic, it is also not surprising that Adams completely fails to address the crucial topic of Palestinian refusal to recognise Israel as the Jewish state – a central tenet to the concept of a ‘two-state solution’.
As we have all too often had cause to note here in the past, the BBC’s implication that there is one unified and representative Palestinian voice which aspires to a ‘two-state solution’ is inaccurate and misleading. Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad obviously do not hold that aspiration – their aim is the destruction of Israel – and the refusal of other Palestinian factions to recognise Israel as the Jewish state is no less relevant to audience understanding of why that concept is “largely an empty slogan”.
Not content with distorting and ignoring history, Adams also skews the present, telling readers that:
“Successive British governments have talked about recognising a Palestinian state, but only as part of a peace process, ideally in conjunction with other Western allies and “at the moment of maximum impact”.
To do it simply as a gesture, the governments believed, would be a mistake. It might make people feel virtuous, but it would not actually change anything on the ground.
But events have clearly forced the hands of several governments.
The scenes of creeping starvation in Gaza, mounting anger over Israel’s military campaign and major shifts in public opinion – all have played a role in bringing us to this point.”
A photo caption underneath those words informs BBC audiences that: “The “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out” in the Gaza Strip, UN-backed global food security experts warn”.
As we have documented here previously, when the IPC put out its August 22nd report claiming that a particular area in the Gaza Strip is now experiencing famine, the BBC was quick off the mark to promote that claim. Not only has the BBC made no effort whatsoever to independently analyse that report’s much criticised methodology, it has also failed to inform its audiences of the findings of people who did conduct such analyses or to report on the relevant topic of the IPC’s response to criticisms, choosing instead to repeatedly and uncritically amplify that latest chapter in a narrative to which it had already self-conscripted.
Members of the BBC’s funding public have the right to expect their national broadcaster to keep them fully informed on the background to decisions made by their government. This highly dumbed down, superficial and historically inadequate ‘explainer’ (which does not even mention the 48 hostages still held by Hamas) however does nothing of the sort.
Related Articles:
BBC BACKGROUNDER ON PEACE PROCESS ERASES TWENTY YEARS OF TERROR
Is not Adams the son of Michael Adams the founder of the Council for Arab British Understanding -Caabu is a not-for-profit cross-party organisation whose mission is to work for a British Middle East policy that promotes conflict resolution, human rights and civil society in the Arab world through informed debate and mutual understanding. Caabu is one of the most active NGOs working on the Middle East in British parliament since its establishment in 1967. From then on Caabu has assumed an active advocacy, educational and media role. Sourcehttps://www.caabu.org/about-caabu,
He could have added that 80% of the land for the Palestine Mandate was given by Churchill to the Arabian tribe leader Emir Abdullah prior to the April 1922 San Remo conference that formalized the Mandate. the 80% became the Hashemite “Kingdom” of Jordan – thus Adams distorted history even further!
The BBC has become sort of a nightmare and not only for the British Jews.
There was a time that Europe felt that Israel was not only part of the Middle East
but also of Europe. Lots of people here still feel like this but quite some of the
governments belong to a quite strange left (that has little to see , by the way,
of the honest Left we remember:)