A British Message to Israel

Israel and the United States have dismissed Monday’s vote in the House of Commons in Britain that endorsed diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state as a symbolic gesture that won’t change British policy.

In a strict sense, they are right. The resolution, which passed 274 to 12 and was proposed by Grahame Morris, a member of Parliament in the opposition Labour Party, is nonbinding. The Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron has made clear that it will not alter its approach, which is to work with the United States and others toward a negotiated two-state solution.

Moreover, more than half of Parliament’s 650 members, including Conservative leaders and senior Labour Party officials, were absent, limiting the clout of the vote.

But Israel and its allies should not ignore the message. The vote is one more sign of the frustration many people in Europe feel about the failure to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement despite years of promises.

The most recent American-mediated talks collapsed in April. Meanwhile, Israel continues to build new settlements or expand existing ones, thus shrinking the territory available for a Palestinian state and ignoring an international community that considers such construction illegal. The recent war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, which killed more than 2,000 Palestinians and 73 Israelis, has increased the sense that violence will keep recurring while peace remains elusive.

 The British lawmakers debated the resolution for five hours. Advocates of the measure rejected the idea that recognition would harm the peace process. “There is no peace, and there is no process,” one said.

But perhaps the harshest assessment came from Richard Ottaway, a Conservative lawmaker and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who said he “stood by Israel through thick and thin, through the good years and the bad,” and “under normal circumstances, I would oppose the motion tonight; but such is my anger over Israel’s behavior in recent months that I will not oppose the motion. I have to say to the government of Israel that if they are losing people like me, they will be losing a lot of people.”

This is the latest effort to pressure Israel to halt settlement expansion and commit to serious peace negotiations. Sweden’s new left-of-center government recently announced that it would become the first major Western European nation to recognize Palestine. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has urged the United Nations Security Council to set a specific deadline for Israel to end the occupation.

The European Union has imposed restrictions on loans to Israeli scientific institutions that operate in the West Bank and has plans to label products made in Jewish settlements. Pressure is growing for other measures.

Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians are the only way to form a durable agreement and settle the complicated issues — including defining borders, ensuring Israel’s security and the future of Jerusalem — that stand between them. It takes two to make peace. Monday’s vote suggests that Israel is increasingly seen as needing to do more to end the stalemate.