It has a flag, a national anthem, diplomats and even its own international telephone number. In fact, three-quarters of the world’s 195 countries recognise the Sahrawi as a state – 143 UN member states, the Vatican, and Western Sahara.
The decision by Ireland, Norway and Spain to recognise an independent Palestinian state officially took effect on Tuesday, some eight months after the start of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and decades after the start of one of the world’s most notable and intractable conflicts between Israel and Palestine.
“The recognition of a Palestinian state is not only a matter of historical justice, but also an indispensable requirement for us all to achieve peace,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday.
But what does this formal statehood mean? And will this recognition, which does not include the US or major European powers, bring full Palestinian statehood closer and improve the lives of Palestinians?
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Rowan Nicholson, an international law scholar at Flinders University in Australia, said four criteria are usually needed to be recognised as a state: a settled population, a distinct territory, a government and independence.
He said the requirements for statehood are quite strict and open to debate.
“Standards have developed over centuries Practice “It’s a state position. There is no clear document, it’s vague and open to interpretation,” said Nicholson, who has worked on cases at the International Court of Justice, which is based in The Hague and last week ordered Israel to halt its military operations in Rafah, Gaza, as part of a war crimes case brought by South Africa.
“But one attempt to write them down that people often refer to is the Montevideo Convention of 1933. There are exceptions. For example, you cannot illegally invade an existing state and carve out parts of it to create a new state, as Russia tried to do in Ukraine a few years ago,” he said.
Still, Nicholson said, one of the reasons to doubt whether Palestine meets the qualifications for statehood as defined by the Montevideo Convention and similar provisions in the Palestinian context is that Palestine is not effectively independent from Israel.
Israeli forces occupy Palestinian territory. Israel monitors parts of civilian life in the Fatah-controlled West Bank and largely controlled access to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip before the current war.
Palestinian State, One Step at a Time
Larry Garber, former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Bank and Gaza mission, said the United States has long held the view that formal recognition of a Palestinian state should only come through direct negotiations between the parties involved, namely Israel and Palestine.
“For many years, we have operated on the theory that we should proceed in stages,” Garber said, “first Palestine should develop various attributes of a state, such as good governance and an independent, effectively functioning economy, and then statehood would be the ultimate goal.”
Germany and France also shared this position and remain so to this day.
“Our position is clear: the recognition of a Palestinian state is not taboo for France,” French Foreign Minister Stephane Séjourne said in a statement last week. But he added that “the decision must be beneficial, that is to say it must enable a decisive step forward at the political level. France considers that the conditions have not yet been created for this decision to have a real impact on the process.”
Maia Cross, a political science professor at Northeastern University in Boston, said the recent European recognition essentially acknowledges the “aspirations” of a future Palestinian state.
“Technically, legally speaking, you could say this is purely symbolic. But I think it’s more than that, because it’s not just symbolism versus legality that’s at odds. There’s politics too. International relations are full of politics.”
Kloss said one “tangible” impact of the recognition would be the message it sends to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly rejected calls for Palestinian sovereignty and, according to Israeli media, has long supported Hamas in the Gaza Strip to counter Palestinian Authority attempts to move away from the West Bank toward establishing a two-state solution.
Legal scholars such as Mark Weller, head of international law and constitutional law at Cambridge University, agree. “The recognizing powers are saying, ‘We recognize the status of Palestine, should Transforming state into substance, Claim “The perception that Palestine is a state has spread in Israel, making it difficult for Israel to deny its right to statehood. This perception was deliberately created to counter Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertion that a two-state solution is not possible,” he said.
“This is a powerful political tool that will help isolate Israel’s rejection of Palestinian statehood,” Weller said.
Palestinian Statehood and Its Decoration
Garber said that, nevertheless, this recognition has some concrete consequences.
“The agreement will strengthen diplomatic ties between Palestine and the recognizing countries and potentially lead to an exchange of ambassadors, which will allow the two countries to sign more formal treaties,” he said.
“A country that recognises an organisation is in effect committing itself to treating it as a country, whether or not the organisation actually meets the criteria,” said Australian legal scholar Nicholson.
That means accepting passports, granting sovereign immunity to officials and generally acting as if recognized entities have the right to govern their own territory, he said.
“Recognition of Palestine is not the end of a process, it is the beginning,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said in an apparent agreement when announcing his country’s recognition of Palestine.
Slovenia and Malta have also indicated they may recognise a Palestinian state, and the Palestinian Authority has expressed optimism that other countries will soon follow, but Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz says the move sends a message to Palestinians and the world that “terrorism pays.”
“I don’t know if this is going to be that useful.”
In early May, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the Palestinians eligible for full membership in the UN. The General Assembly can grant full membership only with the approval of the Security Council, which the US will likely veto. Part of US support for Israel can be explained in historical terms.
The United States was one of the first countries to recognize Israel as an independent state in 1948 and is also its main arms supplier. U.S. diplomats have positioned Israel as the only Middle Eastern democracy and security partner that shares U.S. values and interests.
Yet Ahmed Khan, who worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and has been described as a “direct action philanthropist” who travels to the front lines of humanitarian crises and uses his own money to buy and distribute aid, said there is a simpler explanation for why the United States will not recognise a Palestinian state.
“What data points do you need to basically claim that the U.S. is carrying out Israeli policy?” he said.
“It is no exaggeration to say that the United States is doing everything in its power to prevent Palestine’s recognition because it would limit Palestine’s ability to exercise statehood locally, regionally and internationally.”
As an example, Khan said, “The U.S. can’t even get Israel to open its land border, and instead spends hundreds of millions of dollars on floating docks that end up doing very little,” referring to the Pentagon-built docks that have faced numerous problems in their operations.
Omar Shaaban, founder of the Gaza-based think tank Parthink for Strategic Studies, was more diplomatic.
“Of course we appreciate the recognition,” Shaaban, a Palestinian who fled Gaza three months ago and now lives in Cairo, said by phone from Brussels, where he was meeting with European officials. “But I don’t know how much this will help us. The situation of Palestinians has not improved at all: the war in Gaza, the Israeli government, the division of Palestine, the fear we have.”
Israeli airstrikes on Monday sparked a massive fire in a tent camp in the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, killing 45 people. As Palestinian families rushed to hospitals and prepared bodies for burial, world leaders called for an end to the attacks to be implemented, according to an International Court of Justice order.
Shaaban said the Palestinians wanted European help to end Israel’s war in Gaza, rather than statehood.
“Let’s get cooperation to stop the killings,” he said.
