Palestine sits in several international bodies and organizations. However, many countries, particularly within the EU, do not yet recognize its existence.
“VSIt is not because this idea is old that it has become obsolete.” During a trip to Egypt, Wednesday October 25, three weeks after the Hamas attacks which left more than 1,400 dead in Israel, Emmanuel Macron called for “achieve the solution of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security”. This coexistence between two independent states, one Hebrew and the other Palestinian, is at the heart of the Oslo peace accords, signed in 1993 but never implemented. Thirty years later, the recognition of a Palestinian state remains a major issue in the conflict in the Middle East.
However, the proclamation of a State of Palestine took place in 1988. Yasser Arafat, president of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), made this solemn declaration a few months after the outbreak of the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. For Thomas Vescovi, researcher in contemporary history and author of The Failure of a Utopia – A History of the Left in Israel (ed. La Découverte), this proclamation is a turning point because Yasser Arafat rejected the idea of a total reconquest of Palestine. The PLO agreed “an independent Palestinian state spread over only 22% of this territory including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and with East Jerusalem as its capital”explains the researcher.
“Another concession”, the Palestinian organization then implicitly recognized the existence of Israel. The Palestinian National Council voted in favor of a call for a peace conference to resolve the conflict on the basis of the resolution adopted in 1967 at the UN, which sets out a plan for the partition of Palestine in two states.
139 countries recognize Palestine
From November and December 1988, 85 foreign countries recognized the Palestinian state. Among them are Egypt, Turkey, China, India, but also all the countries of the former USSR. A second wave of recognition took place from the 2010s, particularly in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, etc.). Within the European Union, only Sweden recently undertook this diplomatic approach, in 2014. But several satellite states of the former Soviet bloc, which have since become EU member states, also appear in this list (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania). In total, 139 of the 193 UN member states today recognize Palestine as a sovereign state.
For Thomas Vescovi, this acknowledgement “is above all symbolic“Most of the countries which have not taken this decision are members of the EU or partners of the United States and do not wish to offend their ally, specified in 2014 the Washington Post . Starting with France. However, in an interview given on November 23, 1988 to Release (transcribed on the Elysée website), François Mitterrand explained that he was not totally opposed to this idea, which “poses no problem in principle” . But the socialist president also believed at the time that Paris could not recognize the Palestinian state as long as it did not exercise real authority over a defined territory. A decision made impossible by the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories, notably the West Bank, by Israel.
At the beginning of the 2010s, the Palestinian Authority chaired by Mahmoud Abbas therefore changed its strategy. “She took the gamble (…) of knocking on the doors of all international institutions to obtain recognition of a state of affairs” Palestinian territories, deciphers Thomas Vescovi. A request to become the 194th member of the United Nations, made in 2011, failed during the talks, with the threat of an American veto, recalls The world. The Palestinians then requested a vote in the General Assembly to become, like the Vatican, a non-member observer state of the United Nations. Hours before the vote in 2012, Mahmoud Abbas asked the UN “to grant a birth certificate of the reality of Palestine”. Member states then voted by a large majority in favor of the proposal.
In fact, the powers of the Palestinian representation at the UN, which already held a status of “permanent observer” as a single “entity”, remain the same. She does not have the right to vote in the United Nations General Assembly or to propose resolutions or run for UN positions. The qualification of “State”, even an observer, nevertheless has real consequences, such as Palestine’s membership in other international organizations, notably the International Criminal Court.