State of Palestine

The State of Palestine (Arabic: دولة فلسطين) was proclaimed on November 15, 1988 by the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), in Algiers, by a vote of 253-46, with 10 abstentions. The declaration invoked the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and UN General Assembly Resolution 181 in support of its claim to a "State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory with its capital Jerusalem". It became the most diplomatically successful of a number of efforts to create a Palestinian state, despite the fact that, because the State of Palestine did not have control over any territory at the time, it did not fulfill a typical requirement of an autonomous state — possession of sovereign territory. Currently, the Palestinian National Authority, along with the United States, the European Union, and the Arab League, envision the establishment of a State of Palestine to include all or part of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, living in peace with Israel under a democratically elected and transparent government.

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Arabic - Proclaimed - November 15 - 1988 - Palestinian National Council - Palestinian Liberation Organization - Algiers - Treaty of Lausanne - UN General Assembly Resolution 181 - Jerusalem - Palestinian state - State - Palestinian National Authority - United States - European Union - Arab League - West Bank - Gaza Strip - East Jerusalem

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The State of Palestine was recognized immediately by the Arab League, and about half the world's governments recognize it today. It maintains embassies in these countries (which are generally PLO delegations). The State of Palestine is not recognized by the United Nations, athough some European Union countries, including the United Kingdom, maintain diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, established under the Oslo Accords.

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Arab League - United Nations - European Union - United Kingdom - Palestinian Authority - Oslo Accords

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While the declaration concerns Palestine as defined by the British Mandate of Palestine, which includes the whole of Israel, it is generally interpreted to have recognized Israel within its pre-1967 boundaries, or was at least a major step on the path to recognition. Just as in Israel's declaration of independence, it partly bases its claims on UN GA 181. By reference to "resolutions of Arab Summits" and "UN resolutions since 1947" (like SC 242) it implicitly and perhaps ambiguously restricted its immediate claims to the Palestinian territories and Jerusalem. It was accompanied by a political statement that explicitly mentioned SC 242 and other UN resolutions and called only for withdrawal from "Arab Jerusalem" and the other "Arab territories occupied." http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/pal/pal4.htm Yasser Arafat's statements in Geneva a month later were accepted by the United States as sufficient to remove the ambiguities it saw in the declaration and to fulfill the longheld conditions for open dialogue with the United States.

Related Topics:
Palestine - British Mandate of Palestine - Israel - Israel's declaration of independence - UN GA 181 - SC 242 - Palestinian territories - Jerusalem - Arab Jerusalem - Yasser Arafat - United States

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