Palestine Controversy

Palestine’s struggle to gain statehood has been a major international conflict for decades. From 1923 until 1948 Britain controlled several Arab nations as well as Palestine. The violence over Palestinian and Jewish claims to the land escalated to the point where Britain gave control of the situation to the United Nations. The UN proposed a resolution for a separate Israeli and Palestinian state. In 1948 Israel accepted the proposition and is now recognized as a state by most other international organizations. Palestine, however, rejected this petition and was forced to become part of the territory controlled by Israel. Dickovick and Eastwood define a nation as, “a group thought of as sovereign and equal, typically compromised of a
Palestine does have a population of people who share a common culture, history, and nationality. However, it is questionable whether a state can have a permanent population without exercising control over that population. Palestine lacks authority over its population, which creates controversy for whether they have “a defined territory.” The Palestinian borders are not yet a sufficiently defined territory; and Palestine does not have complete control over its population, therefore it has not met the second quality of statehood. “Security Council (UNSC) resolutions 242 and 338 call upon Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, thus indicating that the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in 1967 constitute the territory of the Palestinian State, (Margalit & Hibbin 2013)” this meaning, that these areas are under Palestinian control. Palestine has been unable to control these areas independent of external
Although Palestine has a governing authority its “government” is not effectively controlling the West Bank or Gaza, which leads to an understanding that it is not ready to be its own state. Lastly, the question of whether or not Palestine has the capacity to enter into relations with other states is clearly written out in Article IX of the Interim Agreement. Palestine is unable to make foreign decisions or enter into foreign relations without the assistance of Israel. Palestine does not have the capacity to freely conduct foreign relations, so it does not meet the third requirement for statehood. “A state is considered to be the most important form of political organization in modern politics, which, in its ideal form, is characterized by centralized control of the use of force, bureaucratic organization, and the provision of a number of public goods” (Dickovick & Eastwood 617). Palestine does not have a centralized control of force nor does it have proper bureaucratic organization. Although Palestine has gained much independence, Palestine has not yet met the requirements of statehood; therefore, under international law it is not considered a