New State Of Palestine

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Declaration of the state in 1988

A declaration of a "State of Palestine" took place in Algiers on November 15, 1988, by the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The proclaimed "State of Palestine" is not and has never actually been an independent state, as it has never had sovereignty over any territory in history.

Currently, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), 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. The PNA, however, does not claim sovereignty over any territory and therefore is not the government of the "State of Palestine" proclaimed in 1988.

The 1988 declaration was approved at a meeting 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". The proclaimed "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, although the European Union, as well as most member states, maintain diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, established under the Oslo Accords. Leila Shahid, envoy of the PNA to France since 1984, was named in November 2005 representant of the PNA for Europe.

The declaration 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."[6] 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 long held conditions for open dialogue with the United States.

Current proposals

The current position of the Palestinian Authority is that all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip should form the basis of a future Palestinian state.

The main discussion during the last fifteen years has focused on turning most or the whole of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into an independent Palestinian state. This was the basis for the Oslo accords[1] and it is favoured by the U.S. [2] The status of Israel within the 1949 Armistice lines has not been the subject of international negotiations. Some members of the PLO recognize Israel's right to exist within these boundaries; others hold that Israel must eventually be destroyed[citation needed]. Consequently, some Israelis hold that Palestinian statehood is impossible with the current PLO as a basis, and needs to be delayed.

The specific points and impediments to the establishment of a Palestinian state are listed below. They are a part of a greater mindset difference. Israel declares that its security demands that a Palestinian entity would not have all attributes of a state, at least initially, so that in case things go wrong, Israel would not have to face a dangerous and nearby enemy. Israel may be therefore said to agree (as of now) not to a complete and independent Palestinian state, but rather to a self-administering entity, with partial but not full sovereignty over its borders and its citizens.

The central Palestinian position is that they have already compromised greatly by accepting a state covering only the areas of the West Bank and Gaza. These areas are significantly less territory than allocated to the Arab state in UN Resolution 181. They feel that it is unacceptable for an agreement to impose additional restrictions (such as level of militarization, see below) which, they declare, makes a viable state impossible. In particular, they are angered by significant increases in the population of Israeli settlements and communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the interim period of the Oslo accords. Palestinians claim that they have already waited long enough, and that Israel's interests do not justify depriving their state of those rights that they consider important. The Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a territorially disjointed state. It is feared that it would face difficulties similar to Bantustans.

During the Annapolis conference, then Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, offered East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and 99.3% of the West Bank, in which .7% of the land would constitute as a safe passage between the borders of Israel and Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas rejected the offer.
 
Peace process

A peace process has been in progress in spite of all the differences and conflicts.

In the 1990s, outstanding steps were taken which formally began a process the goal of which was to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict through a two-state solution. Beginning with the Madrid Conference of 1991 and culminating in the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israelis, the peace process has laid the framework for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and in Gaza. According to the Oslo Accords, signed by Yassir Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington, Israel would pull out of the Gaza Strip and cities in the West Bank, leaving contested East Jerusalem in question.

Following the landmark accords, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was established to govern those areas from which Israel was to pull out. The PNA was granted limited autonomy over a non-contiguous area, though it does govern most Palestinian population centers.

The process stalled with the collapse of the Camp David 2000 Summit between Palestinians and Israel, after which the second Intifada broke out.

Israel ceased to act in cooperation with the PNA and later on would occupy some Palestinian cities anew. In the shadow of the rising death toll from the violence, the United States initiated the Road Map for Peace (published on June 24, 2002), which is intended to end the Intifada by disarming the Palestinian terror groups and creating an independent Palestinian state. The Road Map has stalled awaiting the implementation of the step required by the first phase of that plan. It remains stalled due to the civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip as part of the Disengagement Plan, which was seen as a move toward creating an independent Palestinian state.

Historical views

Palestinian view

The Palestinian People see the mass immigration - mainly from Europe, the United States of America, and Arabic countries - of modern-day Israelis to this region of the world, their acts of warfare, and the establishment of the state of Israel as an act of illegal occupation. This occupation has consequences for hundreds of thousands of Arab Palestinians living in refugee camps in several countries in the world, including destruction of villages perpetrated against those Palestinians that are still living in their land today, and the increase in Israeli settlements in the remaining Palestinian villages and lands.

Israeli views

The traditional Israeli view has been that there is no such thing as a separate Palestinian people, distinct from other Arabs, at least historically. The borders of historical Palestine and surrounding countries were arbitrarily determined and there are already several Arab nations. Therefore, it is unreasonable to demand that Israel should have any responsibility or part in establishing a nation for them. This is summarized by the famous statement of Israeli Prime Minister (1969-74) Golda Meir: "There was no such thing as Palestinians ... It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."

Arab views

Before the creation of Israel, Arab leaders supported the creation of a united Arab state encompassing all Arab peoples including Palestine, so that no independent Palestinian state would exist, but this became a minority view amongst Palestinians during the British Mandate, and after 1948 became rare. It is still an opinion expressed regularly in the Arab states outside Palestine (especially Syria due to its attachment to the Greater Syria Movement which was launched in 1944 to establish a "Syrian Arab" state that would include Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine.) However, it is generally recognized that such a development has become implausible under current political realities and even those who might favor it in some circumstances support an independent Palestinian state as the most achievable option.

Syria joined Egypt in founding the United Arab Republic (UAR) in 1958 during a period of Pan-Arabism as the first step toward the recreation of Pan-Arab state. The UAR was to include, among others, Palestine. The UAR disintegrated into its constituent states in 1961.

Egypt held Gaza and Jordan annexed the West Bank between 1948 and 1967. During those years, Egyptian President Nasser created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964. In 1959 Fatah was formed in Kuwait City, Kuwait by a group of ex-pat Palestinian professionals, including Yasser Arafat working in the Gulf states, with similar aims.

Nowadays, most Arabs (Christians and Muslims), and some anti-zionists Jews, support Palestinians' rights to self-determination and support Palestinian refugees and their right to return to their homes and lands of origin in Palestine (what it is now Israel and Palestinian territories)