Earlier this month, a Palestinian diplomat, called Husam Zomlot, was invited to a discussion at the Chatham House think tank in London.
Belgium had just joined the UK, France, and other countries in promising to recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations in New York. Dr. Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, was clear that this was a significant moment.
What you will see in New York might be the actual last attempt at implementing the two-state solution, he warned. Let that not fail. Weeks on, that has now come to pass. The UK, Canada, and Australia, who are all traditionally strong allies of Israel, have now taken this step.
Sir Keir Starmer announced the UK's move in a video posted on social media. In it he said: In the face of the growing horror in the Middle East, we are acting to keep alive the possibility of peace and of a two-state solution. That means a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state - at the moment we have neither. More than 150 countries had previously recognised a Palestinian state, but the addition of the UK and other countries is seen by many as a significant moment. Palestine has never been more powerful worldwide than it is now, says Xavier Abu Eid, a former Palestinian official. The world is mobilised for Palestine. But there are complicated questions to answer, including what is Palestine and is there even a state to recognise?
Four criteria for statehood are listed in the 1933 Montevideo Convention. Palestine can justifiably lay claim to two: a permanent population (although the war in Gaza has put this at enormous risk) and the capacity to enter into international relations - Dr. Zomlot is proof of the latter. However, it doesn't yet fit the requirement of a defined territory. With no agreement on final borders (and no actual peace process), it's difficult to know with any certainty what is meant by Palestine.
For the Palestinians themselves, their longed-for state consists of three parts: East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. All were conquered by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War. Even a cursory glance at a map shows where the problems begin. The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been geographically separated by Israel for three-quarters of a century, since Israel's independence in 1948.
In the West Bank, the presence of the Israeli military and Jewish settlers means the Palestinian Authority, established after the Oslo Accords peace deals of the 1990s, administers only around 40% of the territory. Since 1967, the expansion of settlements has eaten away at the West Bank, breaking it up into an increasingly fragmented political and economic entity.
Meanwhile, East Jerusalem, which Palestinians regard as their capital, has been ringed with Jewish settlements, gradually cutting off the city from the West Bank. Gaza's fate, of course, has been much worse. After almost two years of war, much of the territory has been obliterated.
But as if all this wasn't enough to fix, there's a fourth criterion laid down in the Montevideo convention that is needed to recognise statehood: a functioning government. This marks a great challenge for Palestinians. Back in 1994, an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) led to the creation of the Palestinian National Authority (known simply as the Palestinian Authority or PA), which exercised partial civil control over Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
But since a bloody conflict in 2007 between Hamas and the main PLO faction Fatah, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been ruled by two rival governments: Hamas in Gaza and the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That’s 77 years of geographical separation and 18 years of political division: a long time for the West Bank and Gaza Strip to drift apart. Palestinian politics has ossified in the meantime, leaving most Palestinians cynical about their leadership and pessimistic about the chances of any kind of internal reconciliation, let alone progress towards statehood. The last presidential and parliamentary elections were in 2006, which means that no Palestinian under the age of 36 has ever voted in the West Bank or Gaza.
That we haven't had elections in all of this time just boggles the mind, says Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu. We need a new leadership. In the wake of the Gaza war that began in October 2023, the issue has become even more acute. Faced with the deaths of tens of thousands of its citizens, Abbas's Palestinian Authority, watching from its headquarters in the West Bank, has been largely reduced to the role of helpless bystander.
Tensions within the ranks of leadership date back years. When the PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat, returned from years in exile to lead the Palestinian Authority, local Palestinian politicians found themselves mostly side-lined. Insiders resented the domineering style of Arafat's outsiders. More importantly, the newly formed Palestinian Authority seemed incapable of halting Israel's gradual colonisation of the West Bank or delivering on the promise of independence and sovereignty raised by Arafat's historic handshake with former Israeli prime minister Yizhak Rabin in 1993.
A recent opinion poll found that 50% of Palestinians would choose Marwan Barghouti as president, well ahead of Abbas, who has held the position since 2005. Barghouti has been in an Israeli prison since 2002. Despite being a senior member of Fatah, his name shows up prominently on the list of political prisoners Hamas wants freed in return for Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
Even before the Gaza war, Netanyahu's opposition to Palestinian statehood was clear. In a conference, he stated, Everyone knows that I am the one who for decades blocked the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger our existence.
One thing is certain: if a Palestinian state does emerge, Hamas will not be running it. The New York declaration, drawn at a conference sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia declared that Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian authority. With Barghouti in jail, Abbas approaching 90, Hamas in a weakened state, and the West Bank fragmented, the leadership question looms large. Despite the complexities, experts argue that international recognition could still yield value, if it leads to actionable steps. With various geopolitical factors at play, the future remains uncertain.
