Recognition of the state of Palestine

Context

Norway, Ireland and Spain have recently announced that they will formally recognise the state of Palestine.

Key Findings

• A total of 143 out of 193 member-states of the UN have recognised a Palestinian state. The UK and USA are among countries that don’t formally comprehend a Palestinian state.
• Israel does not understand Palestinian statehood and opposes the advent of a Palestinian country in the West Bank and Gaza. It argues this sort of country could be a threat to Israel’s existence.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

• Inception of Conflict: The United Nations (UN) proposed an Arab-Jewish partition of Palestine among Palestine and the new state of Israel.
  • This partition plan mandated 53 percent of the land to the Jewish-majority nation (Israel) and forty seven percent to the Palestinian-majority nation (Palestine).
  • This idea didn’t acquire well by the Arab nations inside the Middle East.
• First Arab-Israeli war: Jewish paramilitary groups, however, shaped the kingdom of Israel by using force in 1948. This brought on a lethal conflict with its Arab associates – Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan in 1948. This was the first Arab-Israeli war.
  • Israel won this warfare and ended up occupying more land than formerly envisaged inside the 1947 UN partition plan.
  • The Palestinians were forced out in their homes when the State of Israel was created in historic Palestine in 1948 (the Palestinians call the occasions ‘Nakba’, or catastrophe). 
  • 28 of those Palestinian families moved to Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem to settle there.
• Six-Day War of 1967: In 1967, the Arab nations again refused to realize Israel as a state, which led to every other war, referred to as the Six-Day War.
  • Israel received this conflict too and occupied even extra elements of Palestine. 
  • The West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, which houses the holy Old City, came beneath Israel’s control. 
  • It also occupied Syrian Golan Heights and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
  • By the early 1970s, Jewish organizations began annoying the families leaving the land.
• Oslo Accords: It was sponsored through the United Nations (UN) and signed among the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993.
  • Under this, part of the West Bank came under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
• Abraham Accords: Abraham Accords are a series of agreements to normalize family members between Israel and several Arab states.
  • The accords are named after the patriarch Abraham who seemed as a prophet in Judaism and Islam.
  • The accords, all of which have been signed within the latter 1/2 of 2020, include a standard declaration alongside bilateral agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco.
  • The accord has normalized the relations between many West Asian countries and Israel. 
• 11 days struggle: In May 2021, Israeli police raided Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third-holiest site online in Islam, which intensified an 11-day war among Israel and Hamas that killed more than 200 Palestinians and greater than 10 Israelis.

Way Ahead

• Peace based totally on a “-nation answer” is plenty wanted with the help of worldwide agencies and can most effectively be achieved from Israel-Palestine talks.

Source: The Hindu

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q.‘Too little cash, too much politics, leaves UNESCO fighting for life.’ Discuss the statement in the light of US’ withdrawal and its accusation of the cultural body as being ‘anti-Israel bias’. (2019)

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