The United Nations Recognizes the Palestinian State
- Lavinia Colvin
- 8 hours ago
- 6 min read
The conflict between Palestine and Israel begs the question of whether or not the United Nations will officially recognize Palestine as a state. The weight of this decision influences Palestine’s global legitimacy as it continues to fight for an independent, self-determining state and an end to Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip. Additionally, Britain and France’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN conference on September 21, 2025 has brought the United States under further scrutiny: will the global superpower choose to recognize Palestine or continue to back their long-time Israeli allies?
To better understand the importance of this decision, it is imperative to review Palestinian history, specifically the events before the First World War. Prior to the British Mandate Period in Palestine, the British Government had made promises of support to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, an organization striving for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine despite the fact that indigenous Palestinian people had inhabited the land prior. During the events leading up to the First World War, Palestine, which at the time was a part of Ottoman Syria, was a relatively religiously tolerant place under the rule of the Ottoman Empire; however, religious tensions among Jews were rising as the Zionist movement was spreading during the late nineteenth century. In addition, the Ottoman Empire was on the decline due to British force and needed the aid of the strong military both Germany and Austria-Hungary possessed in order to attempt to reclaim the territory they lost in the Balkans and the Caucasus. At the same time, corresponding tensions in Europe were growing out of fear leading up to WWI, as Britain sought to gain territorial advantage as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was in progress, and subsequently gained control of the Palestinian region, keeping their promise of support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the hands of the British sparked the new dilemma of where the people of the Arab states formerly under the Ottoman Empire would reside. After their role in revolting against the Turkish yoke in the First World War, Husayn bin Ali al-Hashimi, Sherif of Mecca and head of the Hashemite clan, was assured an independent polity in the Arab parts of the former Ottoman Empire by the British Government through his correspondences with the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon in 1915-1916. However, western powers violated this agreement in 1920 after dismembering the Hashemite-ruled Syrian Arab Kingdom and sub-dividing it into colonies. In a similar fashion, bypassing the Palestinian people, in 1922, the League of Nations made the decision to place Palestine under British control as a Mandatory power, thus infringing upon the terms the Sherif of Mecca and Sir Henry McMahon had agreed upon years prior. Throughout the course of British control in Palestine, the UN General Assembly met in 1947 to pass Resolution 181, a plan that essentially allowed for the Jewish state of Israel to occupy what the Palestinians viewed as an unfair amount of rightly mandated Palestinian territory. After roughly 28 years of control, Britain relinquished its Mandate on May 14, 1948, the same day Israel declared independence, and war broke out between it and seven surrounding Arab countries: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Nearly one and a half years of fighting later, Israel claimed victory and secured its independence, successfully expanding its territory; thereby displacing a greater number of Palestinians.
A major component of Palestine’s fight for independence can be understood through the Six Day War of 1967, when Arab states began to mobilize troops at their borders surrounding Israel, thus eliciting a swift military response from Israel resulting in the destruction of both Syria and Egypt’s air forces and weakening other Arab military forces. The war ended with Israel in control of the Sinai Peninsula and the territories previously occupied by Arab states in 1948 including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Syrian Golan Heights, and Jerusalem. However, this result gained global attention as the international community wanted to find a permanent solution to the conflict concerning Israel and the various territories it had captured during the war. Thus, UN Resolution 242 was passed, which sought to ensure the withdrawal of Israeli forces from any territory it had captured during the war in exchange for peace. Distraught from its loss of territory and cultural pride, in desperate hopes to rebuild Palestine’s global image and legitimacy to the rest of the world, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which had originally formed in 1964, came together to engage in guerilla war against Israel during the late 60s, 70s, and 80s until Israel finally agreed to enter into peaceful negotiations with it in the 1990s. This resulted in the Oslo Accords, a milestone in efforts towards the Arab-Israeli peace process which entailed a series of agreements between Israel and the PLO that established mutual recognition of a two-state solution. The Accords were a crucial step towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the basis of a two-state solution framework that the PLO had supported since the 1970s, entailing a sovereign Palestinian state with the borders they once had prior to the Six-Day War in 1967 which included the West Bank and Gaza. Over their near 75 years of displacement, the Palestinians have actively engaged in the fight against the Israeli occupation in hopes that the UN will grant them full membership and statehood in order to begin reclaiming their territory and putting an end to their displacement; however, strong opposition from Israel and the U.S. has made this increasingly difficult.
On September 22, Britain, Canada, Australia and Portugal came together aiming to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict. Their goal was to recognize the state of Palestine and make it clear to Israel they stand with the PLO headquartered in Ramallah that harshly opposes Hamas’s ideology and methods of diplomacy. This decision prompted an angry response from Israel, due to the fact that these four nations have traditionally aligned with Israel, but now they, along with over 150 other countries, support the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not happy with this decision and promptly responded by saying, “You are giving a huge reward to terrorism. And I have another message for you: It will not happen. A Palestinian state will not be established west of the Jordan River.”
Despite both domestic and international pressure to support Palestine, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that the Trump Administration will stand against any efforts of the UN Security Council to recognize Palestine as a state. While this decision did not come as a surprise due to the alliance that has existed between Washington and Jerusalem for decades, the broader implications of what it would mean to have the U.S. recognize Palestine within the UN is definitely significant. With the U.S. on its side, Palestine’s diplomatic standing would strengthen immensely and allow it to partake in negotiations with other nations as a recognized entity rather than as an illegitimate one. It appears unlikely, though, that the U.S. will choose to align with Palestine over Israel in the near future.
As tensions continue to rise in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine, the age-old question of ‘why now’ is resurfacing, as many European nations have only just recently decided to recognize Palestine. The answer to this question has many possible answers, one of which being that many nations see the destruction and extensive civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip as a humanitarian crisis. Recognition of the state by the UN will thus help Palestine in its broader mission of ending Israeli occupation and firmly establishing its statehood. On the other hand, large-scale public and political pressure has been heavy on political leaders, particularly in nations where civilians have participated in massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations which in turn has influenced governments to alter their stances on foreign policy to prevent civil unrest. While no single answer exists, domestic pressures have contributed to the recent surge of nations recognizing Palestine as a state.
Ultimately, the question of recognizing Palestine as a state is still being heavily debated today and has become a pressing issue within global diplomacy and international alliances. While the United State’s opposition to Palestinian statehood remains a significant challenge for the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, the wave of recent recognitions of Palestine, from Latin America to Europe, shows that the status quo will not persist and that every UN member state may one day lend Palestine unanimous recognition for which it has fought since the realization of the Oslo Accords over three decades ago.