Australia, Canada & UK recognise State of Palestine

• Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom formally recognised Palestinian state on September 21.

• The decision is part of a co-ordinated international effort to build new momentum for a two-State solution, starting with a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages taken in the atrocities of October 7, 2023.

• According to them, a two-State solution, with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state led by a reformed Palestinian Authority, is the only path to a lasting peace for the Israeli and Palestinian people.

• The three countries said that the terrorist organisation Hamas must have no role in Palestine.

• The decision came as the situation on the ground in Gaza continues to worsen.

• The announcement of the three countries prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say that the establishment of a Palestinian state will not happen. 

• Israel continues to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank, and Hamas continues to hold the hostages.

About 150 countries now recognise Palestinian State

• The Palestine Liberation Organisation declared an independent Palestinian state in 1988, and most of the global South quickly recognised it. 

• Today, about 150 of the 193 UN Member States have done so.

• A delegation representing the State of Palestine has observer status at the United Nations, but no voting rights. 

• No matter how many countries recognise Palestinian independence, full UN membership would require approval by the Security Council.

• Palestinian diplomatic missions worldwide are controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which is recognised internationally as representing the Palestinian people.

• The Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank under agreements with Israel. It issues Palestinian passports and runs the Palestinian health and education systems.

Israel-Palestine conflict

• Politics, history and religion all place Jerusalem at the centre of the broader Israel-Palestine conflict.

• The status of Jerusalem is one of the biggest obstacles to reaching a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

• Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent state of theirs to be in the city’s eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move never recognised internationally.

• Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has intensified since the new government of veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took power in December 2022.

• Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged with frequent military West Bank raids amid a spate of Palestinian street attacks. 

• The US-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza territories Israel captured in a 1967 war have stalled and show no sign of revival.

What is the two-State solution?

• The idea of establishing one nation each for Jewish and Palestinian populations, living alongside each other in peace, predates the UN’s founding in 1945. 

• Drafted and redrafted since then, the concept appears in dozens of UN Security Council resolutions, multiple peace talks and in the General Assembly’s recently resumed tenth emergency special session.

• In 1947, Great Britain relinquished its mandate over Palestine and brought the ‘Palestinian Question’ to the United Nations, which accepted the responsibility of finding a just solution for the Palestine issue. 

• The United Nations proposed the partitioning of Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalised, acting as a framework for the two-State solution.

• A peace conference was convened in Madrid in 1991, with the aim of achieving a peaceful settlement through direct negotiations along two tracks: between Israel and the Arab States and between Israel and the Palestinians, based on Security Council resolutions.

• In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accord, which outlined principles for further negotiations and laid the foundation for a Palestinian interim self-government in the West Bank and Gaza.

• The 1993 Oslo Accord deferred certain issues to subsequent permanent status negotiations, which were held in 2000 at Camp David and in 2001 in Taba, but proved inconclusive.

• Three decades on from the Oslo Accord, the overarching goal of the UN remains supporting Palestinians and Israelis to resolve the conflict and end the occupation in line with relevant UN resolutions, international law and bilateral agreements in pursuit of achieving the vision of two States — Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian State — living side by side in peace and security within secure and recognised borders, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines, with Jerusalem as the capital of both States.

• Despite the volatile regional context, the two-State solution is regaining diplomatic traction.

• On September 12, the General Assembly adopted by a wide margin the ‘New York Declaration’, following a July conference also co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia. 

What is India’s stand?

India’s policy towards Palestine has been long standing and consistent. The country has  supported a negotiated two-State solution, towards establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine within secure and recognised borders, living side by side in peace with Israel.