The left demands it, the right and the far right oppose it. As for Emmanuel Macron, he refuses to act under the influence of “emotion”. The possible recognition of a Palestinian state ignited the campaign and the National Assembly on Tuesday May 28, where an LFI deputy was excluded after brandishing a Palestinian flag. In the middle of a question session with the government, Sébastien Delogu waved this flag in the hemicycle. He was reacting to the intervention of another MP from La France insoumise, Alma Dufour, on the Israeli offensive in Rafah, where a deadly strike on a camp for displaced Palestinians sparked international indignation.
Result: the president of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet denounced “unacceptable” behavior and suspended the session. The office of the lower house of Parliament immediately proposed excluding the Bouches-du-Rhône deputy for 15 sitting days, due to the “uproar” caused. The same day, Spain, Ireland and Norway took this step, despite Israel’s ire. “This is a historic decision which pursues only one objective. And that is to contribute to Israelis and Palestinians achieving peace,” declared the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez.
The almost eight-month war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli territory, revives calls for recognition of the Palestinian state. The latter is now recognized by 145 of the 193 member states of the UN, according to a count by the Palestinian Authority. Absent from this list are most of the countries of Western Europe and North America, Australia, Japan and even South Korea. No G7 member has crossed this line. In mid-April, the United States used its right of veto in the UN Security Council to block a resolution aimed at making Palestine a full member state of the international organization.
Algeria first country to recognize Palestine
But which were the first countries to recognize the State of Palestine? To understand, we must go back in time: it was on November 15, 1988, a few months after the start of the first Intifada – Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation – that the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization ( PLO), Yasser Arafat, self-proclaimed “the establishment of the State of Palestine”, with Jerusalem as its capital, from the platform of the Palestinian National Council (CNP), which serves as a Parliament in exile, in Algiers. A few minutes later, Algeria officially recognized the new state.
A week later, forty countries, including China, India, Turkey and most Arab countries, are taking the same step. Almost all the countries of the African continent and the Soviet bloc will follow. Mainly in 2010 and 2011, most of the countries of Central America and Latin America followed, marking their distance on the international scene from the United States, Israel’s great ally. Under the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, successor to Arafat, who died in 2004, the Palestinian Authority established by the Oslo Accords (1993) on Palestinian autonomy launched a diplomatic offensive at the level of international institutions.
Observer status at the United Nations
Little by little, the Palestinian state is making a place for itself on the diplomatic scene. By a historic vote in November 2012, it obtained observer state status at the United Nations. In the absence of a full membership with voting rights, this gives it access to UN agencies and international treaties. Building on this status, the Palestinians will join the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2015, which will allow the opening of investigations into Israeli military operations in the Palestinian Territories. At the time, the United States and Israel denounced this decision.
Already, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) had opened the way by admitting the State of Palestine as one of its full members in October 2011. Israel and the United States will leave the organization in 2018, the latter will return in 2023. In 2014, Sweden became the first EU country to recognize the State of Palestine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus having done so before joining the European Union.
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, reached a milestone last February, believing that “the recognition of a Palestinian state does not[était] not a taboo for France”. But Paris repeats that this unilateral decision must be taken at the “right time” and be “useful in a global strategy for the political solution”. Australia also raised in April the possibility of a such recognition. It remains to be seen whether others will follow.