The Legal and Policy Implications of the Possibility of Palestinian Statehood
The Legal and Policy Implications of the Possibility of Palestinian Statehood, Winston P. Nagan and Aitza M. Haddad, UC Davis Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol. 18:2 (Spring 2012)
101 Pages Posted: 14 Mar 2016
Date Written: October 25, 2012
Abstract
The issue of Palestinian statehood should be seen in terms of other developments in the Middle East. One of the most important developments in the context of the Middle East are the events that have been characterized as the “Arab Spring.” The Arab Spring was an assertion of unilateral initiative for popular democratic change on the part of the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and most recently, Syria. The Arab Spring has, on the whole, received the support of the United States, in where policy makers have supported the unilateral peaceful demands of the peoples in these states. However, although these people assert their universal rights to human dignity, the Palestinian people have been denied by the international community these same universal rights. In this sense, if Palestinian statehood is packaged as essentially an aspect of the Arab Spring, the timing of the unilateral assertion of these claims would seem to be appropriate.
Conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis may be traced back prior to the events of the Second World War (“WWII”). On the one side, the people of Israel succeeded in creating a de facto and de jure nation state flowing from the United Nations General Assembly (“UNGA”) Resolution (Decision) directing a partition of the territories between Israelis and Palestinians. However, the territory that now comprises both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories was vested, in the aftermath of the defeat of the Turkish Empire in World War I, with a unique international legal status created and administered by a new international organization, The League of Nations (“the League”).
Keywords: Palestinian statehood, universal rights, Israelis, Palestinians
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