A Palestinian State Has Never Existed
The region known as Palestine was historically part of various empires and never an independent state under Arab governance. The term “Palestine” was used geographically by the Romans, but there was no political entity called Palestine until the British Mandate period. After World War I, the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine with the aim of establishing a “Jewish National Home” as per the Balfour Declaration of 1917, alongside obligations to the local population.
The United Nations proposed a partition plan in 1947 (Resolution 181) that would have created two states, one Jewish and one Arab, in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. While Jewish leaders accepted this plan, Arab leaders, including those representing the Palestinian Arabs, rejected it, leading to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This war resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel, but no Palestinian state emerged. After the 1948 war, the West Bank came under Jordanian control, and the Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt. These areas did not form a Palestinian state during this period. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured these territories, which are now known as the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Since then, numerous attempts to establish a Palestinian state have been made, but none have resulted in statehood.
Offers for Palestinian statehood or autonomy, like those during the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, have faced significant challenges. The Palestinian leadership, at various points, has rejected compromises that would lead to statehood, including the 2000 Camp David Summit proposal. Internal divisions, particularly between Fatah and Hamas, have further complicated state-building efforts. Hamas’s control of Gaza since 2007 and its refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist have been significant hurdles.
The development of a distinct Palestinian national identity has been a relatively recent phenomenon, often seen as a response to Zionism and the establishment of Israel. This is cited by critics of Palestinian statehood to argue that there is no historical basis for such a state.