Palestine would be a ‘failing state,’ characterized by internal conflicts and armed actions against its neighbors.
The governments of Ireland, Spain, and Norway want to recognize a non-existent Palestinian state, just as other, predominantly Muslim states have done since the United Nations elevated the status of the Palestinians to that of a quasi-state in 1988. But this status does not actually make the territory a state. Point three of the Montevideo Convention, one of the relevant lists of criteria for statehood under international law, emphasizes, “The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states.”
In other respects, too, the Palestinians do not fulfill the criteria for statehood. The population of the Palestinian territories consists of very different, mutually disunited Arab tribes, clans, and immigrant groups that emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. They settled in and around the nascent Jewish state when proximity to the Jewish enterprises became lucrative. For decades, efforts have been made to declare this heterogeneous population a kind of nation, with a common culture, history, and goals, united by the narrative of the so-called Nakba, said to designate their expulsion and persecution by Israel.
