(JNS) The governments of Ireland, Spain and Norway have formally recognized a nonexistent 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. This does not make the territory they are referring to an actual state.
Point three of the Montevideo Convention—one of the key sets of criteria under international law for statehood—highlights: “The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by other states.”
In other respects, too, the Palestinians do not fulfill the criteria for statehood.
The population of the “Palestinian territories” is composed of highly diverse Arab tribes, clans and immigrant groups—often at odds with one another—that emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Some were long-established residents, while others arrived later for pragmatic reasons. 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 nakba (“disaster” of the creation of the Jewish state), their alleged expulsion and persecution by Israel.
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