Denying Palestine’s statehood raises questions about Israel’s existence

The most talked about issue of the current global politics is the two-state solution for Palestine and Israel, which calls for a free, independent and sovereign Palestine in the Middle East. While the issue got escalated due to the brutal genocide of Israel over Gaza of Palestine, the United States vetoed a widely backed UN resolution Thursday that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent. But this veto from the US actually raised the question if the existence of Israel is justified if Palestine is denied statehood.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, with the United States opposing and the United Kingdom and Switzerland abstaining. The resolution was supported by the United States allies France, Japan, and South Korea. The strong support the Palestinians have received shows not just the expanding number of countries that recognize their sovereignty, but also virtually definitely global support for Palestinians confronting a humanitarian crisis created by Israels genocide in Gaza, which is now in its seventh month.

In the more than 75-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is the second attempt by the Palestinians to gain full membership. Under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority initiated an application to be considered for full UN membership in 2011. But in the end, the US put pressure on them to drop it. The United States withdrew its financing from UNESCO in 2011, the year the Palestinian Authority was granted full membership. In 2012, they petitioned the General Assembly to change their status from UN observer to non-member observer state, and they were successful by a margin of more than two thirds. The Palestinian territories were able to join the UN and other international institutions, such as the International Criminal Court, as a result.
Given that the US, Israels closest ally, has the veto power at the Security Council and has vehemently opposed its adoption, it was widely anticipated that the current resolution would fail. The ballot is being held more than half a year after Israel started assaulting the Gaza Strip, killing over 34,000 Palestinians and wreaking havoc on the coastal communitys humanitarian situation. Due to its support of Israel despite the growing human cost of the Gaza conflict, the US has found itself more and more isolated by the international community. The decision to veto the proposal garnered criticism from all over the world.

In 1922, the League of Nations placed Palestine and other former Ottoman territories under the control of the United Kingdom. All of these areas eventually gained full independence, with the exception of Palestine, where the British Mandate also included the 1917 "Balfour Declaration," which supported the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, in addition to providing administrative support and advice.

Large-scale Jewish immigration occurred throughout the Mandate period, from 1922 to 1947, primarily from Eastern Europe, with numbers increasing in the 1930s due to Nazi persecution. Following the establishment of Nazi Germany in 1933, hundreds of Jews fled to Cyprus. Following the destruction of Europes concentration camps, the British established a prison camp in Cyprus for Holocaust survivors who were unlawfully attempting to reach Palestine. Since 1946, the British have imprisoned 50,000 Jewish refugees in Cyprus, with the majority eventually relocating to Palestine. This influx sparked widespread unrest in the region, and the UK handed over the Palestine issue to the UN in 1947.

After looking at alternatives, the UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized through UN Resolution 181 (II) of 1947. The resolution recommended the Arab state was to have a territory of 11,100 square km or 42% of the total disputed area, the Jewish state a territory of 14,100 square km or 56%, while the remaining 2%-comprising the cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the adjoining area-would become an international zone.

Notably, the Jews (including those in current Israel) were residing in different countries of Europe prior to the World War I. But after WWI, the British thought of relocating the Jews to Palestine rather than keeping them inside Europe. Moreover, though the Allied Forces won the WWII against the Nazi Germans, who killed 6 million Jews in concentration camps and try to uproot the whole Jews establishments from Europe, the surviving Jews were not retained in Europe including countries like Germany or Poland. Rather they were relocated to Palestinian land. It seems like that, historically the West always had an issue with the Jews and they were delighted to uproot the Jews from Europe and relocating them in the Middle East.

During the last 74 years, 15 medium to heavy attacks were staged by Israel as they have moved far from the concept of Mandate for Palestine, which adopted the concept of both Israel and Palestine. Israel expanded its territory while continuing to act hostilely against the Palestinians and violating the 1948 agreement on the states borders. Over 84,000 Palestinians have died, millions have been injured, more than 1,00,000 houses were destroyed and over two million have been displaced by Israeli forces since 1948. Israel retained the territory given to it under the 1948 Partition Plan and went on to seize almost 60% of the territory Palestine had been granted. The Western countries have used this zone for their political and business interests as they are the suppliers of arms used in those wars.

In 2017, the US Administration announced recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In 2020, the US mediated agreements to normalize relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco through Abraham Accords. In 2022, the UN General Assembly requested the ICJ to render an Advisory Opinion on the legality of the prolonged Israeli occupation that started in 1967, and the implications for Member States. But on the face of Israels decades-long oppression on Palestine, Hamas staged an attack in October, 2023 on Israel and Israel started conducting one of the most brutal genocides in Gaza with the aid of its ally US in response.

The ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis reflects Israels longstanding strategy of a o-state solution for the Palestinian people. If Israel refuses to acknowledge and address the political roots of 7 October - Palestinian opposition to Israels no-state solution - then the options amount to further Israeli war crimes involving ethnic cleansing and annihilation of Palestinian communities, while in the long-term Palestinian endurance and resistance are unlikely to cease without an end to the repression.

UN Resolution 181 (II) of 1947 which calls for the two-state solution actually created the scope of establishment of two separate states - Israel and Palestine on the land which actually belongs to the Palestinians. Israel received statehood based on that resolution. Now if Palestine is not given its rightful statehood as per that resolution, then the resolution becomes void and Israel cannot also retain its position as an independent state. We are completely in awe that the global leaders especially the US and Israel itself is blind enough to understand this simple logic.

The US and its Western allies has established Israel as their puppet in the Middle East to keep the region volatile to control the regions oil trade as well as to support their arms trade. Once the US authority uttered that, if Israel was not there, they would have created one in the Middle East. It actually portrays their ill intention and the allies are following the US blindly. Though the Biden administration is officially trying to keep away from the affairs of Netanyahu, they are processing a huge aid package for Israel, which will enable the rogue state to run more genocide offer the Palestinian civilians. Unfortunately, Biden is eagerly waiting to approve that aid after the senate approves it. This dubious nature of the Biden administration may one day put the future of the US people at grave risk.

Iran has been claiming for long that, Israel is not a state as it has no legal base. By rejecting the two-state solution and Palestines claim to statehood, Irans claim is being proved right. If the two-state solution is not valid, then there can be no state called Israel. The biased view of the world leaders have become so irritating that, many of the USs allies are also coming out of the Biden administrations influence to support Palestines claim of statehood.

Hence, hopefully, the Israel as well as its master the US will realize that, offsetting Palestines claim of statehood will mark a critical threat on Israels existence both politically and historically and the true rights of the Palestinians cannot be neglected for long as the global people are supporting the Palestines cause as well as opposing Israels illegal brutal acts.

The writer is Chief Editor at Mohammadi News Agency (MNA) and Editor at Kishore Bangla