Why is Palestine not recognized as a country?

Answer 1

Palestine sits in the confusing ambiguous space between being a country and being a non-country. It has partial provisional sovereignty and incomplete recognition. Read more below.

This is a difficult question to properly answer. There was never a historic country of Palestine, and prior to the creation of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1922 (with the current known borders), the southwestern Levant was politically arranged quite differently. Prior to 1988, there was international consensus in most major organizations (such as the United Nations, European Union, NATO, etc.) that Palestine was not a country since Israel was the only legitimate post-Palestinian State and that the Gaza Strip and West Bank were territories that should be devolved to Egypt and Jordan respectively. The only organizations that dissented from this view were the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference, which have a vested interest in not recognizing Israel.

In 1988, Yasser Arafat declared the Palestinian State in exile. In 1993, the Oslo Accords secured international recognition (including Israel) of the Palestinian Authority as a political entity in charge of securing a future for the Palestinian people. There was a partial devolution of territory and security to several Palestinian areas. In 2005, the withdrawal of Israeli settlements and soldiers from Gaza resulted in the first fully independent Palestinian State in the Gaza Strip. However, Hamas led an insurrection leading to their illegitimate takeover of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority still rules a number of bantustans in the West Bank and exercises limited sovereignty over even those regions. Recently, Palestine gained recognition in the United Nations and had its Declaration of Independence vindicated by the International Court of Justice.