which countries recognize the Palestinian State?

► Which countries recognize the Palestinian State?

The independence of the Palestinian state was proclaimed in exile on November 15, 1988 in Algiers. Algeria was also the first country to recognize this new state. India, Russia, China or Egypt officially recognized the Palestinian State in the days that followed.

In the 2010s, a second wave of recognition includes Latin American countries, freed from American influence, such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru or Uruguay.

A total of 138 countries now recognize Palestine as a state, including Iceland since 2011, Sweden since 2014 and the Vatican since 2015.

A UN committee “for the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people” was also created in 1975 with India, Afghanistan, South Africa and Belarus as members.

► French and European deputies approve recognition, not governments

The European Parliament voted in 2014 for a resolution in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state. In this resolution, the Strasbourg Parliament says it supports “in principle the recognition of the Palestinian state and the two-state solution”. A few days earlier, the British House of Commons had endorsed a similar resolution.

Following this movement, the National Assembly in turn voted, in December 2014, a resolution which “affirms the urgent need to reach a definitive settlement of the conflict allowing the establishment of a democratic and sovereign State of Palestine”.

But, like the European Commission and the British government, the French executive did not follow up on this parliamentary resolution. Coming to power in 2017, Emmanuel Macron thus affirmed that such recognition would be “a mistake”.

► What is its status in international organizations?

The Palestinian Territories have been recognized by the UN as a permanent observer state since November 2012. Along with Vatican City, Palestine is the only one to benefit from such a status. This “is customary, because no provision of the United Nations Charter mentions it”, we specify at the UN. These two states are not full members of the UN but sit in many UN institutions.

Despite the reluctance displayed by several other countries, the Palestinian State has been a member of UNESCO since October 2011. The United States and Israel responded to this admission by canceling their financial participation in the organization, thereby losing their right of voting.

Palestine has also acceded to the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Its entry was approved in January 2015 by the authorities of the Court. Former ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda declared the court competent to investigate crimes committed in the Palestinian Territories since 2014, angering Israel.

Palestine joined the International Seabed Authority (ISAF) in January 2015, an international organization created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is also a member of several supranational organizations of Arab countries, such as the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).

► What other international organizations does Palestine join?

The Palestinian state also participates in international non-governmental organizations, such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). He is also a member of Fifa, the International Football Federation. As such, the Palestinian national football team will play for the first time in its history the Asian Cup of Nations, which takes place this year in Qatar.

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