Things That are Things

is that a thing?

good suggestion. just reminded of it today but still haven't added it. :-D

Why are you asking this here?

Palestine is an ambiguously defined historical region of the Levant also known as Judea and Canaan.

In 1948 the region was controlled by the British who had defeated the Ottomans, who had previously occupied the territory for hundreds of years. The British were given the mandate to make Palestine ready for independence. However there were competing nationalist interests within the territory. The Jews and the Muslims.

A UN partition plan was drawn up that would have divided the territory roughly equally between a Jewish-majority Israeli state, and a Muslim-majority Arab state. The Jewish Palestinian nationalists accepted this plan. The Arab Palestinian nationalists did not. The latter group believed that all of the land should belong to Muslims, that a Jewish state should not exist under any circumstances, and that once the British left it would be easy for the recently independent and heavily militarized Arab countries surrounding

Palestine to squash any new Jewish state.

They were wrong. The seven invading Arab armies were defeated and turned back by the Israelis. In the aftermath of the invasion, the land that had been previously allocated to the hypothetical state proposed by the UN was occupied by Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. The inhabitants of this land which would have become this proposed state's citizens instead became citizens of these other countries, or they became refugees. The Arab countries that occupied these territories annexed them and made them part of their own land, but they usually refused to accept the Palestinians as citizens thinking that doing so would be equivalent to accepting the existence of a Jewish state, which they could not abide.

There were other wars and skirmishes between Israel and her neighbors for the next several decades. A Palestinian state continued to not exist during this time. There were several Palestinian groups including Hamas and the PLO...

... who continued to believe that Muslims should control the entirety of the land of Palestine, and that Israel should not exist. They engaged in acts of terrorism trying to raise awareness of their cause and achieve this goal. But their efforts produced little in the way of results.

So... in 1988... the PLO leader Yasser Arafat decided that it would be better to give up terrorism and try to defeat Israel politically. His faction declared independence. However, at this time, the entirety of the Palestinian territories were under occupation by other countries. The Palestinian Authority controlled nothing. There was no agreement on where their borders would be, even if they did control something. There were still many other rival competing factions claiming to represent Arab Palestinians. The PLO was seeking legitimacy but they had little grounds to claim it.

In the following decades there would be many talks between the PLO/PNA, Israel, and third parties...

... with the aim of establishing an Arab Palestinian state. But none of these talks led to the establishment of such a state. Various plans and roadmaps were agreed to, but nothing final was ever put in place. Sections of the West Bank, occupied by Jordan in 1948, and Israel in 1967, were granted limited autonomy and came under the control of the PNA... but most of the West Bank was still completely under the control of Israel. The little pockets of territory controlled by the PNA were non-contiguous and not in control of their own borders. Other territory sometimes labeled as "Palestine" remained under the control of Egypt or Syria, and some had now been annexed to Israel proper. The territory of Gaza, also usually labeled as "Palestine," was under the control of Israel until Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005. But after this the territory did not come under the control of the PNA, but rather Hamas, a different rival faction.

Those countries of the world that recognize the state of Palestine... what this really means is that they recognize that the PNA is the government of some amorphous Muslim/Arab Palestinian state. However, the PNA does not control most of the territory that it claims is part of its state. It's not the only government that claims to represent the interests of Palestine. Is does not have sovereignty over it's country. That's the main issue. Sovereignty is defined as supreme power and authority to self-govern over a defined territory. But the PNA does not have authority over its territory. It's not even clear where its territory is. That territory is loosely and irregularly defined, and all of it is controlled in part or in whole by other governments or rival Palestinian factions.

Once Palestine has an undisputed government that exercises full control over the borders and administration of a well-defined territory, then if they want to be a country they can be a country.

Somewhat ironically, if Hamas wanted to declare an independent state of Gaza, they would have a better case to make for sovereignty than the PNA. But currently Hamas has no international recognition, and though they have complete control over their small bit of territory they are also under blockade by the Israelis and Egyptians, both of whom view Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Additionally, any such declaration by Hamas or Gaza would come into direct conflict with the PNA's claim of sovereignty over all of "Palestine."

There was a John Carpenter film by that name. Also good nightmare fuel.