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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Why Don't the Palestinians Just Proclaim Their Own State?

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Whenever the Israeli-Palestinian conflict flares up again, a familiar question arises: Why don't the Palestinians simply declare their own state, as the Jews did in 1948? After all, if Israel could emerge from the ruins of British rule and world war, why not Palestine? The answer lies not in the Palestinians' lack of will, but in the entirely different conditions of power, legitimacy, and geography that surround their struggle.

1. The Founding of Israel: Power Meets Legitimacy

Israel's independence in May 1948 was not an act of spontaneous self-assertion. It was the culmination of half a century of organized Zionist activity—diplomatic, military, and financial—supported by a diaspora network and, crucially, international legitimacy.

The United Nations Partition Plan (Resolution 181) of 1947 had proposed dividing British Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan, even though it granted them a state on barely workable borders. The Arab side rejected it as an unjust colonial imposition.

When the British withdrew, David Ben-Gurion's provisional government proclaimed the State of Israel. The next day, surrounding Arab states invaded—but the war had in fact begun months earlier, during the civil conflict that followed the UN Partition vote. By May 1948, the Jewish forces were already well organized, equipped, and battle-tested. Over the next eight months, they not only repelled the Arab armies but gained substantial territory beyond the UN plan. Israel's existence was immediately recognized by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Its independence was thus not only declared but defended and recognized.

Israel, in short, had what every new state requires: a combination of force, diplomacy, and myth—the conviction that its cause was both necessary and just.

2. The Palestinian Declaration of 1988: Symbol Without Sovereignty

What is less well known is that the Palestinians did declare a state—on November 15, 1988, in Algiers. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) proclaimed the State of Palestine, explicitly accepting UN resolutions and implicitly recognizing Israel within its 1967 borders.

Over 130 countries recognized this declaration, and the United Nations granted Palestine observer status. Yet the declaration had no effect on the ground. The PLO did not control the territory it claimed. Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza; and the Arab world, fatigued and divided, offered little concrete help.

The State of Palestine thus became a virtual state—recognized in law, denied in fact. Its existence since then has oscillated between diplomatic symbolism and the harsh realism of military occupation.

3. Oslo and After: The Promise and Collapse of Negotiation

The Oslo Accords (1993-1995) seemed to offer a path from symbolism to sovereignty. Israel and the PLO mutually recognized each other. The Palestinian Authority was created to administer limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank and Gaza, with final borders, refugees, and Jerusalem to be negotiated later.

But “later” never came. The 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the expansion of Israeli settlements, the second Intifada, and the rise of Hamas all eroded trust. By the 2000s, Oslo had effectively collapsed. Israel tightened its control, and Palestinian politics split between Fatah (in the West Bank) and Hamas (in Gaza).

Today, two rival Palestinian authorities claim to represent the same people—one collaborating with Israel under constraint, the other resisting it under siege. Neither is in a position to proclaim a functioning state.

4. The Structural Impossibility of a “Second 1948”

Why not just do what Ben-Gurion did—issue a unilateral declaration and see who salutes? Because everything that made 1948 possible for Israel is absent for the Palestinians today.

In short, the Palestinians lack not only international legitimacy for a unilateral move, but also effective sovereignty—control over land, resources, and borders.

To proclaim a state under these conditions would be to risk an even deeper form of defeat: one of irrelevance.

5. The Moral Narratives: Self-Determination vs. Security

Behind the politics lies a clash of moral narratives that make compromise nearly impossible.

For Israel, the story is one of survival—the moral right of a persecuted people to secure a homeland in a hostile region. Any Palestinian state is viewed through the lens of security, not justice.

For Palestinians, the story is one of dispossession—the right of an indigenous people to reclaim their land and dignity after decades of occupation. Any Israeli demand is filtered through the memory of Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948.

Each side's moral universe casts the other's self-understanding as illegitimate. Israel's “security” becomes Palestinian “oppression”; Palestine's “liberation” becomes Israel's “existential threat.”

In this polarized moral field, even a symbolic act—such as proclaiming a state—risks triggering retaliation or diplomatic isolation.

6. The World's Double Standard

The irony is that Palestine already exists in international law: the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 upgraded it to a “non-member observer state.” This allows it to join international treaties and even bring cases before the International Criminal Court. Yet full UN membership requires Security Council approval, where a single U.S. veto suffices to block it.

Thus, the Palestinians are caught between two incompatible world orders:

• The legal world, which recognizes their right to self-determination;
• And the political world, which enforces Israeli dominance through veto power and military control.

This disjunction—between law and power, justice and realism—defines the tragedy of Palestine.

7. A State-in-Waiting

Palestine today exists as a state-in-waiting:

• Recognized by most of the world,
• Administered by a divided government,
• Denied by the one state that holds the keys to its freedom.

The recent push by some Western nations to recognize Palestine—once unthinkable—signals growing impatience with the illusion that negotiations alone will lead to peace. But as long as the geopolitical balance remains tilted, every Palestinian proclamation risks being an act of defiance rather than deliverance.

8. Beyond Politics: The Integral Dimension

From an integral perspective, both nations are locked in developmental trauma. Israel's collective psyche is shaped by the Holocaust and centuries of persecution; the Palestinian psyche by decades of statelessness and humiliation. Each carries a deep existential wound—one of fear, the other of loss.

A lasting solution will not emerge from proclamations, partitions, or peace plans alone, but from mutual recognition of each other's humanity. In that sense, the question “Why don't the Palestinians just proclaim their own state?” reflects a deeper misunderstanding: that sovereignty is merely a legal or political status. In reality, it is also a psychological and moral equilibrium—something both sides have yet to achieve.

Conclusion

The Palestinians did proclaim their state—but without control, unity, or international enforcement, it remains a state in name only. Israel's birth was the product of power, opportunity, and global sympathy; Palestine's struggle unfolds in a world where those forces are arrayed against it.

Until the asymmetry of power is addressed—and the mutual moral blindness overcome—any new Palestinian proclamation will echo through the desert: a cry heard by many, heeded by few.