On January 7, Chile followed Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador in extending diplomatic recognition to Palestine as a free, independent, and sovereign state. In each of these cases, the state of Palestine was recognised explicitly within the full pre-1967 borders, encompassing all of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied east Jerusalem.
Chile's recognition brought to 109 the number of UN member states recognising the state of Palestine, whose independence was proclaimed on November 15, 1988.
While still under foreign belligerent occupation, the state of Palestine possesses all the customary international law criteria for sovereign statehood. No portion of its territory is recognised by any other country (other than Israel) as any other country's sovereign territory, and, indeed, Israel has only asserted sovereignty over a small portion of its territory — occupied east Jerusalem — leaving sovereignty over the rest both literally and legally uncontested.
In this context, it is enlightening to consider the quality as well as the quantity of the states extending diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine.
Of the world's nine most populous states, eight (all except the US) recognise the state of Palestine. Of the world's 20 most populous states, 15 (all except the US, Japan, Mexico, Germany, and Thailand) recognise the state of Palestine. Even eight EU member states recognise the state of Palestine.
By contrast, the 73 UN member states that currently recognise the Republic of Kosovo as an independent state include only one of the nine most populous states (the US) and only four of the 20 most populous states (the US, Japan, Germany, and Turkey).
In July 2010, the International Court of Justice held that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence did not violate international law because international law is silent on the subject of the legality of declarations of independence. (This means that no declarations of independence violate international law and all are ‘legal', albeit subject to the political decisions of sovereign states to recognise or not the independence declared.) The US responded by calling on all countries that had not already recognised Kosovo to do so promptly.
Six months later, only four more have seen fit to do so — Honduras, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Qatar.
Big response
If the Arab League were now to call on the minority of UN member states that have not already recognised Palestine to do so promptly, it is certain that the response would be far superior (both in quantity and in quality) to the response to the recent American appeal on behalf of Kosovo. The Arab League should issue such a call for recognition.
States encompassing between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of the world's population recognise the state of Palestine, while states encompassing only between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the world's population recognise the Republic of Kosovo. Notwithstanding this, the western media (and, indeed, much of the non-western media as well) act as though Kosovo's independence were an accomplished fact, while Palestine's independence is treated as an aspiration that can never be realised without Israeli-American consent.
Further, much of international public opinion has, at least until recently, permitted itself to be brainwashed into thinking and acting accordingly.
As in most aspects of international relations, it is not the nature of the act (or crime) that matters, but, rather, who is doing it to whom. Palestine was invaded and is still occupied, 43 years later, by the military forces of Israel.
What most of the world (including the UN and even five EU member states) still regards as the Serbian province of Kosovo was conquered and is still occupied, 11 years later, by the military forces of Nato. The American flag is flown there at least as widely as the Kosovo flag, and the capital, Pristina, boasts a Bill Clinton Boulevard and a larger-than-life-size statue of the former American president.
Might makes right, at least in the hearts and minds of the mighty, including most western decision-makers and opinion-formers.
Meanwhile, as a perpetual ‘peace process' in the Middle East appears suddenly threatened by peaceful recourse to international law and international organisations, the US House of Representatives has adopted by a unanimous voice vote a resolution drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) calling on President Barack Obama not to recognise the state of Palestine and to veto any effort by Palestine to obtain UN membership.
Double standards
Western politicians and the western media customarily apply the term ‘international community' to the US and whatever countries are willing to publicly support it on a given issue. They also apply the term ‘rogue state' to any country that actively resists Israeli-American global domination.
The US has demonstrated a slavish subservience to Israel. In so doing, the US has effectively excluded itself from the true international community and become a true rogue state, properly defined as one acting in consistent and flagrant contempt of both international law and fundamental human rights.
One must hope that the US can still pull back from the abyss and recover its own independence, even if all signs currently point in the opposite direction. In fact, it may soon reach its moment of truth and have the opportunity to do so.
If Palestine, within its full pre-1967 borders, were a UN member state, not simply "the Occupied Territories," the end of the occupation and peace with some measure of justice, even if not imminent, would instantly become only a question of "when," no longer of "whether."
When, later this year, the state of Palestine applies for UN membership, Obama must have the courage to assert his own country's independence and to permit Palestine to rejoin the true international community.
John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian team in negotiations with Israel, is author of The World According to Whitbeck.
