Is Palestine a State? What If Countries Say It Is?: QuickTake

Ireland, Norway and Spain have said they will recognize Palestine as a state, breaking from a consensus within Western Europe and the US that the Palestinians should achieve statehood through negotiations with Israel. Already, the great majority of countries in the world — around 140 of them — recognize a Palestinian state. The declarations have symbolic value for the Palestinians, and they serve to diplomatically isolate Israel, whose government opposes a Palestinian state. But they don’t mean that the Palestinians have a state, in the full meaning of the word.

What does it mean to be a state?

Under the ...