The following
outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the State of Palestine:
Palestine – country in the
Middle East, politically under the jurisdiction of the
Palestinian government and the
Hamas Government in Gaza. Since the
Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988 and the consequent admission into UN as an observer state in 2012, Palestine is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries.[1] Its claimed capital is East Jerusalem, although
Ramallah is its internationally recognised capital. Although recently promoted to a non-member state status in the UN, the State of Palestine does not exert full control of its territory and has historically turbulent relations with Israel and much of the west.
Official English country name: U.S. State Department: Palestinian Territories
[2]; E.U. ISO 3166-2: Palestine, State of
[3]; UN-affiliated organizations: Palestine, State of
[4]
State of Palestine (post-2013): claimed area 6,220 km2 (2,400 sq mi) (de facto control of 2,488 km2 (961 sq mi)); The
West Bank (including
East Jerusalem) is (5,860 km2 (2,260 sq mi) and the
Gaza Strip is 360 km2 (140 sq mi)
Palestine is a member in a number of international organizations. In others, it enjoys affiliation in a lesser capacity or under another designation (such as
PLO or
Palestinian National Authority). In the list below, if the membership is not full or not for the state of Palestine, the type and name of affiliation is denoted in parentheses.
^[1] "Note that the term
Palestine has historically referred to the region which today incorporates
Israel as well as the Palestinian territories. The current position was expressed by
Mahmoud Abbas in his September 2011 speech to the United Nations: 'When we adopted this program, we were taking a painful and very difficult step for all of us, especially those, including myself, who were forced to leave their homes and their towns and villages, carrying only some of our belongings and our grief and our memories and the keys of our homes to the camps of exile and the Diaspora in the
1948 Al-Nakba, one of the worst operations of uprooting, destruction and removal of a vibrant and cohesive society that had been contributing in a pioneering and leading way in the cultural, educational and economic renaissance of the Arab Middle East. Yet, because we believe in peace and because of our conviction in international legitimacy, and because we had the courage to make difficult decisions for our people, and in the absence of absolute justice, we decided to adopt the path of relative justice – justice that is possible and could correct part of the grave historical injustice committed against our people. Thus, we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine – on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.'"