Why is there no Palestine state? Premium

The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, a symbol of Israel's history, from British Mandate to modern conflicts, and peace efforts.

The King David Hotel of Jerusalem is one of the landmark buildings of the contested city. Built with locally sourced pink limestone and opened in 1931 by Ezra Mosseri, a wealthy Egyptian Jewish banker, the hotel, overlooking the Old City that is holy for all three Abrahamic faiths, is a standing example of both Israel’s Jewish roots and its bloody history. From its early days during the British Mandate of Palestine, the hotel hosted royalties and other key visiting dignitaries. During the Mandatory period, the British used the southern wing of the hotel for its administrative and military offices.

On July 22, 1946, members of Irgun, a right-wing Zionist underground militia, entered the hotel disguised as Arab workers and waiters. Their mission: plant explosives in the basement of the main building of the hotel. The powerful explosion led to the collapse of the western half of the southern wing. At least 91 people were killed and 46 injured. The bombing of the King David Hotel, the deadliest attack by Zionists against the British, was one of the early terrorist attacks in modern West Asia. The British found it increasingly difficult to continue their rule of Palestine after the Second World War. Britain turned to the United Nations, saying it wanted to vacate the Mandate. In 1947, the UN General Assembly decided to set up a Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). In a report submitted to the General Assembly, UNSCOP proposed to divide Palestine into ‘an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem’. The committee proposed that the city be under an international trusteeship system.

The Jewish Agency immediately accepted the plan, while Arab nations opposed the partition. On May 14, 1948, the day the British Mandate expired, the Jewish People’s Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum (today known as Independence Hall). David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Jewish Agency, made the declaration from a podium. “We, the members of the National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionist movement of the world..., hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called Israel,” he said.

The next day, the Armies of four countries — Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq — entered Palestine and clashed with the Jewish army, triggering the first Arab-Israeli war. The Arab nations’ plan was to destroy the newly created state. But they failed to do so. The war continued for a year and when a ceasefire was signed, Israel was controlling more territories of historic Palestine than even the UN plan offered for the Jewish state.

For Israel, it was the ‘war of independence’, but for Palestinians, it was Nakba (catastrophe). Roughly 7,50,000 Palestinians were violently displaced from their homes and lands by Zionist militias. Thousands of Palestinians were killed. Hundreds of Arab villages and towns were depopulated and destroyed. West Asia suddenly looked like a different region. Arab pride and confidence were hurt, and a Jewish state has been established in the heart of the Arab land. It was only the beginning of the conflicts to come.

In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel captured the entire Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt; the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem from Jordan; and the Golan Heights from Syria. The UN Partition plan promised 55% of historical Palestine to the Jewish state; Israel controlled some 75% after the 1948 war, and now, after the 1967 war, the whole of Palestine came under Israel’s control.

Palestinians today demand an independent state based on the 1967 border — which means the whole of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Different Palestinians factions, including Fatah, which runs the Palestine Authority based in the West Bank, and Hamas, which is the main force in the Gaza Strip, have either directly or indirectly accepted the 1967 border. While the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), of which Fatah is the main constituent, has officially recognised the state of Israel, Hamas has said it would accept a lasting ceasefire with Israel if the Jewish state withdraws to the 1967 border. Israel in the past had committed itself to the two-state solution, but it has never made its position clear on the border. In recent years, Israel’s position has further shifted to the right, with its rulers publicly disowning the two-state plan. East Jerusalem has been annexed by Israel. The West Bank has been under Israel’s direct military rule since 1967. Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but from 2007 onwards, the enclave remained under Israel’s military blockade. The occupation had almost been normalised with even Arab nations reaching out to Israel for normalisation agreements. But then Hamas carried out a massive attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, bringing the Palestine question back to the fore of West Asia.