A Palestinian declaration of independence: implications for peace

Abstract

In an Israeli-Palestinian peace process most commonly described as moribund, the Palestinian Authority (PA) recently raised a diplomatic ripple by publicly proposing to make a unilateral declaration of independence for a State of Palestine within the 1967 Armistice borders of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). In challenging the diplomatic stalemate, the proposal struck a range of observers as positive, suggesting an innovative way to rekindle the diplomatic process and hope of an eventual peace agreement. Yet the implications of this proposal are more complicated than they appear.