The situation of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has lasted for over a century with half of the century of increasing violence, especially after the Six Days War. The long-standing occupation has been leading to mental take over by this issue and dehumanization of opponents in both parties’ minds. Although in last decade one could see some symptoms of peace process, especially after Oslo agreement, violence always erupted despite the official papers. In this paper I will examine the conditions of societies in the Palestinian Autonomy and Israel with special emphasis on NGOs. Although it is obvious that civil society cannot be narrowed to the non-governmental organizations, one can say that the NGOs are the most visible and measurable among the signs of existence of civil society.
The Palestinian people which is vying for independence amidst its struggle against Israel, has become a divided house both ideologically and territorially, with two rival leaderships contenting for the hearts of their followers. While the Palestinian Authority, which had signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993, has taken its resistance from violence and strives to conclude an agreement for its independence with Israel, and has held under its control, with some Israeli help, the West Bank, the Hamas, which has objected to, and refuted any idea of settling peacefully with Israel, has seized the rule of Gaza and established a radical government which does not recognize the PA’s primacy in Palestinian politics. The decision between those two competing authorities may either decide the fate of the Palestinian people in the years to come, or doom it to insolubility.
A resolution passed in 2012 by the United Nations General Assembly on upgrading the Palestinian observer status to the rank of a non-member observer state provoked vivid discussions on political and legal aspects of the Palestinian statehood. Following this resolution the government bodies of the Palestinian Authority in official documents refer to their entity as “the State of Palestine”, however many countries seem to decisively oppose to consider the above-mentioned resolution as the basis for recognition of the Palestinian statehood. In their opinion, only on condition of fulfilling the commonly acknowledged criteria of statehood, i.e. assuming the full control as well as exercising an independent power (including capacity to maintain foreign relations) over the population within the specified territory under its control may Palestine be recognized as a sovereign state. Taking the position that the above criteria represent the level of legitimacy of the state-building process and are regarded as constituents of the definition of a state under the international law, the author of the present thesis has undertaken to find the answer to the question whether Palestine has complete control over the specified territory, whether Palestinians form a nation and whether the Palestinian authorities can be regarded as effective and capable of representing its entity in international relations. This article makes the point that a decision on recognition of a geopolitical entity as a state is more political than legal in character and it remains the matter of discretional decision of other members of international community, therefore the process of recognition of Palestine depends, de facto, on current trends in international politics and the balance of forces in the international arena.
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