Last week, in a historic move, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared his intentions to ask the international community to recognize a Palestinian state.
He travels to New York this week and plans to take his case directly to the U.N. Security Council. As the Associated Press reports, Palestinians have spent years laying out the infrastructure for an internationally recognized state, from systems of public finance, banking and telecommunications to a security force and even a football team. Israel and the U.S. strongly oppose the move, however, making it highly unlikely that Palestine will receive more than acceptance as a nonmember observer state.
We examine what U.N. recognition would mean to Palestinians with Colum Lynch, who covers the United Nations for both the Washington Post and Foreign Policy.