The legitimacy of the State of Israel has been questioned since before the state was formed. There has been opposition to Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, since its emergence in 19th-century Europe. Since the establishment of the State of Israel and the concurrent Nakba in 1948, a number of figures, organizations, and states have challenged Israel's political legitimacy and its occupation of territories belonging to Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Over the course of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and broader Arab–Israeli conflict, the country's authority has also been questioned on a number of fronts.
Criticism of Israel may include opposition to the belief that the state has a right to exist or, since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, the established power structure within the Israeli-occupied territories. Israel has also been accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes—such as apartheid, starvation and genocide—including by scholars, legal experts, and human rights organizations. Israel regards such criticism as attempts to delegitimize it. According to Agnès Callamard, the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Israel has maintained "the longest and one of the most deadly military occupations in the world".
On 11 May 1949, Israel was admitted to the United Nations (UN) as a full member state. It also has bilateral ties with each of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. , 29 of the 193 UN member states do not formally recognize Israeli sovereignty; 26 of the 29 non-recognizing countries are located within the Muslim world, with Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela representing the remainder. Most of the governments opposed to Israel have cited the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Israel's ongoing military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as the basis for their stance.
In the early 1990s, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat exchanged the Letters of Mutual Recognition. Pursuant to this correspondence, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) formally recognized Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state while Israel formally recognized the PLO as a legitimate entity representing the Palestinians. This development aimed to set the stage for negotiations towards a two-state solution (i.e., Israel alongside the State of Palestine), through what would become known as the Oslo Accords, as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.
Background
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 announced British sponsorship of the Zionist aspiration to establish "a national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. When the Jewish population represented less than 10% of the population of Palestine, the League of Nations codified support for the eventual "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" into the foundational document of British Mandatory rule in Palestine, thereby facilitating the Zionist colonization of Palestine.
The British colonial government in Mandatory Palestine recognized Zionist organizations, which created the structure of a quasi state, as self-governing institutions that legitimately represented the Jewish population. Chief among these organizations were the General Council of the Jewish Community of Palestine ( ) and the Jewish Agency for Palestine—originally established in 1908 as the of the Zionist Organization and renamed the Jewish Agency for Israel after the establishment of Israel in 1948—which was extended quasi-official diplomatic status by Britain and the League of Nations, giving the Zionist movement international legitimacy. The Jewish Agency, by the Mandate for Palestine, was "recognized as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine," and it was entitled to diplomatic representation in the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission in Geneva, as well as in London and elsewhere.
The British colonial government did not similarly recognize the Arab majority in Palestine, which it referred to as "non-Jewish communities," and which did not have any international recognition.
Diplomatic normalization and legitimacy
On May 14, 1948, in the midst of the 1948 Palestine war, leaders of the Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, and the broader Yishuv declared the establishment of the State of Israel in what was at the time Mandatory Palestine. The Israeli provisional government (1948–1949) was promptly granted de facto recognition by the United States,End of Palestine mandate , The Times, 15 May 1948 followed by Iran (which had voted against the Partition Plan), Guatemala, Iceland, Nicaragua, Romania, and Uruguay. The Soviet Union was the first country to grant de jure recognition to Israel on 17 May 1948, followed by Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland. The United States extended de jure recognition after the first Israeli election,Press Release, 31 January 1949. Official File, Truman Papers Truman Library on 31 January 1949.
In 1988 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the official representative of the Palestinian people, accepted the existence of the State of Israel and advocated for the full implementation of UN Security Council 242. Following the Oslo I Accord in 1993, the PLO officially recognized the State of Israel and pledged to reject violence, and Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.Burhan Dajani. "The September 1993 Israeli-PLO Documents: A Textual Analysis". Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 23, No. 3 (Spring, 1994), pp. 5–23 Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said, while speaking at the UN regarding Palestinian recognition, "We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel."
Hamas denies the legitimacy of the Oslo I Accord, but has said it accepts the framework of peace based on two states on 1967 borders.
In the 1990s, Islamic and leftist movements in Jordan attacked the Israel–Jordan Treaty of Peace as legitimization.Paul L. Scham and Russell E. Lucas. "'Normalization' and 'Anti-Normalization' in Jordan: The Public Debate " Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 3 (September 2001) Significant minorities in Jordan see Israel as an illegitimate state, and reversing the normalization of diplomatic relations was, at least until the late 1990s, central to Jordanian discourse.Mustafa Hamarneh, Rosemary Hollis, Khalil Shikaki. Jordanian-Palestinian Relations – Where to? Four Scenarios for the Future. Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997. p. 8
In 2002 the Arab League unanimously adopted the Arab Peace Initiative at their Beirut summit. The comprehensive peace plan called for full normalization of Arab-Israeli relations in return for full Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in June 1967. Turki bin Faisal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia said that, in endorsing the initiative, every Arab state had "made clear that they will pay the price for peace, not only by recognizing Israel as a legitimate state in the area, but also to normalise relations with it and end the state of hostilities that had existed since 1948". Subsequently, there are currently six members of the Arab League which unambiguously recognize Israel: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, United Arab Emirates and Palestine;Khartoum Resolution (1 September 1967), League of Arab States. and most of the non-Arab members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation also recognize Israel. Mauritania, Oman and Sudan are ambiguous on this question, having publicly retreated or not formally concluded recognition of Israel.
, 29 United Nations member states do not formally recognize the State of Israel. This includes 16 members of the Arab League (Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen); 10 non-Arab members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Niger, and Pakistan); and Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela.
Starting from 27 June 2024, Germany requires all those applying for naturalization to affirm Israel's right to exist. Opponents of this law say that it infringes on freedom of speech.
International law
Many jurists, including Henry Cattan and John B. Quigley, have questioned Israel's legitimacy, arguing that the Balfour Declaration, Mandate for Palestine and United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine were all illegitimate.
Cattan stated that claims based on 2000-year-old historical ties have no basis in international law. He cited Lord Sydenham's analogy that Jewish governance of Palestine was not longer than Roman governance of Britain; if this claim could be accepted, Cattan noted the Romans can reclaim Britain. Cattan further argued that the Balfour Declaration was illegal because as Britain did not have sovereignty over Palestine when the declaration was issued, nemo dat quod non habet (no one can give what they do not have). Since Britain didn't control Palestine, it couldn't promise it to anyone. The declaration also ignored the wishes of the vast majority of Palestine's population (Muslims, Christians, and even indigenous Jews who opposed political Zionism) and contradicted the McMahon–Hussein correspondence.
Cattan also argued that the Mandate for Palestine violated Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which required mandates to be for the benefit of the local population and lead to independence, and the wishes of local communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory. Britain treated Palestine as a colony for the benefit of Jewish immigrants. The King-Crane Commission showed Palestinian Arabs wanted both the Mandate for Palestine to be given to the United States and for any outside ruler to not support Zionism, which was ignored, and therefore contradicted Article 22. Quigley proposed that the principle of self-determination had been a part of the international law in the 1920s. In a decision regarding Åland by the League of Nations, jurists stated that the principle of self-determination cannot apply in Åland because Finland's sovereignty was stable and well recognised. It can apply if the sovereignty is absent, transitory or not fully developed. The sovereign situation of Palestine was fluid after WWI, therefore, the Palestinian people should have the right to determine their fate.
Regarding the UN Resolution 181, Cattan noted that the United Nations is an organization of states, not a sovereign. It inherited no sovereignty from the League of Nations, nor did it have power to partition land. Partition violated this sovereignty and the UN Charter. Moreover, Harry Truman's memoirs revealed the intense lobbying and pressure campaigns used to secure votes. And pro-Zionist powers repeatedly blocked attempts to refer these legal questions to the International Court of Justice, implying they knew their legal case was weak. Additionally, in 1946, Jewish people owned 5.66% of land and were 1/3 of the population, and Palestinians owned 47.77% of land. While the partition gave 57% of the land to the Jewish state, including the most fertile areas. Because Palestinian people owned 47.77% of land, even if UN gave all national and public land to the Jewish state, they can only get 52.23% of the whole Palestine at most, it obviously violates the Palestinian ownership of lands.