The Palestinian Declaration of Independence

On 15 November 1988, with the first intifada in its eleventh month, the Palestine National Council — the PLO’s parliament-in-exile — proclaimed “the establishment of the State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory, with its capital Jerusalem.” Yasser Arafat read the proclamation at the close of the PNC’s 19th session in Algiers; the declaration’s text was written by the poet Mahmoud Darwish.

The declaration anchored the new state in the Palestinian people’s right of self-determination and in UN resolutions, including the 1947 partition plan the PLO had long rejected. An accompanying political communiqué accepted Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis for an international peace conference, reaffirmed the intifada, and rejected terrorism. Together, the documents were the PLO’s most explicit step yet toward a two-state settlement.

Recognition came quickly: more than eighty states had recognized the State of Palestine by the end of 1988. On 15 December the UN General Assembly acknowledged the proclamation and decided to use the designation “Palestine” in place of “PLO” throughout the UN system. The declaration did not bring a state into being on the ground, but it reset the terms of Palestinian diplomacy — the road from Algiers led to Madrid and Oslo.