Dem
51
GOP
49
This news broke very late on Tuesday (at least, for people living in the U.S.), but the nations of Spain, Norway and Ireland announced yesterday that they will formally recognize Palestine on May 28. Slovenia and Malta may jump on board, too, so the number of U.N. members who formally recognize Palestine will rise from 143 to somewhere between 146 and 148. That's out of 193 total U.N. member states.
As always, this is not our field of expertise. But this development suggests two things to us: (1) Israel, and more specifically the Netanyahu administration, continue to lose the PR battle, and (2) the world is slowly lining up behind a two-state solution. A two-state solution does not appear to be especially viable right now, it is true, but history also shows that what the world wants, the world generally gets. In particular, if the U.S. and U.K. announce that it's "two states, or no more aid to Israel," then that would probably seal the deal, especially since most of the European holdouts (like France) would likely fall in line. How close the U.S. and U.K. actually are to doing something like that, well, readers' guesses are as good as ours. (Z)