Palestine has a complex history and has never been universally recognized as a fully sovereign nation-state in the modern sense. The significant milestones in its national status are:
- The area known as Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire until World War I, after which it came under British control as the British Mandate of Palestine.
- The United Nations proposed partitioning Palestine in 1947 into separate Jewish and Arab states. Israel declared independence in 1948, but the Arab leadership rejected the plan, and no fully independent Palestinian state emerged at that time.
- In 1948, various Arab countries occupied parts of the territory; Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan annexed the West Bank. Jordan later gave up its claim to the West Bank in favor of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
- The Palestinian National Council declared the establishment of the State of Palestine in exile on November 15, 1988, in Algiers. This declaration was recognized by many countries, and the UN General Assembly acknowledged it, but Palestine does not control sovereign territory in the full sense and its statehood remains disputed internationally.
Thus, the declaration of Palestine as a state happened in 1988, but its full nation-state status remains subject to ongoing political conflict and negotiations.
