Palestinian authority official changes name
On 6 January, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the Palestinian authority to officially change its name to the State of Palestine.
Abbas gave orders on Sunday to official Palestinian authorities to change passports, ID cards, driver’s license and stamps reading “State of Palestine.” The Palestinian President, said the changed language on official documents would help strengthen the Palestinian state “on the ground and build its institutions... and its sovereignty over its land.”
Nathan Thrall, an analyst with the International Crisis Group that focuses on the Palestinians said to Wall Street Journal that, “Palestine is no more a state today than it was on November 28…There's only going to be more disappointment and more pressure on the leadership as they are ridiculed for changing their letterhead.” Conversely, Mohammed Shtayyeh, a Palestinian negotiator underlined that, “even though we recognize this state is under occupation, it is now changing its name and character…[the move is] to manifest the decision taken internationally, wherever possible.”
Ghassan Khatib a former Palestinian politician and now a professor at Bir Zeit University also commented, “when the Palestinians went to the U.N. and called on the outside world to recognise them as a state, it is expected that they should call themselves as a state..but this isn't significant…. its only a symbol. We have too many symbols of a state, what we lack is attributes of a state.”
Palestine won UN non-member observer status in a November vote at the General Assembly causing Israel’s disarray. As a response to Palestine’s move, Israel has initiated an expansionist housing project in West Bank and East Jerusalem. UN and EU criticised Israel’s settlements. new europe on line.
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