Palestine has its own infrastructure and government and is, in all meaningful ways a state  In any meaningful way Palestine is a state. It may well be one at war with a neighbour and in dispute over its boundaries but the only reason it has yet to be recognised is that it would be politically inconvenient for the US, Israel and their allies.  There are plenty of nations that do not function in line with European and North American concepts of statehood, Afghanistan for example, however they take their seat at the UN and add their voice to the choir of nations [i] . There are even other member states that are not recognised by every other member state, Israel is not recognised by 33 UN members [ii] and the People’s Republic of China is not recognised by 23 UN members. [iii]  [i] John Quigley. “Statehood for Palestine: International law in the Middle East Conflict”. Cambridge University Press, 2010.  [ii] Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, ‘Background Note: Israel’, U.S. Department of State, 10 December 2010,   [iii] Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, ‘Background Note: China’, U.S. Department of State, 6 September 2011,