Legitimacy of the State of Israel

Question of whether Israeli political authority is legitimate or not The Israeli national emblem , showcasing a menorah surrounded by olive branches with "Israel" written in Hebrew below it. The legitimacy of the State of Israel has been challenged since before the state was formed. There has been opposition to Zionism , the movement to establish a Jewish state in Palestine , since its emergence in 19th-century Europe. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, a number of individuals, organizations, and states have challenged Israel's political legitimacy and its occupation of territories belonging to Palestine , Syria and Lebanon . Over the course of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and broader Arab–Israeli conflict , the country's authority has also been questioned on a number of fronts. Criticism of Israel may include opposition to the country's right to exist or, since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War , the established power structure within the Israeli-occupied territories . Israel has also been accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes —such as apartheid , starvation and genocide —including by scholars, legal experts, and human rights organizations. Israel regards such criticism as attempts to delegitimize it. Israel has also been criticized for maintaining "the longest and one of the most deadly military occupations in the world". On 11 May 1949, Israel was admitted to the United Nations (UN) as a full member state . It also has bilateral ties with each of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council . As of 2022 , 28 of the 193 UN member states do not recognize Israeli sovereignty ; 25 of the 28 non-recognizing countries are located within the Muslim world , with Cuba , North Korea , and Venezuela representing the remainder. Most of the governments opposed to Israel have cited the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Israel's ongoing military occupation of the West Bank , East Jerusalem , and the Gaza Strip as the basis for their stance. In the early 1990s, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat exchanged the Letters of Mutual Recognition . Pursuant to this correspondence, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) formally recognized Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state while Israel formally recognized the PLO as a legitimate entity representing the Palestinians . This development aimed to set the stage for negotiations towards a two-state solution (i.e., Israel alongside the State of Palestine ), through what would become known as the Oslo Accords , as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process . "Amnesty accuses Israel of apartheid over treatment of Palestinians, prompting angry response" . Institute for Palestine Studies . The current genocidal assaults on Palestinians in the Gaza strip have undoubtedly been enabled by decades of anti-Palestinian racism propagated by both government and military officials and by media outlets. ... This has never been clearer than over the course of the last two weeks as U.S. and Israeli political and military leaders sow fear and paranoia, and trot out the worst anti-Arab rhetoric we have seen since the period following 9/11. This racist rhetoric is intended to dehumanize the Palestinians in order to neutralize public outrage at what may amount to the worst ethnic cleansing since the 1948 Nakba and what constitutes a genocide at the hands of one of the most advanced militaries in the world, all while world powers watch and do nothing. "Israel must end its occupation of Palestine to stop fuelling apartheid and systematic human rights violations" . There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or templates on this page, but the references will not show without a template or template (see the help page ).