The

The Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood.

In this topsy-turvy world, we remain a rock of stability.

Two guests, two segments. Mouin Rabani will tell us what this spate of diplomatic recognitions of Palestine means,

and Ernesto Suman will examine the political and economic crisis in Argentina,

whose libertarian President Javier Malay is in line for a U.S. government bailout.

First Palestine. In the last week, ten countries, among them Canada, Britain, and France, have

recognized Palestine, a state that does not yet exist. Israel is not happy. Here to explore what

it all means is frequent behind the news guest Mouin Rabani. Mouin has served in several

diplomatic roles over the years and is co-editor of Jadaliyah, an e-zine that covers the Middle East,

Mouin Robani. So we've seen a spate of recognitions, I believe 10 in the last week or so,

of the Palestinian state, which doesn't exist. What do these recognitions mean precisely?

We should first of all place them in their historical context. The Palestinians declared statehood

in November of 1988. And by the end of the 1980s, most of the international community

had already recognized the state of Palestine. With the

exception of Sweden in 2014, no Western state had yet recognized Palestine. That began to change

last year when Norway, Ireland, and Spain, followed by Slovenia and one or two others, began to recognize Palestine.

And then it's really in the last week or so that the dam burst.

You had two members of the UN Security Council, members of the G7, one of them a leading member of the European Union, Britain and France,

recognizing Palestine, joined by Canada, Australia, provisionally by Belgium, and a few others.

So you now suddenly have Western states, including key Western states, recognizing the state of Palestine.

What does it mean? Is, you know, that's really the $64,000 question.

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