The decision by the vast majority of UN members to recognize Palestine as an “observer state” has paved the way for more creative solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

One of the less-talked-about advantages of the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution recognizing Palestine on the 1967 borders is that it permanently ended  Israeli claims that these are disputed, rather than occupied, territories. Israel’s convoluted claims are based on the legal statuses of the West Bank and Gaza Strip prior to their occupation in June 1967. Before Israel’s occupation, the Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt, while the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) was part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Although Israel has unilaterally withdrawn its settlers and troops from Gaza, it has annexed East Jerusalem and has no intention of ceding most of the West Bank, which it calls Judea and Samaria, and considers this land God-given territory for the Jewish people.

Israel’s claims that these are disputed territories are based on the fact that only two countries, both allies of Jordan (Britain and Pakistan) recognized Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank. This argument was advanced to lend legal status to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories as late as June 2012 by an Israeli government-appointed panel headed by Judge Edmund Levy.

By siding with the preamble of UN Security Council Resolution 242, which emphasized the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” the world body has restored logic to the debate over the state of the occupied territories. And by recognizing Palestine based on the 1967 borders, 138 countries, including three permanent security-council members, have totally dwarfed Israeli apologists' claims that this was a disputed area because only two countries had recognized Jordanian sovereignty over it.