How did the Palestinian Authority get telephone and Internet codes like a country?

Jewish Internet Association Email ^ | 1-18-2003 | Chuck Chriss

[yonif]

How did the Palestinian Authority get telephone and Internet codes like a country? [1-18-2003]

[ Sent to yonif@yifan.net This memo is available in web format here: http://jewishinternetassociation.org/archive_memos/memo_20030118.php ]

This memo is a brief summary of the complete and little known story, available in full on the Palestine Facts website at this page:

http://palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_telephone_internet.php

As a direct result of the Oslo Accords, Israel gave the newly formed Palestinian Authority (PA) limited autonomy over certain territories. Israel and the PA worked on many technical issues that were intended to help create the infrastructure of a modern state, such as telecommunications.

Even though the PA did not follow through on the most important committments of the peace process -- involving Israel's security -- the momentum of these agreements carried the PA forward toward statehood. Many anti-Israel countries in fact recognize "Palestine" as a state and they have been given observer status at the United Nations. In 1998, the International Telecomunications Union (ITU -- a UN body) recognized the Palestinian Authority and gave them the same status as any UN member country. In January 1999, over Israeli objections, the ITU authorized the use of country code 970 by the Palestinian Authority.

Under the 1995 Interim Agreement of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority was specifically prohibited from taking on the trappings of a national state until agreement on final status was reached bilaterally with Israel. But the UN and others continually undermined that agreement by cooperating with the Palestinian Authority as if it were a state. The assignment of a telephone country code (and an Internet top level domain, discussed below) are examples of this trend.

Following the ITU action, AT&T, Sprint, MCI, BT and all other long distance companies, are required to use the 970 code into areas where it has been implemented by the PA.

The official name of the entity with the 970 country code is "Palestinian Authority". However, due to sloppy practices, many of the carriers refer to 970 as "Palestine". One AT&T website found in January 2003 has a listing for "Israel including Palestine, 970" and also "Israel, 972". Pro-Palestinian Arab organizations go even further, e.g. "Palestine National Authority International dialing code: 970 / 972" thereby including Israel under the misnamed "Palestinian National Authority" (the term "National" is unofficial, more overreaching by the PA).

Internet Domain PS

In parallel to the acquisition of a telephone country code, the Palestinian Authority has received the Internet top level domain .ps for their use.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) is a UN body that sets standards for everything from screw threads to photographic film, using technical committess from member countries. Generally, this is a very valuable service -- world commerce and technological development depend on these standards.

ISO Standard 3166 assigns short codes to countries to be used for postal and other purposes (e.g. US, UK, IL etc.) Following the political developments that saw the Palestinian Authority gain observer status in the United Nations, ISO reserved the code PS for a possible future Palestinian state and then authorized its use in 1999 for "Palestinian Territory, Occupied", a rather political description.

In March 2000, following the designation in the ISO 3166 Standard of "PS" as the two-letter code, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body responsible for Internet top level domain assignments, allocated the corresponding ".ps" to the Palestinian Authority. This allowed the Palestinian Authority to set up Internet name assignments within their unique top level domain ".ps". The Palestinian Authority has been using .ps for their own governmental web sites and for other web sites and email addresses.

In ICANN documents, the .ps code is identified as belonging to the "Palestinian Territories", yet another description that further confuses the actual, legal status.

FYI, Chuck Chriss President, JIA chuck@jia.org.il

[John H K]

Interesting.

I remember a fairly idiotic thread where people were flipping out at Verizon or ATT or some other big comms company for listing Palestine separately for their international codes. (Honestly, I think most of the posters in the thread thought they were calling ISRAEL Palestine and therefore were extra-outraged.)

Turns out they're REQUIRED to by international agreement.

Though I suspect there will be some anal-retentive people that will be demanding that comm companies include a 5-page explanation in the middle of their list of country dialing codes that the Palestinian Authority isn't a country but a semi-independent statelet, blah blah blah blah.

[JudgemAll]

As a direct result of the Oslo Accords, Israel gave the newly formed Palestinian Authority (PA) limited autonomy over certain territories. Israel and the PA worked on many technical issues that were intended to help create the infrastructure of a modern state, such as telecommunications.

Since when peace was provided for by giving power? Peace is peace, and mostly exists through a respect of truth, not of power.