A radical Mideast proposal: What if the U.S. recognized a Palestinian state now?

When Israel declared statehood in 1948, U.S. President Harry Truman gave his endorsement just 11 minutes later, making the United States the first country to recognize Israel as a nation.

"But don't think that decision to recognize Israel was an easy one," Truman said in a video filmed after he left the White House. "What I was trying to do was to find a homeland for the Jews and still be just with the Arabs."

There were lots of unanswered questions at the time. Israel didn't have fixed borders. The new nation was facing war with multiple Arab states. It wasn't clear whether the new Jewish state would even survive.

Yet Truman used his presidential authority to act unilaterally.

Europeans broach the issue

Today, there's talk of a similar approach with the Palestinians, though such a move is still considered a long shot.

Several European leaders and diplomats have raised the possibility, including British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.

Such recognition "can't come at the start of the [negotiating] process, but it doesn't have to be the very end of the process," Cameron said. "It could be something that we consider as this process, as this advance to a solution, becomes more real. What we need to do is give the Palestinian people a horizon towards a better future, the future of having a state of their own."

Actually, 139 nations already recognize a Palestinian state. At the United Nations, the Palestinians have something called "nonmember observer status."

This gives the Palestinians a seat at the U.N. but not much more in practical terms. Notably, no Western power has recognized Palestinian statehood.

So would recognition by the West, particularly by the U.S., be a big deal?

"Well, it's important, actually," said Ali