There are two words to this new fangled status of Palestine. First Observer, which is pretty straightforward and nothing to get excited over. Yes, very much like a student who audits a class; student auditor. I doubt anyone would say the word student is meaningless. Likewise, the word "state" is not without some power in this event. As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, trapped, colonized and marginalized by the United States, I am not surprised by the U.S. response to this event. Look how long it took the U.S. and Canada to sign onto the U.N. Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine! Jews are, for the most part, European colonizers. While most Cherokees have been assimilated and acculturated, practicing a very conservative form of Christianity similar to whites in the U.S. south, thus blindly supporting Zionism; some of us are not and support the rights of the indigenous people of Palestine. Welcome to the STATE of Palestine from a Cherokee Nationalist who can only dream that one day the Cherokee Nation will be elevated to the status of Observer State.