PLO ambassador says Palestinian state should be free of Jews

[Dan and Judy 614]

It would be best for them to be separated

[Ban Hammer 13,498]

It would be best for them to be separated

i can't disagree.

[mawilson 2,133]

"Israeli Arabs" are citizens of Israel. Why should citizens be forced to leave their country ?

But illegal settlers are not citizens of Palestine.

(One would think that a person who hangs around on an immigration website would already be able to distinguish between "legal" and "illegal.")

Many people here think that an immigrant is an immigrant is an immigrant, legal or illegal.

Even those who recognize the distinction and acknowledge that illegal immigrants should

not be given a free ride or rewarded for their law-breaking, recognize the reality that

many have resettled here and mass deportations are neither workable nor humane.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Many people here think that an immigrant is an immigrant is an immigrant, legal or illegal.

Even those who recognize the distinction and acknowledge that illegal immigrants should

not be given a free ride or rewarded for their law-breaking, recognize the reality that

many have resettled here and mass deportations are neither workable nor humane.

If illegal immigrants came to the U.S. accompanied and protected by foreign soldiers while they forcibly seized American land and built illegal immigrant-only settlements, and then seized more American land to build illegal immigrant-only roads to connect them to their own country, and then began building a wall around those settlements in order to "separate" these lands from the U.S. and annex them to the foreign country's side - you can bet the farm that Americans would demand not only mass deportations, but would be willing to launch a violent resistance to force them to do so.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

He wasn't just referring to illegal settlers.

I'm not taking sides here...both sides have valid arguments and both sides work the media like there's no tomorrow.

All this is coming to a head. Israel and the US can't postpone the UN decision unless the US pulls the veto card, and if they do chances are they are going to end up with mud in their face. It's going to come down to East Jerusalem. The Arabs are going to claim it, and Israel isn't about to give it up.

The US can't veto a General Assembly resolution.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It would be best for them to be separated

[Danno 1,228]

Maybe we are just haggling over numbers.

Had he said it will be 99 or 95% Jew free would that be ok?

Israel has founded itself as Jewish State..... it places great importance and has a policy of keeping non-jewish numbers, much smaller. (75% are Jews even in that part of the world)

Sounds like the Palestinian State might take the same path to a much much greater degree.

Given the history and all likely future, it is probably best if these two peoples were separated and if they proceeded with the old adage:

Good fences make for good neighbors.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

WASHINGTON – The Palestine Liberation Organization's ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that any future Palestinian state it seeks with help from the United Nations and the United States should be free of Jews.

"After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated," Maen Areikat, the PLO ambassador, said during a meeting with reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. He was responding to a question about the rights of minorities in a Palestine of the future.

Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council official.

Israel has 1.3 million Muslims who are Israeli citizens. Jews have lived in "Judea and Samaria," the biblical name for the West Bank, for thousands of years. Areikat said the PLO seeks a secular state, but that Palestinians need separation to work on their own national identity.

...

Israel has often complained of anti-Semitic views in Palestinian discourse. Palestinian media frequently publishes and broadcasts anti-Semitic sermons by Islamic religious leaders, while the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV shows programming for preschoolers that extolls hatred of Jews and suicide bombings, according to a 2009 State Department human rights report.

http://www.usatoday....-PLO/50394882/1

Jews were there first.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Jews were there first.

No, pagans were there first.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Jews were there first.

[sandinista! 1,816]

Jews were there first.

Is this the opening line of a work of fiction you're in the process of creating?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

The US can't veto a General Assembly resolution.

http://news.yahoo.com/china-paper-warns-us-against-palestinian-un-veto-073727408.html;_ylt=AghZSQez6R58KAjNj501rohtzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTRocGk2b3FnBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDIwMHBvb2xyZXN0BG1pdANOZXdzIGZvciB5b3UEcGtnAzg2OGY2NjgyLWFjZmItM2Y3Mi1iOWM2LTJiMGVlYjY3MGZhYQRwb3MDNARzZWMDbmV3c19mb3JfeW91BHZlcgNkNjg0ZDQ0MC1lMDM2LTExZTAtOGY0Zi0zNDA5ZDM0OWNlZWI-;_ylg=X3oDMTJybmhoODl1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDZDhiOWRhNjgtMjMzZS0zOTA5LTk5ZWMtNWM5OTAzYTQ0ZWUxBHBzdGNhdAN1cwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2UEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

China paper warns US against Palestinian UN veto

[mawilson 2,133]

Jews were there first.

No, pagans were there first.

It doesn't matter who was there first, only who's there last.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

It doesn't matter who was there first, only who's there last.

Well there's always the Samson Option...

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

http://news.yahoo.com/china-paper-warns-us-against-palestinian-un-veto-073727408.html;_ylt=AghZSQez6R58KAjNj501rohtzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTRocGk2b3FnBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDIwMHBvb2xyZXN0BG1pdANOZXdzIGZvciB5b3UEcGtnAzg2OGY2NjgyLWFjZmItM2Y3Mi1iOWM2LTJiMGVlYjY3MGZhYQRwb3MDNARzZWMDbmV3c19mb3JfeW91BHZlcgNkNjg0ZDQ0MC1lMDM2LTExZTAtOGY0Zi0zNDA5ZDM0OWNlZWI-;_ylg=X3oDMTJybmhoODl1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDZDhiOWRhNjgtMjMzZS0zOTA5LTk5ZWMtNWM5OTAzYTQ0ZWUxBHBzdGNhdAN1cwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2UEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

China paper warns US against Palestinian UN veto

US has threatened to veto the move if it is made within the UN Security Council

That is why the vote will not be before the Security Council:

Why Israel should vote for Palestinian independence

Editor's Note: Isaac Herzog, a former Israeli cabinet minister, is a member of the Foreign and Defense Committee, on behalf of the Israeli Labor Party, in the Knesset.

By Isaac Herzog, Foreign Affairs

This coming week, the Palestinian Authority intends to ask the United Nations to vote for Palestinian statehood during the annual session of the General Assembly. The Palestinian bid represents Israel’s greatest political challenge in years. Although the United States has promised to veto the resolution in the Security Council, it is likely that more than 140 countries in the General Assembly will vote in favor and grant the Palestinians the status of non-member state in the UN.

Israel’s current leadership considers the resolution a dire threat to the country’s strategic interests and has made it a top priority to limit the Palestinians’ diplomatic coup. But Israel could achieve its own desperately needed coup by doing what no one expects: voting, under several critical conditions, for Palestinian statehood.

There is no question that the Palestinian state that could be recognized by this vote would be far different from the one that most Israelis envisage. The vast majority of Israelis support a two-state solution and want a Palestinian state to emerge from bilateral negotiations rather than from a unilateral action at the UN. The proposal put before the UN, for example, could claim the 1967 lines as its borders and East Jerusalem as its capital. Such a resolution would render any Israeli presence within these lines inherently illegal and consequently make it harder for Israel to retain control over Jewish holy sites, such as the Western Wall, and the major settlement blocs, which bolster Israeli security and are generally expected to remain a part of Israel in exchange for land swaps. Palestinians will subsequently have trouble compromising on such internationally endorsed positions, and Israelis will find it hard to negotiate under such one-sided terms of reference.

Any Israeli rejection of the resolution could also lead to violence on the ground. Israel could be forced to respond to unrest in a way that deepens its international isolation and paves the way for increasing calls to boycott Israeli goods and companies and for countries to levy sanctions on Israel.

Moreover, the showdown at the UN comes amid the historic transition now taking place across the Middle East, leaving Israel’s strategic position uncertain. Israelis have watched with concern as the revolution in Egypt has created a power vacuum in the Sinai Peninsula and sparked anti-Israel sentiment in Cairo. The protests against Bashar al-Assad in Syria have made Israel’s northern borders unpredictable as well. Relations with Turkey, Israel’s traditional ally, continue to deteriorate. And in the midst of the upheaval, Iran continues to develop its nuclear program.

With instability and shifting sands all around them, Israeli leaders have called for caution and patience, especially in terms of advancing the peace process. The Israeli government has therefore launched a massive diplomatic campaign against the UN vote in September, attempting to build, in the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a “moral majority” of Western nations opposing the Palestinian effort.

But rather than oppose the resolution, Israel should seize the initiative and use it to its advantage by agreeing to support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN. Voting for Palestinian statehood may finally open the door for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, strengthen the possibility of a two-state solution, and greatly improve Israel’s position in the region and in the international community.

The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has all but disintegrated over the past two years. The cooperative spirit of the Oslo process during the 1990s and the two rounds of serious permanent status negotiations over the last decade gave way to mutual distrust and blame.

This stalemate has proven dangerous to Israel. It has energized radicals on both sides of the conflict, fueled anti-Israel sentiment, harmed Israel’s international status, and jeopardized Israel’s alliances. But rather than attempt to break the deadlock and rescue Israel from these debilitating circumstances, Israel’s current leadership has resisted taking the lead. Last September, for example, Netanyahu refused U.S. President Barack Obama’s request that Israel extend its ten-month settlement freeze for an additional 60 to 90 days, harming Israel’s relations with its most important ally and painting the country as an obstacle to peace. Should Israel continue down this road, it may risk having a final settlement imposed on it by the international community.

To reverse course and revive the peace process, Israel should support Palestinian aspirations at the UN - but only in exchange for several preconditions to be agreed on with the Palestinians, who bear equal responsibility for moving negotiations forward. Israel should announce its support for the UN resolution on the condition that the Palestinians agree to return to the table as soon as possible and without preconditions, fully backed and supported by the international community, and to determine the final settlement through bilateral negotiations. The UN resolution must reflect this aspiration and include Israel’s perspective as well. In addition, the two parties must agree to a framework for an interim process that will allow for negotiations based on Israel’s recognition of a Palestinian state. This formula will defuse tensions and may prevent wide-scale violence from erupting.

As part of these understandings, Israel should affirm the parameters that former U.S. President Bill Clinton set in 2000 and which President Barack Obama further developed in May 2011: a two-state solution that realizes both the right to self-determination for both Jews and Palestinians, ends all historic claims, and establishes a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with mutually agreed territorial swaps and security arrangements that meet Israel’s vital security needs. This will allow Israel to annex major settlement blocs and Jewish holy places - areas that most Israelis agree should remain part of their country.

To begin the interim negotiating process, Israel should take several meaningful steps, such as transferring additional security responsibility in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, freezing settlement construction on the other side of the security fence, offering compensation to Israeli settlers who wish to move back to Israel proper, and releasing prisoners of Fatah held in Israeli jails. The Palestinians, meanwhile, must agree to continue security cooperation in the West Bank, refrain from launching an international legal campaign against Israel, and avoid a power-sharing arrangement with Hamas. Questions regarding the status of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees should be determined once both sides have taken these interim steps and begun negotiating borders and security.

This proposal undoubtedly carries risks. For example, Palestinian refusal to implement the conditions for Israeli support of the UN resolution would further damage Israel’s strategic position. But the potential benefits of supporting the resolution far outweigh the perils. If Israel manages to garner solid international support by backing the Palestinian UN resolution, it may induce the Palestinians to return to negotiations. This would improve Israel’s international status, give it more diplomatic space to maneuver through the chaos in the Middle East, and allow it to shore up its security needs.

Most important, the above proposal may be the only way to preserve the idea of achieving peace through bilateral negotiations. By reaching a compromise with the Palestinian leadership over the UN resolution, Israel can halt the dangerous precedent of unilateral action for conflict resolution and instead preserve the principle of achieving a two-state solution through direct talks, a notion critical to Israel’s future. Such a concerted move would prevent a violent confrontation, give the Palestinians the dignity they seek, allow the parties to relaunch negotiations, and win Israel international favor while preserving its security needs. Now is the time not for prudence but for audacity.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Isaac Herzog.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/16/why-israel-should-vote-for-palestinian-independence/