Benjamin Netanyahu's Latest Rejection Of A Palestinian State

WASHINGTON -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed on Monday that he does not envision a two-state solution for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories any time soon.

During a parliamentary committee meeting, Netanyahu told members of the Knesset that he has no current plans to surrender control of the occupied West Bank to the Palestinians as part of a peace agreement. “At this time, we need to control all of the territory for the foreseeable future,” he told lawmakers, reported Haaretz.

Vatican Officially Recognizes Palestinian State In New Treaty

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty finalized Wednesday, immediately sparking Israeli ire and accusations that the move hurt peace prospects.

The treaty, which concerns the activities of the Catholic Church in Palestinian territory, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic recognition from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine.

World No Longer Bound to Defend Israel Internationally

AMMAN -- The Israeli electorate had a choice to make. By re-electing a leader who publicly reneged on his commitments to peace and a two-state solution, they voted against peace. What remains now is how the Palestinians and the world will react to the closure of the charade that was called the peace process.

Palestinians have for years lost hope in the peace process and have been telling everyone who is willing to listen that the Israeli leaders are merely giving lip service to it as their own bulldozers were gobbling up Palestinian lands. The world kept on believing in the lip service until the Israeli public forced their leader to state his case in Hebrew to his own people. Now that we know that Israel is not a democracy to all its citizens (see Netanyahu's racist comments about Arab citizens) and Netanyahu never meant his commitment to a Palestinian state, the world must react.

Apartheid Forever: Israel’s Netanyahu Rules Out Palestinian Statehood

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, under extreme pressure over the real possibility that he will lose the March 17 elections, has made a powerful appeal to his far right wing constituency by openly admitting that he will never allow a Palestinian state and that he intends to flood Israeli squatters into East Jerusalem and its environs to make sure this Occupied territory never returns to the Palestinians.

Millions of Palestinians whose families were violently expelled from their homes by Jewish settlers in Mandate Palestine in 1947-48 remain stateless.  These include the people of Gaza, the West Bank (four million) and a million or more in diasporas in Lebanon, Syria, and other countries.  A million Palestinians are now citizens in Israel, and others have rights of citizenship in far-flung places like Chile and Honduras, as well as the United States.  But I figure five million at least remain stateless.

India may end support to Palestine at U.N.

In what could amount to a tectonic shift in the country’s foreign policy, the Modi government is looking at altering India’s supporting vote for the Palestinian cause at the United Nations to one of abstention.

Two sources within the government confirmed to The Hindu that the change, which will be a fundamental departure from India’s support to the cause of a Palestinian state, was under consideration.

European Parliament Wants Palestinian State

STRASBOURG, France (AP) — The European Parliament has stopped short of pushing for outright recognition of a Palestinian state, urging renewed peace talks instead.

Legislators voted 498-88 Wednesday in favor of a compromise resolution supporting "in principle recognition of Palestinian statehood" — but as part of a two-state solution with Israel. The resolution supports two states on the basis of 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states.

After years of deadlock in Mideast peace efforts, a growing number of European leaders and lawmakers want to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. Supporters hope that would force negotiations to resume.

Israel's government argues recognition would discourage the Palestinians from negotiations and make peace harder to achieve.

The issue is divisive and prompted shouting and emotional arguing in Wednesday's debate in the European Parliament.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: AP

Israel Slams Irish Decision Recognizing Palestine

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has slammed the decision of the Irish parliament to adopt a non-binding resolution supporting an independent Palestinian state.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon expressed disappointment Thursday at the decision, accusing the Irish parliament of giving voice to "statements of hatred and anti-Semitism directed at Israel in a way which we have not heard before."

French Lawmakers Recognize Palestine As State In Symbolic Vote

PARIS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - French lawmakers on Tuesday urged their government to recognize Palestine, a symbolic move that will not immediately affect France's diplomatic stance but demonstrates growing European impatience with a stalled peace process.

While most developing countries recognize Palestine as a state, most Western European countries do not, supporting the Israeli and U.S. position that an independent Palestinian state should emerge from negotiations with Israel.

Netanyahu warns France ahead of Palestinian state vote

“Do they have nothing better to do at a time of beheadings across the Middle East, including that of a French citizen?” he told reporters in Jerusalem, referring to hiker Herve Gourdel who was executed by his jihadist captors in Algeria in September.

Sweden Recognizes Palestinian State

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden on Thursday became the biggest Western European country to recognize a Palestinian state, prompting a strong protest from Israel, which swiftly withdrew its ambassador from Stockholm.

The move by Sweden's new left-leaning government reflects growing international impatience with Israel's nearly half-century control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and its blockade of the Gaza Strip. It also comes during increased tensions between Arabs and Jews over Israel's plans to build 1,000 housing units in east Jerusalem.

Most Jewish Israelis oppose Palestinian state, new poll shows

A large majority of Jewish Israeli citizens (74 percent) oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 borders, according to a new poll conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a right-wing think tank. The organization also found that 76 percent oppose a Palestinian state if it means dividing Jerusalem.

Why We Need International Recognition of the State of Palestine

Sweden’s recent responsible decision to officially recognize the State of Palestine was quickly followed by the British Parliament’s vote for similar recognition. The Swedish and British moves, clearly grounded in a desire for peace, are a last-ditch effort to save the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. These developments reflect the shift in European public opinion in favor of a free Palestine. The Swedish and British acts, which put new moral pressure on Israel to end the occupation, have created greater space to address a range of unfulfilled Palestinian rights.

Why Canada won’t copy U.K. vote on Palestinian statehood

Days after British lawmakers passed a symbolic motion recognizing Palestine as a state alongside Israel, it doesn’t look like Canada’s Parliament will consider doing the same anytime soon.

The U.K. vote Monday followed a motion put forward by the third-place Labour Party. The motion, amended to say a Palestinian state would only be recognized once peace negotiations have successfully concluded, passed 274 to 12.

Although fewer than half of MPs took part in the vote — Prime Minister David Cameron and his cabinet abstained — and the vote will not alter the government’s stance on the issue, experts say it is still significant as a reflection of shifting public opinion following the war in Gaza.

British MPs Pass Non-Binding Vote To Recognize Palestine

(Reuters) - British lawmakers voted in favour of recognising Palestine as a state on Monday in a move that will not alter the government's stance on the issue, but that carries symbolic value for Palestinians in their pursuit of statehood.

Lawmakers in Britain's lower house of parliament voted by 274 to 12 to pass a non-binding motion stating: "That this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution."

Britain does not classify Palestine as a state, but says it could do so at any time if it believed it would help peace efforts between the Palestinians and Israel. Government ministers were told to abstain and the non-binding vote will not force Britain to recognise a Palestinian state.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: Reuters

Rethinking Israel-Palestine: Beyond Bantustans, Beyond Reservations

As President Barack Obama embarks on his listening tour in the Middle East, he is likely to witness the impact of two decades of the Oslo peace process. Twenty years, dozens of summits and millions of dollars have brought Palestinians and Israel no closer to establishing a viable peace.

The US-brokered agreement has been associated with a mantra of establishing two states for two peoples, living side by side. In fact, Israel has existed as a state since 1948 and Palestinians have remained internally displaced within that state, exiled from it and occupied by it in adjacent territories. More significantly, Jewish Israelis and non-Jewish Palestinians, Israeli citizens and stateless civilians alike, are inextricably populated throughout a single territorial entity under Israeli control. The call for two states is really a call for the separation of two populations based on ethno-national homogeneity. The proposal has failed, not just because of a lack of accountability, but because it is fundamentally flawed. Like prescribing aspirin to deal with cancer, Oslo offered truncated self-rule as a prescription for Jewish-Israeli settler-colonialism and domination.

Obama's Israel Visit: U.S. President Voices Eternal Support For America's Top Mideast Ally

JERUSALEM — Eager to reassure an anxious ally, President Barack Obama on Wednesday affirmed Israel's sovereign right to defend itself from any threat and vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. He said containment of a nuclear-armed Iran was not an option and said the United States would do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from getting "the world's worst weapons."

Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his first visit to the Jewish state as president, Obama offered his personal commitment that the U.S. would stand by Israel in any circumstances that required it to act to protect its people. He said the U.S. and Israel would start talks soon on a new, 10-year security cooperation package to replace one that expires in 2017.

Russell Tribunal's final session renews call for justice in Palestine

The concluding session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine took place in Brussels, March 16 -17. The Tribunal was launched in Brussels in 2009 in the spirit of British philosopher Bertrand Russell, who established the International War Crimes Tribunal to investigate crimes committed in Vietnam and judge them according to international law.

 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine was set up to examine violations of international law that prevent the Palestinian people from exercising their fundamental human rights, including the right to a sovereign state. The aim is thus to examine the various responsibilities that lead to the continued occupation of Palestine by Israel and the factors which maintain the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law that permit the oppression to continue.

Could two become one?

IN 1942, as the Holocaust in Europe was entering its most horrific phase, a pacifist American rabbi called Judah Magnes helped found a political party in Palestine called Ihud. Hebrew for unity, Ihud argued for a single binational state in the Holy Land to be shared by Jews and Arabs. Its efforts—and those of like-minded idealists—came to naught. Bitterly opposed to the partition of Palestine, Magnes died in 1948 just as the state of Israel—the naqba, or catastrophe, to Palestinians—was being born. Decades of strife were to follow.

Brokers of Deceit: As Obama Visits Israel, Scholar Rashid Khalidi on How the U.S. Undermines Peace

As the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq is marked around the world today, President Obama is heading to Israel for the first trip there of his presidency. Obama’s three-day tour also includes stops in the occupied West Bank on Thursday and in Jordan on Friday. The White House has taken pains to play down expectations of Obama’s visit, billing it a "listening tour." Obama’s supporters say that mission reflects the reality of the Middle East conflict, with the United States unable to forcefully change an intractable dispute. But in his new book, the Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi argues that the United States could in fact play a decisive role in achieving Middle East peace if it simply reversed decades of policy backing the Israeli occupation. In "Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East," Khalidi draws on his research as a historian, and on his own experience as an advisor to Palestinian negotiators, to argue that far from being an impartial broker, the United States has effectively acted as Israel’s lawyer.

Video
Source: Democracy Now!
Author: -

How 20 tents rocked Israel: Palestinians take the fight to their occupiers

When the Palestinian leadership won their upgrade to non-member observer status at the United Nations in November, plenty of sceptics on both sides of the divide questioned what practical benefits would accrue to the Palestinians. The doubters have not been silenced yet.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has done little to capitalise on his diplomatic success. There have been vague threats to "isolate" Israel, hesitant talk of "not ruling out" a referral to the International Criminal Court, and a low-key declaration by the Palestinian Authority of the new "state of Palestine".