The Israel lobby has become the cancer that has eaten the very moral fiber of U.S leadership. 90% of the problems faced by U.S in Islamic world is due to its unqualified support for Israel. Yet, no U.S President had the moral courage to stand up to Israel. 1967 was a defining moment, when Arabs faulted and denied statehood to Palestine people by not recognizing a two state solution. Now it is a defining moment for both Israel and U.S. If they fail to see the potential folly of their policies, 20 years down a rough road, Israel would be forced to sign on dotted lines, when China would be the sole super power.

The Palestinian government must be realistic. Leave all your fantasies please and make fundamental decisions which paves way for your future independent state rather than just sitting and wishing about it. There is no question that the international community (except Israel and US) opposes the aggression of Israel and supports the natural rights of Palestinians. You must make two important decisions to secure your future (by this I don’t mean I am discovering America but talking about the timing of such decisions):

(1) If the Palestinian Authority declares its own independent state within the 1967 borders all nations in the UN will recognize the legitimacy of Palestine as an independent state. I am stunned why they don’t do this yet? This will leave Israel with no choice but to agree to recognize the inherent and natural rights of Palestinian people. The legal and international pressure on Israel must dramatically be increased.

(2) Secondly, after declaring independence if the future Palestinian state signs and ratifies the Rome Statute on International Criminal Court it will restrain and hold accountable of any aggression or any war crimes and crimes against humanity to be committed by Israel as in the past.

These two acts of supreme importance to undertaken at the moment. It is the right time to act and if you show laxity in such important decision you will bury any hope for your future!

"Western powers would also find it difficult to refuse recognition of a state declared within the internationally recognized borders of June 4, 1967."

These are definitely NOT internationally recognized borders. This is where the armies happened to be when they stopped fighting in 1948. It is an armistice line. As UN resolutions and bilateral agreements make clear, these are not the borders, and that the borders shall be negotiated.

In any event, Abbas already rejected a state, offered by Olmert at Annapolis, that would have given him basically everything the Palestinians are unilaterally threatening to declare now.

"A declaration of independence would allow the Palestinians to demarcate a state covering territory that best reflects minimal Palestinian requirements -- without having to negotiate those red lines. "

The Palestinians don't want to negotiate (and thus, they are refusing to do so), they want everything they are demanding, and refuse to accept anything less. They have their "minimum requirements", which happen to be equivalent to their "maximal requirements". Any unilateral declaration will in reality be the Palestinians grabbing everything they want landwise, without conceding anything else. When it comes time to negotiate the rest of the issues, it is a near certainly they won't concede any claims there either (for example, they will not get their right of return because they can't force the issue, but they won't drop the claim).

A big sticking point, both for Arafat at Taba and Abbas at Annapolis, is the fact that it is a red line for the Palestinians to acknowledge a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. They will not do it and have rejected deals because of it.

...According to reports in the Israeli press, the proposal presented by Israel would have given the Palestinians 98.5 % of this territory: all of the Gaza Strip, 93% of the West Bank and 5.5% of territory as a land swap that would enlarge Gaza to compensate for the West Bank land Israel intended to annex; in addition, a connecting route between Gaza and the West Bank would be made available.

The Palestinians were quick to reject the Israeli proposal - again an event that apparently went largely unnoticed. Not long afterwards, with new elections already scheduled in Israel, there were rumors that prime minister Olmert and foreign minister Livni intended to make a last-ditch effort to clinch a deal. These rumors have now been confirmed by the long-time Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat during a recent appearance on Al-Jazeera TV.

Erekat acknowledged that Israel had presented the Palestinians with a proposal in November 2008 which "talked about Jerusalem and almost 100% of the West Bank," and he noted that Mahmoud Abbas could have accepted this proposal, just as the "Palestinian negotiators could have given in in 1994, 1998, or 2000." Intriguingly, Erekat then proceeded to reveal what he considered a "secret": he explained why the Palestinians had rejected the recent proposals just like the ones offered in 2000/01 during the negotiations in Camp David and Taba. What prevented an agreement every time - at least according to Erekat - was the Israeli request that the Palestinians acknowledge the central importance of the Temple Mount for Jewish history and religion...

See the whole article here:

http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/warpedmirror/entry/saeb_erekat_s_secret_posted

Israel walked out of the Taba negotiations. The two sides came very close to agreement. They were called off by Israel. Your revisionist history does not hold up.

Palestinian leadership, which was democratically elected, has expressed time and time again the willingness to accept the pre-1967 borders as basis for negotiation. The '67 borders are de facto, refresh yourself with with UN resolution 242.

The Palestinains don;t want to negotiate? It is a matter of record that Mahmoud Abbas participated in 18 years of direct negotiations with seven Israeli governments; all without any settlements freeze which is an Israeli obligation under the roadmap.

What do you suggest, that Abbas should allow settlements to grow for another 18 years? He, along with the rest of the world has wised up to the sneaky, morally reprehensible actions of the Israel government and wants a change to his previous approachs.

During those 18 years, and especially during the Oslo accords when the Israeli agreed to a settlement freeze, the settlements and their associated infrastructure grew exponentially,and now illegal settlers have become terrorists burning land, destroying olive trees, killing Palestinains all without consequence. If it was tht other way around we wouldn;t hear the end of it with all the unending victim rhetoric.

Israel continues to undermine the very credibility to the Middle East peace process, making a mockery of existing agreements and sabotaging all prospects for a return to genuine negotiations

The real question is: when will there finally be an Israeli leadership ready to come to the table, accept international law, and make the concessions necessary for peace? Because the truth is, Israel (and U.S.) rejectionism has been the greatest deterrent to peace over the last 40 years.

If you actually want peace, you don't build illegal settlement colonies in the Palestinian capital or on Palestinian land.

"Israel walked out of the Taba negotiations. The two sides came very close to agreement. They were called off by Israel. Your revisionist history does not hold up."

This New Yorker article is posted on the Saudi embassy's website. Those who are interested can read pages 55-58. Prince Bandar relates what the offer was and the chronology of what happened. It matches what Clinton and Dennis Ross say.

Among other things, Bandar says that the offer was a "remarkable development" which "gave Arafat almost everything he wanted". He says that by refusing, Arafat committed a crime against the Palestinians and the entire region.

If anyone wants to know what happened from the Prince's own mouth, posted on the Saudi embassy's website, they should certainly read this:

http://www.saudiembassy.net/files/PDF/03-ST-Bandar-0324-NewYorker.pdf

1) This capsule history is a blurb from a TV show.

2) Nobody denies they were close. What is misleading about the blurb is that there was no counteroffer after Arafat rejected the offer Bandar described. It implies there was, and is a good example of why people shouldn't get their history via soundbytes.

3) Because the chief Palestinian negotiator said they would have clinched a deal in a matter of weeks, doesn't make it so. Arafat didn't walk away from the offer because of details.

4) In your version, everyone is lying but the Palestinians. The Palestinian negotiators may very well have wanted to accept the offer, but it wasn't their call. It was Arafat's. Even if they disagreed with what he did, they had no choice to spin the result. What is Bandar's motivation to lie? Clinton's? You attack them, but offer no compelling reason why you think they are lying. Bandar has no reason to and Clinton was on his way out regardless.

As it stands today - granting Palestine statehood could very well result in "3rd Infitadah" - another war. Consider - Palestinians and their rowdy rejectionist foreign enablers may indeed estab alliances, bases and military aid with a sovereign Palestine that starts another crises that could end up with Little Satan's Merkava panzers parked amidst smoking craters, a wrecked landscape as barren and desolate as the surface of the moon, in downtown Ramallah, Gaza City and Khan Younis.

And Little Satan may not be too interested in handing it off to anyone, as a new word debuts in the peace process.

Annexation.

A Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence would get them around the real sticking point in the negotiations, that Israel insists that the Palestinians accept the legitimacy of the Israeli state and that any agreement be final. To date, the Palestinians have refused to agree to either of these issues, and have often come out explicitly in rejection of them.

There are some questions that the Palestinian Hallelujah chorus needs to answer:

1. Under a unilateral declaration, what happens to the so-called "right of return"? If they abandon this, then why were they not willing to do so earlier when it might have helped clinch a deal? If they don't, then their declaration will be recognized by all serious observers as just the latest approach to continuing the war against the Jews.

2. What will the Palestinian government do about the settlers? As an independent state, will they sign the Geneva Accord, which would actually prohibit the Palestinians from trying to remove the settlers, or will they refuse to do so, thereby making the Accords inapplicable in their territory? (For the nth time: the Geneva Accord DOES NOT prohibit citizens of an occupying country acquiring real estate in an occupied territory; it DOES prohibit forcible transfer of citizens from their country to anywhere else.)

3. If the newly-created Palestinian state remains irredentist, then its actions will be recognized as aggressive by all serious observers. Invitations to Iran and or Syria to send troops will obviously be met by an Israeli military response, undoubtedly setting off the most disastrous war yet in the Middle East. Is war that you really want?

4. What happens if Israel prevails in the war the Palestinians seem ready to ignite? A renewed ocupation will not be possible.

5. What happens if the Arabs prevail in the war the Palestinians seem ready to ignite? Is genocide an acceptable result for you?

Taken together, these considerations should lead any sane person to recognize that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence is about the worst possible step they can take in these circumstances. Obama may be responsible for putting Abbas into this mess, but Abbas will have to accept responsibility for the consequences if he takes this step.