The International Relations Center features a report on the FDD on its "Right Web" website, which seeks to "check the militaristic drift of the country." The report states that "although the FDD is an ardent critic of terrorism, it has not criticized actions taken by Israel against Palestinians that arguably fall into this category." It terms the FDD a "prominent member of the web of neoconservative-aligned think tanks," including the American Enterprise Institute, Hudson Institute and Freedom House. Left-wing writer Jim Lobe, writing in the Asia Times, referred to the FDD as a group "whose views largely mirror those of Israel's ruling Likud Party," and said that the FDD's board of advisors includes "prominent neo-cons and Iraq war boosters." The American Conservative published an article accusing it of being funded mainly by a small number of pro-Israel hawks, as well as being engaged in "spin". It is listed as a "pro-war" organization by globalsecurity.org with regard to its stance on Iran's nuclear program, and has been described as one of the "top neocon think tanks" by the Christian Science Monitor.

FDD's president is Clifford D. May. FDD's executive director is Mark Dubowitz. FDD’s Leadership Council is composed of prominent thinkers and leaders from the defense, intelligence, and policy communities including Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes (!), Bill Kristol (!!!), Louis J. Freeh, Joseph Lieberman, Newt Gingrich (!!!!!), Max Kampelman, Robert McFarlane, and James Woolsey.

The members of FDD's Board of Advisors are Gary Bauer, Rep. Eric Cantor (LOL), Gene Gately, General P.X. Kelley, Charles Krauthammer (...lol), Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland, Richard Perle, Steven Pomerantz, Oliver "Buck" Revell, and Francis J. "Bing" West.

Israel lobby? What Israel lobby?

...and he thinks the Palestinians should know their place.

And their place in the world is to be mediaval serfs to their Israeli overlords i.e. they have no "rights" until/unless Israel agrees that they can. And if Israel does not agre, well, that's where the word "warlords" comes in.

How depressingly predictable.

You know, you could read this "analysis" and *almost* fail to notice that the Palestinians are under an Israeli belligerent occupation, and that Israel is therefore *not* their sovereign and, therefore, they do *not* need Israel's permission-slip before declaring their independence.

Here's a thought: can you "go to war" on someone that you are already holding under a "belligerent occupation"?

I believe that the answer to that is: yeah, you can, if you are willing to commit a war of aggression against them.

Let's hope ol' Netanyahu remembers what happened to Saadam Hussein and Slobodan Milisovic when they thought that "wars of aggression" were a walk in the park....

Let's hope Obama has the guts to tell Israel to take a hike. Step away, quit protecting Israel and let the cards fall where they will in the international community. Here is a country that puts walls around its neighbors and restricts their freedoms, imports and exports. Humm, sounds very similar to what the Germans did to Jews. Here is a country that believes Jewish people have a right to retrieve lost property taken during WWII, but denies that right to people it takes land and property from in the Middle East. Here is a country that declares itself the only Democracy in the Middle East, but denies equal rights, civil rights and access to justice to the people it lords over. Here is a country that kills, bombs and destroys its neighbors in a ratio of 10-20 for every Israeli that dies and constantly requests the world to feel sorry for what suffering of Israeli's. I'm fed up with Israel, will not support it and I write my Congressman regularly to protest every vote he casts in support of Israel. I encourage all good Americans to do the same.

Since Eric Cantor believes Israel is more important than America, let's see if we can't make sure he is voted out next election. We need people in Congress who represent Americas interests, not Israels.

this article lacks any analysis. It sounds as a direct warning from the Israeli government. Don't declare a state or else!!!

1. Palestine is a state. Occupied.
2. Territory occupation means war.
3. Settlements in occupied territories means war.
4. Who choose to live in occupied territories knows the risks.
5. Open support for the Palestinian state is increasing as US power is fading.
6. FP shouldn’t publish one-sided journalism.

I seem to recall they actually threatened to do that once.

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The strong always suppress the weak, and when the two fight overe the same land the latter is, well, wiped out. Israel and the US are one in wantinf to wipe out the Palestinianb, note the rabid anti Palestinian majority in Congress, and the the Likudist bias of the majoroty of the US evangelicals. So two state solution is one above the ground and one below the ground. Guess who is almost in the grave.
The question now is what how will the 4-5 million new Palestians refugees will do.
Two things are sure: the US will be spending $trillions to support Israel land grabbing and mass expulsions, and Avigdor Lieberman will succeed Nuttyahoo and be invited to address a joint session of Congress where he will get a multitude of standing ovations. Appropriate for a former brotthel guard in the house of whores.

Sic transit gloria

If the most literate Arabs ever on the face of the earth (your choice - the Strip or the West Bank) pounding their AKM's, K'Ssams, K'Tushahs and K'GRADs into laptops and stripper poles in a joyous celebration of a fully functional democracy where fun and free choice reign instead of ye olde whee tarded shame, honor, gendercide and revenge meme driven parasite enclaves with rocket rich rejectionists and West Bank victimisticism, that would be sweet!

Does any serious thinking person seriously think this would happen? We know what future Palestine would look like and most likely 2 brand new baby nation states - for whatever reasons (though failure to enforce Writ of State ala Land of the Pure certainly comes to mind) - will ignite the ignition on another war that will time machine the entire AO right back to Little Satan's accidental empire.

Or even worse for the Palestines - such combatty ops could actually result in a Greater Little Satan that may not be particularly interested in right of returning turf won yet again after eons of misery, on again off diplomacy and terrorism.

No matter what method is used - negotiated or unilaterally declared - there will be no peace. The Palestinian charter declares that Israel has no right to exist. Palestinians only use negotiations to gain more concessions that will help them on their road to the destruction of Israel.

They rejected peace efforts every time launching violence.

If they wanted their own state, they would have capitalized on Israeli withdrawl from Gaza rather then increase rocket fire.

Wake up! Israeli "occupation" and settlements did not exist prior to Arab attacks on Israel.

Abbas could have had his settlement freeze if he acknowledged 2 states for 2 people means a Jewish state and a Palestinian state.

He does not want this.

Israel will continue to defend itself against attacks by all means necessary.

You want to stop the occupation? Stop the violence. A vast majority of Israelis will gladly pull out of the West bank for peace.

Palestinians dont want peace, they want Israel's destruction.

And so the cycle continues.

Contributors who suggest that a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians is somehow parallel to israel's 1948 declariaton of independence miss a significant detail: The UN had authorized the establishment of Israel while the Palestinians committed themselves to NOT doing exactly this when the Oslo process started. For the taqiyya masters on this blog, this matters little, for serious people, it is fundamental.

Other contributors like to draw a paraellel to the end of apartheid in South Africa, but again there are profound differences. Black South Africans weren't ideologically committed to the annihilation of white South Africans, while the Palestinians are ideologically committed to the annihilation of the Jews, as spokepeople for Hamas make a point of repeating rather frequently. This is why the one-state solution is another prelude to war.

Those who favor the unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood have three important questions to address:

1. The proposal that the state be within the boundaries of 1967 raises the interesting question of which boundaries? If the intent is of the Palestinian state, then Israel should agree immediately, since there was no such state in 1967. Israel had no eastern boundary, just an armistice line, and turning an armistice line into a boundary requires agreement. Meanwhile, asserting the 1967 line requires the proposed state of Palestine to recognize the existence of the state across that border. Will they? If not, then their claim about the 1967 border is a fraud.

2. Declaring a state puts an end to the "right of return" because a state cannot demand that people it claims as its citizens have the right to go to some other state's territory. If the Palestinian state rejects the refugees as its citizens, then in what sense are the Palestinians a people?

3. International law makes residents of the territory claimed by a state at its establishment citizens of that state, unless those citizens choose to reject it. Thus, a unilateral declaration would make those Jews living in the settlements citizens of the Palestinian state and any attack on them would be a matter of ethnic cleansing. Are the Palestinians ready to accord citizenship rights to these Jews?

In each case, if the Palestinians are prepared to make the concessions required of them in their unilaterally-declared state, they should also be prepared to make the same concessions in the negotiations, giving their state a chance to succeed. But they haven't been willing to negotiate at all, so we must assume they will violate their obligations under international law and enter existence as a criminal state.

The root problem remains the refusal to agree that Jews will have the rights Muslims claim for themselves.

I cannot see how China is all ready and gung-ho to let Taiwan and Tibet make the same declarations, which is the precedent that the Palestinians would set. Same thing for Kashmir. So too do you open a bucket of worms in Cyprus.
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Likewise, the Palestinian declaration would seem to abrogate the UNSC agreements 242 and 338. i.e. land for peace.
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The Palestinian Authority appears to be attempting another run at the 3 no's of Khartoum. No peace, no recognition, no normalization.
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Setting up states is not a simple or easy venture. Look at the trouble Somaliland is going through in its attempt to seperate from Somolia.
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Palestinians should declare (non-violently) their state within the UN's 1967 borders.

A number of countries are ready to recognize same. Others, in due time, will find such attractive, make declarations. World opinion rests with the Palestinians.

Enough bullying, foolishness, occupation another's lands, peoples.

Time and our world move on. Other problems await our problem solvers.

Peace

The author makes a few good points.

He may be right. the 400,000 Israelis who have "settled" in occupied Palestine will probably not leave without a fight and they most likely would not wish to remain there and become second-class citizens in a Palestinian state - like Arab Israelis in Israel.

The Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine never agreed to the UN partition ; likewise, the Israeli "settlers" would never agree to UN "unilateral" recognition of a Palestinian state, with pre-war (1967) borders. War could result.

The only alternative left is the one-state solution; a scheme in which the WB and Gaza (and the northern buffer strip?) are all consensually annexed into Israel proper - with the stipulation that everyone living there becomes a full-rights Israeli citizen. Of course, neither side likes this pragmatic idea...neither side is known for its tolerance concerning the other.

If Israel truly is a secular and pluralistic democracy, as claimed, then a bi-national state is a viable option. If Israel is actually a Jewish theocracy and not a true democracy, then the "bi-national state solution" is a fanciful notion.

The US should bow out of the Israel/Palestine negotiating business and let the UN decide.

Obama's overly generous offer for a 90-day freeze was rejected by the reluctant Israelis - we tried, now, let them eat cake.

i'm surprised nobody's quoting scripture

I fully agree with your assessment, MM.

If Americans only knew, or realized that these large Israeli settlement blocks in the OT are for Jews only, they might see the parallel with the Jim Crow period in the American south.

Of course, the born-again Christians who populate the former confederacy might not find Jim Crow all that offensive, especially when practiced by the Chosen People in the Promised Land.

A one-state solution does not fit in well with end-times Scriptural prophecies, ergo, American born-agains will reject such a practical solution....they are trying to expedite Armageddon and the Rapture.

If American Christians realized that state-sponsored, Israeli abortion mills terminate tens of thousands of Israeli pregnancies every year, in contravention of the Hyde Amendment, their ardor and zeal for Zionism might fade quickly. The MSM never runs a story about the Israeli abortion mills...it would not be good for business....Americans are kept in the dark on that one.

Please, google my username and visit my Livejournal blog site.

I'm surprised nobody is trying to relate to what's actually going on around here (I'm writing from the library of Hebrew U in Jerusalem).

1. I appreciate Mr Schantzer trying to hold up the Israeli end, but actually I think a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood would be a big mistake on their part and I don't mind if they make it.

2. There'll be no war in the area Abbas nominally controls because the Palestinians had a war there in 2000-2005 and became sick of it. Now they are enjoying a little peace and quiet and mainly want to make money, which is OK by me and most Israelis. Gaza is a different story of course, its capital is Teheran.

3. Israel's Jews aren't interested in having more Palestinian citizens. They want to live in a Jewish state. They want the Palestinians to run their own affairs and not bother Israel. More and more, this is actually happening.

4. Behold the amazing vanishing occupation. In almost all places where Palestinians live they do run their own affairs, including their sweet little corruption rackets, police themselves, tax themselves, etc. Israeli army presence in these parts of the West Bank is minimal and could go to zero tomorrow, except at the border crossings. But if the Palestinians leave Israel alone Israelis will be happy to leave them alone, with or without a formal agreement. Of course, the professional Palestinian propagandists here would rather commit shuhada than admit it.

6. Of course Abbas wants to undermine Israel's existence but he's impotent to achieve that. The only real issue that remains to be resolved is where the de facto border between Israel and the Palestinian-controlled areas runs.

7. If Abbas declares "independence" unilaterally, well, unilateralism works both ways. Israel can simply take what it wants and leave what it doesn't want--Palestinian population areas. If Abbas wants to challenge this situation he'll have to pick up the phone and negotiate. You think the Europeans are going to get Israel out of areas it annexes through pleading and sanctions? Dream on, bub. They don't have the conviction, especially if Abbas goes unilateral.

8. Some historical and legal notes. No state now is sovereign between the 1967 lines and the Jordan. The 1948 partition plan died when the Arabs rejected it so Johnboy's and Marty24's argument over the issue is irrelevant. Regarding the disposition of future sovereignty in this area, the only relevant international norm is the terms of the 1922 mandate, which set the entire area aside for the creation of a Jewish national homeland. So Israel's claim to the territory is as valid as anyone else's. Of course, as I wrote above, Israel has no interest in claiming the areas where the Palestinians actually live. This still leaves between 40% and 60% of Judaea and Samaria (there, I used the term) where the Palestinians ain't. Israelis have no moral, legal or pragmatic reason to refrain from claiming these areas.

9. Of course, I don't think Israel should recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence. This is the Middle East, if you want something you have to bargain for it.

The settlers have never had any legal right to build on that land, and they deserve to be sent home.

This current scenario is actually pretty workable. Palestine declares a state on 67 borders. This topples the various obfuscations of the actual situation, especially after a majority of nations on earth agree to recognize Palestine. Israels initial refusal to acknowledge reality will then be met with a VERY serious world wide boycott, sanction, and divestment campaign that will be driven by this new and better "fact on the ground".

Will there be violence in the interim? That's entirely up to Israel, but when the Palestinians declare a 67 borders state, the game is over anyways.

A declaration of Independence is by it's very nature unilateral. Look up the word independence. It requires no one's approval. It would be contrary to the very notion of independence.

What IS required is that the declaring entity be free of control by any other entity in order that a Declaration of Sovereign Independence become effective. Then and only then can other countries grant recognition. (Look for the word 'will' in statements by Sth American Govts)

The establishment of the State of Israel gives a primary example "The Act of Independence will become effective at one minute after six o’clock on the evening of 14 May 1948, Washington time.” when the League of Nations Mandate expired and British occupation ended.

In order that a Palestinian Declaration of Independence come into effect, Israel will be required to WITHDRAW.

To withdraw Israel must finally admit to having and recognize it's OWN actual Sovereign territories. Remembering of course that the frontiers of the other states in the region were all set before Israel declared. So if it isn't the actual Sovereign territory of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt or Israel, it's Palestinian territory.

Therein lies Israel's biggest self created 'fact on the ground' dilemma. It has never legally annexed any territories.

The territories acquired by war by 1949 and described by the Provisional Government to the UNSC on May 22nd 1948 and 15 Jun 1949 as OUTSIDE OF ISRAEL and the "territories occupied" in '67 and never un-occupied, have ever been legally annexed to Israel.

There are MILLIONS of Israeli's unwittingly living outside of the actual extent of Israeli Sovereignty. Not just a few hundred thousand illegal settler in the West Bank and East Jerusalem

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"A declaration of statehood without Israeli approval could start a war in which the Palestinians themselves would pay the highest price. ."

Oh? Who would be responsible for such a war? A Declaration of Independence is not 'casus belli' . It's not an act of war.

Unless the newly declared state attacks territory actually Sovereign to the State of Israel, it will have every right to attempt to expel Israeli forces and call upon the UNSC and Regional Powers for support.

If Israel continues to refuse to comply with International Law it might itself in the same position as Indonesia when East Timor declared, staring at the barrel of a UNSC coalition.

Even if Israel does comply with International Law, there will very likely be an Israeli civil war, as it struggle to undo it's short sighted and illegal 'facts on the ground'.

Unlike any other civil war in history (?), it would be fought to a large degree, OUTSIDE OF Israeli Sovereignty. In 'territories occupied" and never un-occupied, in illegally annexed territories and in territories acquired by war and never legally annexed.

In which case, the other Regional Powers and the UNSC can be legitimately brought into play completely at odds with Israel and completely favoring the Palestinian state States acting outside of the extent of their sovereignty are subject to the UN/UNSC under the UN Charter

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"If the Palestinian government unilaterally claims land where an estimated 400,000 Israeli settlers currently reside in the West Bank"

That'd be ILLEGALLY reside...It quite simply IS NOT Israeli territory - UNSC Res 1960 (of 2009) ever read it? It IS Palestinian territory.

".. don't expect them simply to pull up and move, especially if they were not consulted on the matter"

ILLEGAL settlers have no say in the matter, they're not citizens of Palestine.

". Expect them to fight"

Israel has a duty to evacuate them or they could chose to become Palestinians IF the Palestinians agree. If they arm themselves, they are valid military targets. If they resist the Israeli Government it is civil war, OUTSIDE OF ISRAEL

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"The territory in question includes both the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-led West Bank, with the presumption (no doubt invoking the ire of Hamas) that the West Bank leadership would be in charge"

How does the author get to write for a foreign Policy outfit when he has no idea of how states are formed? Look to the establishment of the State of Israel.

A declaration of Independence is not made by a political party. It is made by a non-political body such as the Jewish People's Council. It is made on behalf of ALL the people in the territory being declared regardless of their political persuasions. (The Israeli declaration was unique, it was declared on behalf of the World's Jewish population regardless of where they lived or their citizenship)

Such a body only exists for the purposes of declaring and instituting a Provisional Government until such time as a system of Government is decided upon and a Government is elected or put into place.

1) The State is declared. 2) A system of Governance is instituted 3) a state Government is put into place.

Hamas and/or Fatah will have to stand for election. No doubt other parties will also arise.

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"From there, a border dispute with Israel becomes inevitable. And in the Middle East, border disputes are not settled through binding arbitration"

Twaddle ... read the Israel/Egypt Peace agreement. Especially the parts where Israel is required to withdraw BEFORE peaceful relations resume. http://wp.me/PDB7k-Y#Peace-Egypt-Israel

Border 'disputes' come about when states claim already defined borders. The disputes are about exactly where. If Israel claims no set borders between itself and Palestine (which is of course heifer sh*te) , how can it dispute where they are?