"only the Security Council, not the General Assembly, can recognize and admit a new state"?

There is a bit correction needs to be made to your above statement given that under the UN Charter, the SC has the power to "recommend" a new member state but it is the General Assembly which has the statutory power to recognize and admit a new member state to the UN.

a unified Palestinian Authority is what is need for statehood a political and military unit for the state of Palestine every country has the right to defend themselves from encroachment which has happen to the Palestinian people since the creation of Israel. its amazing that some claim god gave that land to the Jewish people thats the same story the early Americans used to justify killing the native Americans and enslaving Africans, the former at lest has rockets and old AKs to help them.america needs to quit this "special relationship" with Israel. Issac and Ishmael both came from Abraham and if america has a special relationship because of religious purposes it makes more sense it would be with Muslim countries they didn't have Jesus killed.. #imjustsayin

America’s Fatal Love Affair With Israel Gained Us a Permanent War.

If we had followed George Washington’s advice in his “Farewell Address”, we would not have become involved in the “War on Terror”. I loaded his complete address in my blog and highlighted the parts that are of special interest to Americans that believe in the American limited constitutional republic type of government.

By intervening in the Israel-Muslim conflict, we created the conditions that started the American war with Muslim terrorists. Intervening in other countries always leads to war and enemies. Terrorism is the strategy of the powerless when they fight the powerful. The next step in this permanent war is that terrorists will detonate dirty or conventional nuclear bombs on the NATO countries and America. We have to stop the steps that are leading us to this end and change the strategy to win and end the war before it escalates.

Why are we providing Israel annually with $3.5 billion American taxpayer debt dollars? They are rich and can afford to defend themselves. Israel has nuclear weapons and a strong military; they don’t need our money or participation in this Israeli-Muslim conflict that has been going on even before the founding of Israel in 1948. Why are we paying Egypt annually over $1.5 billion in foreign aid? The American taxpayer is paying foreign aid to many nations, but Communist China has no foreign aid. China buys oil fields, mines and finances the government debts of the American and now European governments. China is obtaining real power and influence by following the policy that George Washington explained in his “Farewell Address” advice to the American people.

The global interventionist policy gained us Israel’s enemies. The terrorist attack on 9/11 is a result of intervening in a conflict that concerns Israelis and Muslims. Osama Bin Laden’s strategy was to draw America into conflict in the Muslim world to bankrupt us like what happened to the former interventionist, expansionist Soviet Union. The Afghanistan war and the many Soviet global interventions bankrupted the Soviet Union and caused its ignoble collapse in 1991. We have been playing Osama’s game since 9/11 and we are losing our wealth and power.

We get most of our oil from Canada and other suppliers that are not in the Middle East. The Communist Chinese announced last year that they now have a controlling interest in Iraqi oil and proudly announced the receipt of the first oil shipments. It is clear that they have a strategy of gaining real power at the expense of the follies of other powers. We are fighting a war against maybe 2,000 Al Qaeda terrorists without a military strategy to win the war. Instead, the military talks about the nonsense of “nation building” and “democracy building” in Iraq and Afghanistan. We just added thousands of new enemies by intervening in Libya. The Libyans that Obama killed have families. Every bomb that falls in the American Muslim war is financed by debt and represents a nail in our coffin. We really know how to win friends and influence people.

An economist estimated that the total cost of the war on terror is $5 trillion. 57% of Americans that are fighting this war are contractors, not military personnel. The war contractors are now a powerful special interest group. They are not likely to voluntarily abandon this lucrative business and join the underpaid and overtaxed American civilian population.

The terrorists have more time and supporters than we have money. To survive we have to stop all interventions and occupations in the world. We must defend our borders and attack only targeted actual terrorists. This total divorce from the world's problems will eventually cause the terrorists to focus on their own internal affairs because they will see that America is out of their area and that it's in their best interest to end terrorism against America to keep us out. This is the only way to end this permanent war before we enter the terminal stage of our economic and social cancer.

The $1.65 Trillion dollars out of a budget of $3.7 Trillion, that the Federal government has to beg and borrow this year and every year, should not be spent on war contractor profits and foreign affairs. Confront reality; The USA is the largest debtor in world history. The annual national current account balance losses are over $700 billion (this is wealth that is lost according to the formula national assets-liabilities). Industry is only 9% of the economy. According to the official government statistics, 36% of males 16 to 64 years old are permanently out of the labor force and don't count. The Federal, State and local governments must reduce their size by 37% to fit actual taxes. There are not enough taxpayers to support this huge government of over 20 million people and an equal number of people that are employed by dependent government contractors. Taxes are too high already. Most taxpayers are struggling with increasing local property tax increases and the rising cost of living.

We need to re-industrialize to become financially and politically independent from the global corporations and special interests. America has to nation build to restore its prosperity. 47% of American households are too poor to be legally obligated to pay income taxes. American owned companies cannot compete with imported global corporate products made with cheap labor. We cannot survive competing with Chinese that earn $200 a month.

Focus on our own problems, end globalization, mass immigration and re-industrialize with free enterprise competitive American owned companies before we become another failed state. Stop voting for the two political parties that ruined America. Choose independent politicians and change them when they sell out to the special interest groups. Constitutional government must represent national interests that include corporations, the rich, the middle class and the poor.

Roman Gil
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com

Honestly, I never understand the ridiculous claim by Israel and its supports who argue that how can Israel negotiate with a unified Palestinian Authority, when Hamas is avowed to its destruction? Come on, how can a small group of people with no real arms and opportunities destroy the most power country and military in the Middle East – Israel? Is not Israel committed to the destruction of Gaza by economic and military blockade of the enclave? And the colonization of the West Bank? And the denial of the Palestinian people of the right to self-determination? What is the name of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, except the word of destruction? The 60 years of colonisation and apartheid policy and the Palestinian papers are the proof of it.

As noted by Einstein there are not limits of human stupidity really in making such exaggerated, unbased claims and propoganda to keep destroying the Palestinian people and their aspirations.

The recent stage-managed press conference in the Oval Office dramatically illustrated Netanyahu's peace proposal that is a formula for war. The LIkud coalition of which Netanyahu is prime minister (and the rabid, extremist right-wing, Avigdor Lieberman, is foreign secretary), has an agenda for a 'greater Israel' that includes the 'transfer' of all Arabs out of the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The accepted term for this policy is ethnic-cleansing and Likud is committed to it - which is why Netanyahu nearly chokes on the phrase 'Palestinian State'. He knows, as all Israel knows, that Netanyahu and Likud will NEVER agree to a Palestinian state. They know it, everyone knows it yet we continue with this comic tragic charade.

Israel's strategy is time and prevarication in order to build more illegal settlements, more 'facts on the ground' to which he can point to innocently and say that surprisingly the demographics have changed, so it is not possible for us to return to the 1967 borders!

Netanyahu has already had a coronary at the mere mention of "based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps".

And the reason why his head exploded so spectacularly is simplicity itself: under that equation he could only acquire that oh-so-important 4-6% of the West Bank if he is willing to swap 4-6% of israeli territory to get it.

He will not tolerate that i.e. he will insist on those settlement blocs, and he will insist on getting them free of charge.

You are deluding yourself if you think otherwise.

...and one goal only; the total destruction of Israel. All talk of peace is just taqqiya, deception, a con game to shake down the West for billions of dollars in aid that only benefit the few, the powerful, and leave the many in perpetual misery, and hatred... Only useful idiots believe otherwise.

The simple fact is that most of what's wrong in the American economy can be attributed to the policy of high entitlements. The share of federal outlays going to the central entitlement programs increased from about 5% in the 1960s to around 60% today, and is on a trajectory that could take it past 90% within five years, even assuming the current economic downturn has ended. The government cannot survive with that kind of financial commitments, so there must be a major change here, and soon. Obama, however, is committed to growing the entitlement programs.

The role of trade should be addressed by imposing a tax that would "internalize" all the current externalities. These includes costs for pollution abatement, securing supplies of imported materials, and health problems arising out of the manufacture, consumption, or disposition of waste, etc. By having products priced at what it actually costs to produce them, we can get the economy to start sending the proper signals to consumers, business, and government. Would it still make sense to import manufactured goods from Asia if the full cost of transportation, including the military costs involved in securing fuel supplies, were part of the products' prices? If so, then there is a competitive advantage that should be accepted. If not, then we have been subsidizing the undermining of our own productive base. Voters need to grow up and realize that politicians who promise them ever more goodies are actually undermining the strength of the nation.

Domestically, we have to focus on education for a productive workforce and not for political correctness. This will require recognizing that there are differences between the potential of students, and that those who are at the top make a disproportionate contribution to the welfare of the nation. If we want to become economically competitive, we must focus educational resources there and not on trying to bring the bottom up to some perceived entitled level -- for many school systems, the cost of educating the lowest-functioning 1% of students is roughly what they pay to educate the top 20%.

Health care costs are rising largely because they are usually not paid out of pocket. The availability of other people's money, whether from government or from insurance, encourages overconsumption of health care services and enables the providers to charge whatever they want. There is no "budget line" in the health care industry, which enables the price increase. If people had to pay their own costs, they would have to consider costs against benefits. This would probably lead to a change to a healthier lifestyle and would bring the growth in health-care costs to an end.

Israel needs to understand that taking the issue to the UN for a unilateral solution has always been the Palestinian strategy and thus that the negotiations have never been anything more than a delaying tactic to enable them to prepare world opinion to support them. That said, how should Israel respond?

First, Israel needs to make this case to the United States, the Europeans and then the rest of the non-Muslim world. Since going to the UN demonstrates that the Palestinians have never been serious about the discussions -- can it possibly get them anything legitimate that they could not have obtained by negotiating seriously? -- it means that they have been lying to Obama and the other world leaders. For Obama, the point is that they have been playing him for a fool, and given Obama's self-image, that should enable even him to see past his ideological blinders.

Contrary to what several posters claim, Israel has been serious about finding a solution, but every effort has been thwarted by an Arab refusal to accept that whatever agreements were reached would constitute the end of the conflict. In effect, the Arabs have never been willing to discuss anything beyond an Israeli surrender to lines from which the war against Israel would resume. The recent truce between Fatah and Hamas has simply made this more obvious.

The settlements have always been at best a tertiary issue, far less central than the issue of whether the Arabs/Muslims are prepared to accept self-government by a regional minority. Abbas has insisted that his Palestine must be judenrein, largely to confuse this issue; accepting a Jewish minority in his state would remove the issue of settlements from the agenda since their presence would no longer be salient to where the borders would go. Obama may now realize that his initial infatuation with the settlements undermined the negotiations, but cannot bring himself to admit this because it makes him look stupid.

When the time comes, Israel should sponsor three amendments to the proposal:

1) That the refugees thereby relinquish any claim to a "right of return," since they are presumed to be the citizens of that state of Palestine.

2) That the assertion of borders by the Palestinian state constitutes a renunciation of any territory beyond its claimed borders.

3) That the Palestinian state be required to negotiate seriously to resolve all outstanding issues between them and Israel.

All of these proposals will be voted down, so it will become obvious that the move to the UN is part of a war process rather than a peace process. That should put those states that have backed the Palestinians in the belief that doing so would lead to peace on notice that they have made a serious diplomatic error and that a change of course is required.

And when the inevitable war results from this Palestinian maneuver, the Western states who backed it will have no-one to blame but themselves.

Clinton's free trade policies did not generate work. The result was a temporary mirage. People borrowed on the value of their assets such as easily available real estate sázkové kanceláre to obtain spending money and that is what drove the economy for a few years. The reason job growth declined at the end of that era and into the Bush II world was because the jobs were moving overseas. The temporary debt driven economic boom was a mirage doomed to collapse.How to restore out industrial base is the problem not faced by Democrats or Republicans. The Green Economy is a farce. There are not sázkové kancelá?e enough [products, not enough demand, etc to generate more than a blip in growth, if that. Obama's drive for import growth is just as farcical. If the Chinese can build product cheaper, what make him think by declaring them to be imports we can suddenly make them at a lower cost and therefore make American manufactured goods suddenly cost effective.