No, it's not because of AIPAC, or Zionist conspiracies.

When mainstream Americans go to church on Sunday, they hear stories of the Israelites. For many of these mainstream Americans, no distinction is made; they consider Jews and Americans to be the same people.

And no wonder. The Ten Commandments are the basis of our legal system. We are descendants of the Judeo-Christian philosophy. People know that an uneducated Jew is nary to be found almost anywhere in the world, and if a person was lost in the desert and happened upon a group of Jews, he would be among friends.

They also see Israelis at the forefront of the same war we are fighting, against Islamofascism.
If AIPAC disappeared, no doubt the trolls on this board would find some other aspect of the Jewish community to despise. I'm very disappointed to learn how ignorant much of ForeignPolicy's readership really is, and I must give some consideration to spending my time writing any more of these comments. Perhaps I will let you lowlifes stagnate in your own sorry filth.

I do derive some solace from the knowledge that most of you lead unfulfilling lives, which is the only way to explain the constant stream of hate which you thrust upon us on an hourly basis.

I feel quite sorry for most of you, and hope you someday learn to love.

The Romans had renamed the region "Palestina" as an insult to its overwhelmingly Jewish residents over 2000 years ago. The name "Palestina" means Philistine--none of which are PA Arabs. "Palestine" was not and is not a state.
Those who are currently demanding statehood via bid at the UN have not acquired its prerequisites, no matter how vehemently they may be predisposed

Hamas rules Gaza and Abbas is afraid to visit. They are not about to reconcile. So who is supposed to lead the single state? Elections are overdue.

Hamas rules Gaza and Abbas is afraid to visit. They are not about to reconcile. So who is supposed to lead the single state? Elections are overdue.

The Palestinian Authority is seeking recognition as the sovereign state of Palestine. A sovereign state is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relationswith other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither dependent on nor subject to any other power or state.

1) The Palestinian Authority does not exercise sovereignty over Gaza. It's where Hamas rules. After Hamas came to power in 2006

2) As a government, all of its elected officials are acting without legal authority because the terms for which they were elected have all expired. As a government, the PA has had virtual autonomy since 1992 when Israel withdrew most of its troops from the West Bank and Gaza. Israel controlled the borders and to a certain degree kept the PA from importing large caliber weapons. Yet they were not able to build a society without extensive foreign aid, and can not even to this day.

3) The PA has demonstrated that it cannot enter into relations with other sovereign states. Although the PA is legally obligated to stop hatred and incitement against Jews in the Oslo Accords, the opposite has taken place. It has repeatedly violated the terms of the Oslo accords with Israel by its continuous incitement of hatred against Jews and Israelis in its state controlled television and press; by training children as young as thirteen years old in summer camps to ambush Jews; to inspire children, even toddlers, to strap explosives themselves in order to kill Jews and Israelis. Over the years, the PA has launched thousands of terror attacks against Israel, over 450 in 2002 alone. The results of years of breeding hatred have created a culture where terrorists can slay a Jewish family in their sleep, and slit the throat of a 3 month old in their crib, and Palestinians celebrate by distributing candy.

These acts are also in violation of the 1949 "Draft Declaration on Rights and Duties of States" and demonstrate its incapacity or unwillingness to abide by the basic tenets of international law.
Article 3: Every State has the duty to refrain from intervention in the internal or external affairs of any other State.
Article 4: Every State has the duty to refrain from fomenting civil strife in the territory of another State, and to prevent the organization within its terri- tory of activities calculated to foment such civil strife.
Article 6: Every State has the duty to treat all persons under its jurisdiction with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. - The PA has declared that there will be no Jews in Palestine.

The PA certainly doesn't meet three of the four requirements for sovereignty nor will it abide by at least three of the Articles in the "Draft Declaration on Rights and Duties of States". But there's another issue, at least as important, and that's a moral one.

Palestinians celebrated 9/11 with candy, gunfire and cheers. Palestinians similarly celebrated the murder of an Israeli family of four, including a three month old baby whose throat was slit. The Protocols of Zion, the anti-Semitic fantasy, has long been a best seller among them. Before the latest Mickey Mouse knockoff on Hamas TV teaching toddlers to blow themselves up in order to kill Jews, the Palestinian "Children's Hour" offered the same fare. And a taste of the Friday mosque sermons would make you vomit.

Palestinians want the destruction of Israel, not a two state solution, the fig leaf offered to cover this UN action. Destruction is explicitly stated in the Charter of Hamas, now part of the Palestinian National Authority and also tacitly the foundation of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas. In December 2006, Ismail Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the PA, declared that the PA will never recognize Israel: "We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem." Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Al-Zahar's criticism of Abbas underscores a major Israeli concern – that Abbas is trying to hoodwink the international community into believing the PA will agree to co-exist with Israel knowing full well Hamas is waiting in the wings.

Then there's Gaza. After Israel uprooted its own citizens and left Gaza in 2005, Palestinians focused their attention on continuing the war instead of building a civil society. More rockets fell on Israel than before. As a gesture of good will, American Jews provided $14 million worth of new greenhouses to supplement the ones Israel left behind that already provided 20% of Israel's agriculture, worth $75 million annually. After Israel's withdrawal, Palestinians pillaged and destroyed over 800 of the 4,000 or so greenhouses. And of course they torched the abandoned Synagogues.

As a lesson to be learned about the prospects of a Palestinian state, until Israel's Operation Cast Lead at the end of 2008, 1,750 rockets and 1,528 mortar bombs fired from the Gaza Strip struck southern Israel. Mercifully, there were relatively few casualties but the impact of the daily barrage of rockets was debilitating. The tactics are termed "terrorism" for a reason. Studies have documented an entire generation of children traumatized by the terror of rocket strikes and the helplessness of adults to ensure their safety. You can see videos on the web of parents and school children fleeing with only three minutes to find shelter. And to think that Israel continued to provide electricity to Gaza during Operation Cast Lead while Hamas was using the electricity to make rockets and mortars for use against Israeli civilians.

In 2006, a majority of Palestinians in Gaza voted for Hamas which campaigned on a pledge of clean government and of seeking Israel's destruction, and passed over other political parties which also pledged clean government but also peace with Israel. While those other parties were weak (Independent Palestine and The Third Way garnered only 16% of the vote), one could surmise that if peace were the popular sentiment, they might have made a better showing, or another stronger party would have emerged. The voters knew the consequences but made their choice anyway, and indeed it led to an international boycott of Hamas. Especially the EU's blaming the US and Israel for the results only infantilizes the Palestinian polity. A majority of Palestinians and Hamas still harbor the deluded dream of destroying Israel, a fact no apologist can erase. A 2009 report by the Palestinian Center for Policy & Survey Research noted that the level of support for armed attack against Israeli civilians inside Israel was 67% supporting and 31% opposed by all Palestinians.

By contrast, Israel has created a thriving democracy with its Arab and other minorities fully participating. Eleven Arabs are members of the Knesset, judges and even Israel's miss universe contestant. Israel's scientists have been awarded five Nobel prizes in medicine, science and economics. It has sent medical teams to Indonesia and Haiti to help victims of natural disasters. It has made the desert flourish and shared their know how with the world.

So if the Palestinians deserve a state on par with Israel, is there no depravity that would deny a petitioner for statehood, or are the depraved exonerated by having Israel and Jews as targets?

The UN cannot confer statehood to the Palestinians without violating its own charter and international law. To do so would only impair its own legitimacy and embolden those who seek to destroy Israel. It won't work, of course, even though Israel might pay a heavy price. But maybe that's the UN's goal. In any case, as Eric Hoffer said in 1968 "I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.

For forty some years, I wrote the editors and more recently blogged, that Israel needs a just, sustainable, and mutually agreed peace with the Palestinians to long survive. A temporary military superiority and dependence upon the US for categorical support, well history shows these things come and go.

COMETLINEAR, as a typically ardent Zionist poster, finds great emotional disturbance in such a position. He writes: "I do derive some solace from the knowledge that most of you lead unfulfilling lives, which is the only way to explain the constant stream of hate which you thrust upon us on an hourly basis."

So apparently, if we had fulfilling lives, there would be no valid basis for objection to unending war in the middle east. Being mere hater and all. This is simply self-delusional.

As a FACTUAL matter (see below) it is highly dubious there now can ever be a peaceful settlement.

1) The two state solution is foreclosed by forty years of illegal annexations and forced colonization of the West Bank. This process continues apace. This solution is infeasible now. See a map of the settlements.

2) The one state solution (unitary democratic and non-sectarian) confronts the issue of an absolute political sovereignty based on race. A "Jewish" state. A master race. This is clearly a racist formulation. The Palestinians from whom the land was stolen, they should not have equal rights in a one state solution? Just why exactly? Not “chosen” by Jehovah?

3) An Apartheid solution cannot be sustained. The second class conditions of Palestinians within Israel proper, denied such as building permits and sewer connections or employment on an equal basis, with homes subject to arbitrary demolition for new "settlements" etc., the third class conditions of those in the West Bank, penned in like animals by vast concrete walls, whose vehicles are subject to immediate and non-recourse confiscation if they even drive on the roads, and the fourth class conditions of those unfortunates in the Gaza ghetto, subject to white phosphorous bombing and mass death and devastation as in Operation Cast Lead, all of this just cannot be sustained. To any but a Zionist, this is clearly an Apartheid state.

4) The “population transfer” solution in Zionist speak (expulsion of millions of Palestinians to Jordan at the point of a bayonet) is simply not feasible either. No solution there.

5) The Palestinian cause and demands for justice, including the same right of return that the Jews maintain, has the full backing of a quarter of all humanity, being the entire Muslim world, and much of the rest. The de-legitimization of Israel continues apace.

6) All the vast military power and all the nuclear weapons of Israel are useless to resolve this impasse. The cancer is internal, political, economic, demographic, and is growing.

It appears to me and many, that the only thing that could break this impasse would be the formal recognition of the State of Palestine in the United Nations. Palestine would then have standing for bring such as Israeli Apartheid to the ICC in the Hague.

We shall see how this plays out.

A fifth column is a group of people, like the Jewish Lobby(see: AIPAC, American Enterprise Institute) and Neocons Richard Pearle and Paul Wolfowitz, which clandestin­ely undermines a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal, such as America.

For 60 years Israel has played us for a fool. Israel thanks the stupid Americans who die in the Middle-Eas­t for Israel's land grab while they live better than most Americans. porno day

All the time while Israel rakes in Billions of American foreign aid, or as I call it welfare, for their social medicine and subsidized housing on Palestinia­n land.

They sit on the beach at Tel Aviv and laugh at how stupid Americans are to fight their war for them.”

I am an American and have donated to AIPAC. I believe that supporting Israel is in the interest of the USA and has benefited the USA. Who the #@$ are you to define what positions are pro-American and which are anti-American? Most American's find it easy to support Israel because they remember when the Arabs (multiple times) rejected UN resolution 181 and attacked Israel militarily, saying that they were going to "push the Jews into the sea"

It is interesting that most arguments made by the commenters here against Israel reject the existence of Israel entirely, rather than just the absence of an Arab state in Palestine existing next to Israel. BTW, after a Palestinian state comes into existence, there will be no Jewish right of return to the Palestinan state; similarly, there should be no Arab right of return to what will be Israel post-peace treaty.

This is not, and has never been, about a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, or about Jewish setttlements in those territories. The comments prove it.

In Chinese, we have a saying, if the foundation is crooked, the building can never be straight.

The Jewish people have been living in their traditional HOMELAND for 6000 years.

Then a few hundreds years ago, arab start to squat in parts of Greater Israel.

And now they want to claim squatters’ rights?!?!?!

It’s like Chinese living in “China Town” all over the world want to make each and every “China Town” in each and every country to be part of the Red China!

And there are people who would support this?!?!?!

The only reason I can think of is -- anti-Semitism!!!!

"It's often said that Palestine defines the United Nations as much as any other issue. That's incorrect. No other issue comes close."

I never thought of the UN that way, but of course it makes perfect sense. It explains all those (ignored) UN resolutions on Israel -- an attempt to bring back under international control the monster of its own making.

Thanks to the US, which ignores international law when it can't get its way, and Israel that ignores international law, period, the reputation of the UN has taken a beating. But what Americans don't seem to understand that it's almost exclusively in the eyes of Americans and Israelis that the UN is regarded as either irrelevant or dangerous.

The rest of us regard it as essential and are often reminded that the UN was supposed to be a 100-year experiment. However, Israel and the US don't want to wait that long to "throw it under the bus," as Americans like to say these days.

JOHNBOY, I am neither a lawyer nor a historian. However, I have taken the trouble to read the work of historians and the opinions of international law experts in this matter. You are giving your opinion. You are entitled to have an opinion. But there's a difference between an opinion and an informed opinion. I have given you sources whereby you might become informed. You don't seem to be informed about the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the history of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and how certain word choices came about or what the British had in mind (which was eventual statehood for the Jews in the form of a Jewish commonwealth on all the land in Palestine), or the fact that in the period prior to the British resigning their Mandate and turning it over to the U.N. the British didn't amend or abrogate the Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate was a trust, in fact "a sacred trust," as you will discover if you read it. The benefits given to a beneficiary under a trust end only when the beneficiary has received those benefits or agrees to a change in the terms of the trust. (You can read Eugene Rostow or Douglas Feith or Julius Stone on the legality of the Israeli settlements and come to an understanding of this. You can also read or listen to Jacques Gauthier. Julius Stone was not Jewish, and neither is Jacques Gauthier.)

Because there was terrific conflict between the Arabs and the Jews of Palestine, with Arab terrorism against the Jews there having been instigated in 1920 by Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was later a great friend of Adolph Hitler's, the U.N. General Assembly subsequently proposed a plan to partition what was left of Palestine (the British had lopped off both Transjordan, later Jordan, and the Golan from the original territory mandated to the Jews) between the Jews and the Arabs. This was embodied in Resolution 181 of 1947. But General Assembly resolutions aren't binding and thus function only as recommendations. Only Security Council Resolutions are binding. Thus, Resolution 181 required the agreement of both affected parties--Arabs and Jews--in order to become effective. The Jews indicated they would agree, but the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan and attacked the Jews in Palestine instead. This effectively invalidated partition, which never took place. Because of this, the Mandate for Palestine is still the legally valid document.

Even if it were not, the 1967 War in which Israel regained Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan from Syria required a peace treaty with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria (the agressor nations in that war), in order for Israel to return territories it had captured defending itself. But when Israel offered to return most of the captured territory in exchange for peace, the Arab League issued its Khartoum Resolution: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with her. When Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979, Israel gave back to Egypt the entire Sinai. Egypt didn't want Gaza; but Israel has now left Gaza, in any case. By the time Jordan finally made peace with Israel, Jordan didn't want the West Bank back. King Hussein had already had his own sad experience with the Palestinian Arabs. (Read about the Black September revolt if you don't know about this.)

If the Palestinian Arabs want some of the West Bank for a state of their own, they need to negotiate a peace treaty with Israel, not do an end run at the U.N. in which they ask for a state on the "1967 borders," which aren't borders anyway but merely armistic lines agreed to at the end of the war that ensued when, the day afte declaring their state, Israel was invaded by 5 Arab neighbors intent in driving the Jews into the sea! U.N. Resolution 242 calls for the return of "territories" taken in that war but not "the" territories or all territories. It also calls for secure and recognized borders for Israel. A secure border wouldn't mean Israel's going back to a boundary that makes that country only 9 miles wide at a crucial point! Again, I urge you to look at a map.

Marjorie

The salient question has never been, "does Palestine have a right to nationhood?"

It has always been, "Does Israel have a right to nationhood?"

The psychological vulnerability felt by Israelis stems from this central question.

There is no precedent for what happened in 1947, just as there was no precedent for the extreme atrocity of the holocaust. The UN ventured into absolutely new territory: stripping the rights of residents of the British Protectorate of Palestine to compensate a scattered people united by tragedy, a religion and an ancient heritage.

Did Zionism win a great victory for the Jewish people in 1947? Or did the establishment of the state of Israel only set the stage for yet more atrocity?

The answer is unfolding in slow motion: wars which fail to solve the conundrum of two peoples laying claim to one land; ineffective diplomatic efforts; fear, loathing, hatred, and rage; persecution; terrorism; suffering and death.

It's a waiting game. It has been from the beginning in 1947, when American power was at its zenith. Slowly, slowly, American power is waning. Not its military might, not at first; but its political influence, its ability to shape events, the mounting debt associated with its far-flung and shaky empire, its waning will to dominate affairs in the Middle East, its increasing focus on affairs at home.

The US supports Israel. But that support is shaky, dependent upon lobbyists and corruption running roughshod over an ambivalent citizenry. This support has granted to Israel the military might to defy its many enemies and keep the question of its existence unanswered. But for how much longer?

America is in retreat. The Iraqi affair handed a great victory to Iran and expanded its sphere of influence; I suspect Afghanistan will end much as Viet Nam ended, with the last Americans fleeing the country in panic. In time, America's far-flung military will have to be brought home, owing to America's tremendous debt and continued deficit spending, which will produce a great and existential crisis of its own.

In time, if it hopes to exist, Israel will have to find a new game plan. The old one is slowly, gradually failing. But what can they do? Reconciliation is impossible. A single-state solution is impossible. A two-state solution is no solution, only a waypoint in History's sad narrative of an unprecedented political experiment gone awry. The Palestinians want it all, they are convinced it is their right to have it all, and they have durable friends. Israel's sole friend is shaky and its power is waning. All the Palestinians have to do is to keep pushing and endure.

The main objection of the US and Israel to a Palestinian state (at this juncture) is logical, though futile. The more autonomy Palestinians have, the less will be Israel's ability to prevent them from amassing arms and ammunition for the inevitable final clash. But it's a minor question, really. The Palestinians alone cannot dislodge the Israelis from Palestine. So long as the US is strong enough and stands by Israel, Israel cannot be defeated by military means. But when the US is no longer there to prop up Israel, it won't be long - a few years at most - before Egypt, Syria, and other Middle Eastern nations answer the call from Palestinians to shape a brand-new final solution. How many arms the Palestinians have on that day won't much affect the outcome.

And, yes, the conflict may go nuclear. We tend to presume that nuclear arms are a deterrent, and they are - if the actors are rational. Rage has a way of undermining the rational, alas, and in the cauldron of that final conflict, rationality will be entirely absent.

It all reminds me of Clint Eastwood's best film, "Unforgiven," in which absolutely nobody in the entire film forgives anyone else, with tragic results for everyone.

A youth's perspective on Palestine's bid for statehood.

http://humancitizenhome.blogspot.com/

I must correct as statement made in the post by Majorieron 9/25/11 at 8:24 pm. Israel started the 1967 war and so as the agressor, it cannot keep any territory gained in that war according to international conventions. Also some claim that Israel is violating the conditions it agreed to when the UN recognized it as a member state. See below for sources for my comments:
-------------------------------------------------------

Source: http://ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html
Compiled, Edited, and Published by
Jews for Justice in The Middle East

The 1967 War and the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza

Did the Egyptians actually start the 1967 war, as Israel originally claimed?
“The former Commander of the Air Force, General Ezer Weitzman, regarded as a hawk, stated that there was ‘no threat of destruction’ but that the attack on Egypt, Jordan and Syria was nevertheless justified so that Israel could ‘exist according the scale, spirit, and quality she now embodies.’...Menahem Begin had the following remarks to make: ‘In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.’“ Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle.”

Was the 1967 war defenisve? — continued

“I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it.” Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68

Moshe Dayan posthumously speaks out on the Golan Heights

“Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] ‘They didn’t even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.
And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.’” The New York Times, May 11, 1997
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_273
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273 was passed on May 11, 1949 to admit the State of Israel to membership in the United Nations. This Resolution is often cited by left wing commentators and critics[citation needed] as making Israel's admission to the UN conditional upon implementation of Resolutions 181 of November 29, 1947 and 194 of December 11, 1948 (see paragraph 5 of the Resolution, below).
Full text
Having received the report of the Security Council on the application of Israel for membership in the United Nations,
Noting that, in the judgment of the Security Council, Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter,
Noting that the Security Council has recommended to the general Assembly that it admit Israel to membership in the United Nations,
Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it "unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the United Nations,"
Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,
The General Assembly,
Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,
1. Decides that Israel is a peace loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;
2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

Israel and its allies cannot turn a blind-eye to the Palestine’s physically tangible existence as a unified community within defined geographical parameters for long. Israel fears that, it’s recognition of Palestine as a state will impede the peace process initiated by the Oslo accord. In the way anti inflammatory curb the inflammation in the body, it should acknowledge the problem and treat it deliberately rather than pretending to ignore it even when the problem has started eroding its internal peace and international image. Israel cannot rewrite history just by ignoring a state full of people!

Those who think differently should read Article 80 of the UN Charter, which the UN will be violating if it declares a Palestinian State on territory allotted the Jews by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. seslichat While you're at it, also read the 1920 San Remo Resolution which preceded the Mandate and the 1924 Anglo-American Treaty by which the United States signified its agreement with the terms of the Mandate. All these documents are easily findable on the Internet.