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[Update] UN approves resolution for Palestinian state with a ‘nonmember observer’ status with 138-9 vote. The “no” votes: US, Israel, Panama, Palau, Canada, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Czech Republic, Micronesia. Former Israeli PM Olmert in an email to the Daily Beast
- “I believe,that the Palestinian request from the United Nations is congruent with the basic concept of the two-state solution.
Therefore, I see no reason to oppose it. Once the United Nations will lay the foundation for this idea, we in Israel will have to engage
in a serious process of negotiations, in order to agree on specific borders based on the 1967 lines, and resolve the other issues.
It is time to give a hand to, and encourage, the moderate forces amongst the Palestinians. Abu-Mazen—an alias for Abbas—
and Salam Fayyad need our help. It’s time to give it.”
A treacherous path towards renewal of peace negotiations, read article in JPost – Accomplices in a campaign to annihilate a UN member
In Rebuke to Obama, Netanyahu- Much of Western Europe to Support Palestine as UN Observer State
(Informed Comment) – The confidence scam that Israel and the United States have been running on the Palestinians, of a “peace process,” is finally about to meet a well-deserved demise. There are now over 600,000 Israeli settlers on the Occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank (including the areas unilaterally annexed by Israel to its `district of Jerusalem’).
It now seems all but certain that the United Nations General Assembly will vote on Friday to grant the Palestine Authority “observer state” status at the United Nations, the same position enjoyed by the Vatican. It is an upgrade from “entity” recognized as “permanent observer.” Its primary significance is that as an observer, Palestine will have some of the same prerogatives of members within the UN legal structure. In particular, it will be in a much strengthened position to launch protests against the war crimes and crimes against humanity practiced by Israel against the Palestinians.
Not able to embed VIDEO, see 1st comment below …
Building Barriers to Two-State Solution
(The Forward) – Here’s a “sign of the times” factoid: In recent commentary on Israel’s settlement policy, the number of Jewish settlers beyond the Green Line has ballooned to 600,000 from 350,000 or so. It is as if there had suddenly been a mass immigration to the West Bank. But there has been no such immigration. What there has been, more ominously, is the inclusion in “beyond the Green Line” of two venerable major neighborhoods that had long since come to be regarded as part of Jerusalem proper: Ramot and French Hill, as well as other neighborhoods, such as Gilo, Pisgat Ze’ev, Ramat Shlomo, Har Homa.
Ramot and French Hill are, indeed, beyond the Green Line, Israel’s 1967 de facto border. But they were also beyond controversy. No one who thought about them — and hardly anyone did — regarded their fate as part of a future negotiated settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Their provenance may have been problematic, but their destiny was not.
And now, simply by absorbing their inhabitants into the estimate of Jews beyond the Green Line, the period after their names has been replaced with a question mark.
This needs to be said as urgently and as clearly as possible: Israel’s settlement policy in and around Jerusalem is not merely controversial; it is calamitous. Unless it changes, it will render impossible within a year a two-state solution to the conflict.
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The Palestinian Archipelago (credit Julien Boussac)
