Resistance to Palestinian Statehood

By ⋅ June 28, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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Jewish lawmakers from around the world visit the Israeli Knesset (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Jewish lawmakers from around the world visit the Israeli Knesset (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Palestinian leaders say they’re going through with it. In September, they will ask the United Nations to recognize an independent state of Palestine along the borders that existed with Israel before 1967. The Obama administration opposes the move. But Israel isn’t taking any chances.

The Israeli government is rallying supporters around the globe to oppose Palestinian efforts at the UN.

Jewish legislators from around the world are part of the effort. They are visiting Israel this week for a conference on how they can support the Jewish State back home. Tuesday morning, about two dozen international lawmakers went to the Knesset building to hear from Israeli officials, including Moshe Ya’alon.

Ya’alon is vice prime minister and a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. He blasted Palestinian maneuvering for a unilateral declaration at the UN.

“By bringing the Palestinian issue to the United Nations,” Ya’alon said. “Actually, it’s not going to bring about any incentive to the Palestinian leadership to come to the table.”

“We will witness for sure in the West Bank a failed and hostile entity. It might be in the end, a second ‘Hamastan.’”

Ya’alon was making a reference to the Gaza Strip, which has been controlled by the Islamist militant group Hamas since 2007.

After the Knesset, the next stop for visiting lawmakers was the protest tent for Gilad Shalit outside Israeli prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem. Shalit is the Israeli soldier who was taken captive by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip just over five years ago. The soldier’s father, Noam Shalit wonders how people who would hold son incommunicado for so long could be recognized as leaders of a legitimate state.

“We ask all the international community to demand from the Palestinian Authority to stop this war crime immediately because they are willing to be recognized as a state in September,” Shalit said.

One of the American congress members on hand Tuesday was Henry Waxman – Democrat from California. Waxman says he fully supports the creation of an independent state but he sees the UN drive for Palestinian statehood as an about-face.

“It’s turning its back on a peace process that we would hope would be continued and that could result in a two-state solution,” Waxman said.

“It’s a serious mistake and I hope the UN would reject it,” he added. “More important than that, I would hope that the Palestinian Authority would not go forward.”

Washington is also skeptical about recent attempts at reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. Fatah is the secular-leaning rival of Hamas. The faction dominates the US-supported Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Democrat Nita Lowey of New York says Congress will cut off funding to any Palestinian unity government of Hamas and Fatah, that is, unless Hamas makes some fundamental changes. Lowey said the Islamist group must renounce violence and recognize the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

“The two-state solution, one for the Jews, one for the Palestinians, is accepted by most legitimate governments around the world,” Lowey said. “And as soon as Hamas accepts that reality, they can be part of the future. Until then, they cannot.”

Lowey’s Congressional colleague Gary Ackerman, who’s also from New York, is skeptical about the willingness of Hamas to change its ways. Ackerman says that also makes him skeptical about the Palestinian drive for UN recognition as a state.

“If you get into a cage with a lion, you’re not a partner,” Ackerman said. “You’re a lunch.”

“I think that any government that has a terrorist organization within it, is not a government that we’re going to recognize or do business with or support in any way, shape or form.”

Ackerman says unilateral recognition at the UN would only hurt the Palestinian people in the end. But a recent poll suggests that Palestinians do not agree.

The joint Israeli-Palestinian survey was published by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.

It found that 65 percent of Palestinian respondents said they should seek recognition as a state from the United Nations. At the same time, a majority of 61 percent of Palestinians who took part in the survey said they do not support renewed negotiations with Israel.

Discussion

7 comments for “Resistance to Palestinian Statehood”

  • Dorn L

    The title is all wrong: it is resistance to UNILATERAL Palestinian statehood, without any peace. As the members of Congress said, they support a Pal. state.

    The path of the Palestinian Authority is clear – and consistent with everything the PLO has ever done. It is part of Arafat’s “policy of stages”, the step by step dismantling of Israel.

    Thus they aim first to get statehood in the West Bank, without a peace agreement. Then (as Mahmoud Abbas publicly asserts) they will demand resettlement of Arab refugees, and all their descendants in pre-1967 Israel, NOT in the Palestinian state in the West Bank. Thus they demand a Judenrein Palestinian state in the West Bank, while Arab refugees get resettled in Israel, and Israeli Arabs maintain Israeli citizenship. This makes a mockery of a two-state solution. It is war by political means.

    I urge Matthew Bell and The World to tell about the forgotten refugees: roughly half of all Israelis are descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. They came to Israel penniless, but looked past 1400 years of dhimmi status, and rebuilt their lives. Compare this to 63 years of cynical Arab manipulation of a similar number of Arab refugees.

    The core issue remains Arab rejection of a permanent Jewish homeland, even one consisting of just Tel Aviv.

  • Felice Pace

    I’m uncomfortable with this piece. It claims to be about resistance in Israel to the Palestinian statehood movement but starts with an attribution to faceless “Palestinian leaders”.

    It never does report on the Israeli street’s views (i.e. Israeli Public Opinion). Instead you quote American Congresspersons who are strong supporters of Israel and just happened to be “on hand”. You juxtapose those statements with poll numbers…but from Palestine, not Israel.

    Most questionable is your failure to ask even one Palestinian why it is that “61 percent of Palestinians who took part in the survey said they do not support renewed negotiations with Israel.”

    Taken as a whole your article appears to be a clever little propaganda piece for the Israeli and US governments’ view of reality. So are you going to provide the opposing view or what?

    I really would like to see a little self examination there – and an answer to my question in my inbox as well.

  • Felice Pace

    Perhaps I overstated the case in the previous comment. Your story was about more general resistance…not just in Israel but by friends of Israel from around the world.

    I would like to see attention to WHY the Palestinian People have given up on the “peace process”. And what is the source of your amnesia about that process? Do you not remember the impossible conditions the Israeli Government imposed on those negotiations?

  • Asher Garber

    So Hamas is a “militant group”? I guess militant groups blow up pizzerias at lunch time. Shoot missiles at yellow school buses. Dress up in bunny suits and encourage children to give up their lives to be Shaheed for Jihad.

    In my neck of the woods, they are called a Hate Group. Terror Organization. Scumbag Racists.

    But to each his own, eh? No wonder there isn’t any peace in the Middle East. The press has legitimized hatred as a political tool.

    Stay classy.

  • Doyle Avant

    Mr. Bell, I am a fan of your stories, generally. I realize that you were constrained by limits of time and where you were reporting from – but I feel that this painted a one-sided perspective of the issue. You didn’t speak to anyone supporting the drive for U.N., nor touch upon the move’s possible support or lack of support among UN member nations outside of Israel and the U.S..

    Again – a five minute radio piece can’t be all things to all people – so perhaps a followup could better examine what has inspired the Palestinian leadership to launch this effort, what the upside – if any – there would be to UN recognition of Palestine….. and perhaps mention the irony that Israel wants to deny Palestine what Israel itself gained in 1947 – the UN’s blessing on its existence as a state.

    Israel is right to be wary of Hamas. It engages in violent actions and does not acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Hamas would argue that Israel does the same thing to Palestine – attack it militarily with much more potent and sophisticated weapons that kill many more people and that its actions deny Palestine not the right to exist – but the very possibility of existing.

    I am neither a Hamas supporter nor an Israeli Government supporter. I consider myself neutral in this fight – and would love to hear a more neutral piece on the issue. Best, Doyle Avant

  • Felice Pace

    I wrote a comment yesterday dissecting this report and exposing its subtle but strong bias. I don’t know what happened to that comment but it is not here.

    I am a regular listener and think The World generally does excellent work. But I have several times observed this subtle pro-Israeli government/anti-Palestinian bias.

    Might I suggest that some self-examination – as has happened at NPR – is in order?

    And how about doing stories on the peace movement in Israel and Palestine? Why not do a story about the former Israeli fighter pilot who is on the Audacity of Hope hoping to sail to Gaza? If that is too “controversial” for you, how about a story on Interfaith Peace Builders which sends delegates from the US to Israel and Palestine to learn first hand about the situation there.

    Please contact me if you need the in-depth analysis of Mr. Bell’s report and I’ll write it again. I’d also like to know how you respond to my observation of subtle bias at The World. Please contact me.

  • Felice Pace

    OK, now I see my prior comment. I’m not sure why I first did not see it. But I still want to encourage some self-examination on your coverage over time of the I-P conflict.