The parameters of a Palestinian state may revert to 48 borders with the International Court rather than 67 armistice lines. But… they are dealing with Mahmoud Abbas here, installed by Israel into Arafats cabinet as a quisling.

I have to wonder if the US isn’t worried about it’s own delegitimization rather than Israels.. How can the US claim the mantle of Leadership and portray ourselves as example that the should emulate after stomping on Palestinians aspirations following years of punishment and demonization for nothing more than being born on the land someone else wants?
Plausible deniability will be gone and the narrative exposed as a total farce.

Agree 1000%

Why wouldn’t Palestianians seek UN recognition? There is nothing on the table that is an even remotely fair solution.

The US has already intimated that they would veto any membership effort in the Security Council, so statehood could not advance. What’s more they would in all likelihood whip allies against the General Assembly vote.

On top of that, our Amb. to the UN, Susan Rice threatened the entire UN body, à la John Bolton…

Discussing the possibility that a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state could pass the General Assembly in September, she [Rice] said, “And this would be exceedingly politically damaging in our domestic context, as you can well imagine. And I cannot frankly think of a greater threat to our ability to maintain financial and political support for the United Nations in congress than such an outcome.”

*gah*

Please. The Palestinians have no incentive to abandon this track. Hopefully, they aren’t like Democrats and easily moved to drop a winning strategy for a muddled one with no clear goal.

Great update Mr. Dayen, and great comments so far as well.

Thanks to all.

Dawg help the Palistineans, cuz God sure as shit ain’t.

yeah! I’d pay to see her have an aneurism.
The US pull out of the UN, UNSC or Nato?

Do it Susan! Jump! Jump! Jump!

We really shouldn’t be anywhere near the HRC, but whatever.

Yep

Congressional wishes don’t matter diddly squat as it relates to an unauthorized and unfunded war on Libya with our UN partners and later NATO.
Who in congress would ever to vote to stop usurpation of power or funds by the President? Susan Rice is a bully.

you’d think that could be channeled into, I don’t know, getting negotiations underway for a solution that would make statehood a realizable goal.

The Israelis do not want a Palestinian state in any shape or form, and our government, either under a Democrat or GOP president, will adhere to their wishes, pretty much no matter what those wishes are.

I’m somewhat reluctant to say it, but this strikes me as a fairly uninformed diary, David.

I wouldn’t say that, ET, Dday is working under the assumption that Israel would actually do something constructive to improve the plight of the Palestinians, like just stopping the Occupation… But, we both know that it’ll never happen under the current Zionist regime…! 8-(

Agree with the tenor of your responses, shekisses, but I don’t think the US has much global credibility on IP. We have voted against the world with Israel for several decades, just as we stood with apartheid South Africa.

I think the Palestinians will stand strong here or obtain some very real concessions. Either way, a slightly improved outlook awaits.

Holy sh*t…

Report: Palestinians May Abandon Demand for Settlement Freeze
Instead Seeks to Start Peace Talks on Obama’s Mention of 1967 Borders

Utterly reprehensible, the Rice statement, although I don’t see it swaying the vote. We used to be able to get countries like Dominica, post-Grenada, to vote for us with Israel, but nowadays they get much more economic help from China and Venezuela.

The Obama presidency is a nightmare, and I’m afraid we face six more years of it. But what–really–are the lessons we must draw? Number one: expect NOTHING from the top level of US govt during our lifetimes. Wage the fight elsewhere, especially in the streets.

The pre-1967 borders led to Israel’s invasion by the armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Israel captured some land in that war that was supposed to eliminate Israel. The current lines are not borders, but armistice lines. Israel also captured the Sinai, but gave it back to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty.

Any plan to setup a country 11 miles wide is just dooming it to extinction, when surrounded by nations who even admit they want its destruction.

TransJordan was to be the Palestinian homeland, but Jordan reneged.

If Palestinian leadership is this utterly clueless, then they need to be replaced. But let’s be honest, they are not. If they actually agree to “talks” AND withdraw from the UN option, then they’re doing as their Israeli masters commanded.

Israel has repeatedly and violently shown they are not interested in talking.
Palestinians should push ahead with the UN position, AND the peace talks.
That’s the practical and logical thing to do.
If the Israelis don’t like it, they can kiss their …

“Any plan to setup a country 11 miles wide is just dooming it to extinction, when surrounded by nations who even admit they want its destruction.”

And the current plan is working out well?
Even for Israel, the current plan, is not working. Slaughtering civilians??? I missed that part in the Bible.
And don’t tell me they’re doing it to protect themselves. What they’re doing is actually making them less safe.
Every civilian slaughtered gives them a family of people who will hate them till they die. The current plan does not foster stability. only MADNESS.

This was the partition plan for the Palestinian Mandate:

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a resolution adopted on 29 November 1947 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Its title was United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) Future Government of Palestine.

The resolution noted Britain’s planned termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and recommended the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area being under special international protection, administered by the United Nations. The resolution included a highly detailed description of the recommended boundaries for each proposed state. The resolution also contained a plan for an economic union between the proposed states, and a plan for the protection of religious and minority rights. The resolution sought to address the conflicting objectives and claims to the Mandate territory of two competing nationalist movements, Zionism (Jewish nationalism) and Arab nationalism, as well as to resolve the plight of Jews displaced as a result of the Holocaust. The resolution called for the withdrawal of British forces and termination of the Mandate by 1 August 1948, and establishment of the new independent states by 1 October 1948.

A transitional period under United Nations auspices was to begin with the adoption of the resolution, and lasting until the establishment of the two states. However, war broke out and the partition plan was never implemented by the Security Council. On March 5, 1948, the United Nations Security Council reached an impasse when it refused to pass a resolution which would have accepted the partition plan as a basis for Security Council action. The United States subsequently recommended a temporary UN trusteeship for Palestine “without prejudice to the character of the eventual political settlement”, and the Security Council voted to send the matter back to the General Assembly for further deliberation. The General Assembly decided to appoint a Mediator, and relieved the Palestine Commission from any further exercise of responsibility under resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947.

The proposed plan was accepted by the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine, through the Jewish Agency. However, the plan was rejected by leaders of the Arab community (the Palestine Arab Higher Committee etc.), who were supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. In a communication to the United Nations Palestine Commission dated 19 January 1948, the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine stated that it was “determined [to] persist in rejection [to the] partition and in refusal [to] recognize UNO resolution [with] this respect and anything deriving therefrom”.

Two minor exceptions to this rejectionist line were the National Liberation League in Palestine, an Arab-Palestinian Communist faction which supported the Partition Plan (since it followed all Soviet policies), and Emir Abdullah of Transjordan, who in strictly private discussions was in favor of the partition plan – under the assumption that the Arab state under the plan would be annexed to Transjordan – yet never publicly accepted the plan (he later suggested that Transjordan should annex the whole mandate territory and establish a Jewish autonomous entity, to be eventually aligned with the rest of the Arab countries).

To renege on a deal, there has to be one in the first place. There wasn’t.

Ar you in favor of the forced transfer of Palestinians in the occupied territories to another country? Jordan, for instance?

Temple history lessons?

Fuckin’ A right. But don’t expect much good will from this KKKrowd. They can’t stomach the truth.

don’t expect much good will from this KKKrowd

My dear Mr. Kohn,

Rather harsh words, don’t you think? Please give one full quote from one of the “KKKrowd” who you seem to claim is commenting here at this diary that gives a specific example of not being able “to stomach the truth.”

You may start with me, if you would like.

Heavy, solid. Whew.

Even still, your account doesn’t mention the Palestinians, except for something that Edward Teller has corrected you on. They were and still are pawns in this game for government powers. They didn’t have any real representatives and even the Mufti was chosen by the British.

Have you been introduced to Plan Dalet in your studies? [1] [2] [3]

Max Blumenthal on JNF and Nakba and Plan Dalet

Since it was founded in 1901, the JNF has been at the forefront of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. And now the group’s machinations are being exposed and countered through an effective, non-violent campaign based on a simple appeal to human dignity, international law and basic rights. It is no wonder its leadership is so defensive and desperate.

The excellent Israeli documentary “The Diaries of Yosef Nachmani” used the memoirs of one of the JNF’s top officials to expose the organization’s role in forcing Palestinian farmers off their own land, often through trickery and manipulation. JNF director Yosef Weitz was instrumental in hatching Plan Dalet, the campaign to ethnically cleanse at least 400 Palestinian villages and expel their residents in 1947 and 1948. After the war of 1948, Weitz orchestrated the planting of hundreds of thousands of non-native trees west of Jerusalem to cover up the scores of villages that had just been ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias. Today those trees look as natural to the landscape of the Judean Hills as the hair plugs on Joe Biden’s scalp.

And then there’s also this….

NYT: General’s Words Shed a New Light on the Golan

It is an article of faith among Israelis that the Golan Heights were seized in the 1967 Middle East war to stop Syria from shelling the Israeli settlements down below. The future of the Golan Heights is central to the search for peace in the Middle East, and much of the case against giving the Golan Heights back to Syria rests on the fear of reviving that threat.

But like many another of Israel’s founding legends, this one has come under question lately, and from a most surprising quarter: Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan.

General Dayan died in 1981. But in conversations with a young reporter five years earlier, he said he regretted not having stuck to his initial opposition to storming the Golan Heights. There really was no pressing reason to do so, he said, because 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.

And Max Blumenthal
After 1948: How Israel stopped the “outcast race” from returning home

Perhaps the most comprehensive account of Israel’s efforts to prevent the refugees from returning home is Benny Morris’ 1993 book, “Israel’s Border Wars: 1949-1956.” Morris’ flaws — his crude racism, rejection of Arab historians and sources, and allegiance to Zionism — are well known. As a pure archivist, however, he is among the best. The sections in his book on infiltration depict in cold, clinical detail the Israeli military’s tactics against those who tried to return. They included detaining refugees in barbed wire enclosed camps that reminded some observers of Nazi Germany; the extraction of fingernails and other torture methods; and forced marches through the desert without food or water. Tawfiq Toubi, the first Arab to serve in Israel’s Knesset, called the search and expulsion operations “pogroms.”

Below, I have excerpted several testimonies about Israel’s operations to stop “infiltration:”

In May 1950, a woman from a kibbutz in the South witnessed Palestinian refugees being packed into trucks and unloaded at a camp [pp. 147-48]:

We were waiting for a hitch beside one of the big army camps… Suddenly two large trucks arrived, packed with blindfolded Arabs (men, women, and children). Several of the soldiers guarding them got down to drink and eat a little, while the rest stayed on guard. To our question ‘Who are these Arabs?’ they responded: ‘These are infiltrators, on their way to being returned over the borders.’ The way the Arabs were crowded together [on the trucks] was inhuman. Then one of the soldiers called his friend ‘the expert’ to make some order [among the Arabs]. Those of us standing nearby had witnessed no bad behavior on the part of the Arabs, who sat frightened, almost one on top of the other. But the soldiers were quick to teach us what they meant by ‘order. The ‘expert’ jumped up and began to…hit [the Arabs] across their blindfolded eyes and when he had finished, he stamped on all of them and then, in the end, laughed uproariously and with satisfaction at his heroism. We were shocked by this despicable act. I ask, does this not remind us exactly of the Nazi acts towards the Jews? And who is responsible for such acts of brutality committed time and time again by our soldiers?

[...]

Don’t you think these people are getting what they deserve?

And one more point.. The peace treaty that Israel signed with Egypt also had the condition that Israel would withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territories within 5 yrs. This is why we pay 3 billion each year in tribute to Israel as well.

Mr. Kohn,

Are you in favor of the forced transfer of Palestinians out of what I have a hunch you call Judea and Samaria? If so, where would you have them put?

I think the Zionist nightmare is a viable Palestinian state. Strictly from a commerce perspective, any goods manufactured in Palestine will fly off the shelves. When ordinary people throughout the world have a chance to support them, they’ll succeed. It is only our government, bought and paid for with campaign contributions, that has prevented this outcome.

It is nonsense to talk about agreements determined by the U.N., Britain or anyone else in the 40s. Those deals ended when the Arab nations invaded the new state of Israel in 1948, and over and over again after that. When you declare war, old agreements end when your intention is the murder of a nation.

Would the wise commentaors here suggest we give back our capitol to the British because we won the War of 1812, or perhaps return the colonies because we defeated a British occupation in the 1700s?

If you have an Israeli stamp on your passport you cannot enter Saudi Arabia. If you have a Saudi Arabia passport you can enter Israel. Democracy is the reality for the million plus Arabs who are living in Israel as citizens, while there is not one Jew citizen of Saudi Arabia, or many other Arab nations.

Please read any of the links I gave you about about plan Dalet. There is a distinction between nations (governments) and the people, and again you’ve completely overlooked the people and conflated them.
You’ve got to read these with an open mind, without demonizing the people or with an eye to excuse, either the jews who suffered terribly and escaped, or the palestinians who were made to pay the price. The distinction needs to be made between the different governments policies, practices and the people.

Though you label them all “Arabs”, the people from saudi arabia, Iraq, Oman, Egypt, Syria are not Palestinians or Druze any more than Irish, Germans, Norwegians, Spaniards, Italians or Greeks are all just european whites. The term “Arabs” wipes away specific ethnicity and cultural distinctions in order to hold any or all of them responsible for the crimes of one group, or more accurately one government. What ever Saudi Arabian Kings did or do doesn’t justify what is being done to the Palestinian people, does it?
The cultural, ethnic and religious differences are so vast between these people that they justify killing the other groups. Consider syria, it’s the alawite clan in power but not all of them agree with the Assad Government and some are fighting.

Your writing is very emotional and confuses many different topics. Jews aren’t under attack here and not only Palestinians but Jews have been used and manipulated by the PTB. That needs to be sorted out and set right.