Palestinians Pushing for Declaration of Statehood

Written By: Yonatan Silverman  |  Posted: Saturday, May 14th, 2011

            Until Friday I believed that the Israeli government did not know what to do about the threatened Palestinian statehood declaration in the UN and was doing nothing. However, an article in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot (not available online) reveals that in fact the government is not sitting on its hands. In an article entitled "Hoping For Netanyahu's Initiative," Nehama Duek notes three lines of foreign ministry logic on the matter:

1. We don't oppose establishment of a Palestinian state and Israel also will vote for it in September. It is worthwhile to mention however that already in 1988 Arafat declared establishment of a state in Algeria. 104 countries recognized it, but borders were never established, and this was finally seen as a meaningless development. In other words - Israel will accept the international declaration of Palestine, but this will not specify borders or eliminate the need to conduct negotiations.

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