Lino Spiteri’s one-sided opinion Speaking Up Over Palestine (September 26) is nothing but the usual ramblings of the typical Palestinian apologist!
The Palestinians will be without a proper state, and as long as they insist that Israel does not have a right to exist, they don’t deserve to have a proper state. The Palestinians have suffered a lot. But so have the Jews. The Palestinians have a right to live in their own country. But so do the Jews.
If the Security Council were to vote in favour of their application, something that is extremely unlikely to happen, they would still be without a proper state because their request is one-sided and doesn’t address Israel’s big issues: the right to exist and the right to peace and security. The Palestinians will have an increased weight of diplomacy behind them if they are granted permanent observer status but only in the biased environment of the UN General Assembly, where Third World countries and countries run by dictators, control the agenda.
Requiring the Palestinians to recognise Israel’s right to exist as a pre-condition to statehood would serve to massively increase pressure on Palestinians to stop terrorist attacks against innocent Jewish civilians, to recognise and respect the Jewish state, and to respect an Israeli capital in Jerusalem. But this will not happen, not for quite some time, despite the emotional outpouring of celebration by the Palestinian people. That’s because Mahmoud Abbas is a lame-duck President who only has any semblance of power and influence in the West Bank. The last I heard Hamas still runs roughshod over the Gaza strip and they don’t seem ready to rescind their Charter with regard to Israel’s right to exist!
President Barack Obama has no option but to use America’s veto in the Security Council. If Mr Abbas had stated that the Palestinians would rescind their Charter that states that Israel does not have the right to exist, then and only then would President Obama have been justified to support their bid for statehood in the Security Council. Mr Obama’s credibility in the Arab world being zero is of little consequence to this issue since it’s the Palestinians who need to change their approach to this conflict. And by the way, Mr Obama was not elected by his constituents to solve the Palestinian issue, as wonderful as that would be, but to solve the problems and issues that Americans were and are still facing.
Anyone who anticipated that here would be a President who would finally help solve the Palestinian question under the present circumstances is extremely naïve or gullible. In the end, the Palestinian question can only be solved by the Palestinians negotiating directly with Israel, albeit with the help of and if necessary political pressure from major powers.
The US is indeed suffering one of its worst financial upheavals ever, and that coupled with the second-hardest economic recession is not helping the US any. However, this issue has absolutely nothing to do with the Palestinians and Israel. Besides Mr Spiteri, people in glasshouses should refrain from hurling stones. After all, Greece is on the verge of bankruptcy and a handful of other EU countries are following close behind. That threatens to wreak financial havoc on the EU and the eurozone, a crisis that would far eclipse what is happening in the US.
Anyone demanding that Israel negotiate in good faith, make concessions and agree to pre-conditions without demanding the same from the Palestinians is either extremely naïve and gullible or simply a Palestinian apologist whose opinion is biased and suspect at best.
Both sides must make concessions. That’s what negotiating is all about. If Palestinians want Israel to agree to stop building settlements as a pre-condition to negotiations, then Palestinians (both on the Abbas side and the Hamas side) must agree to rescind their Charter and stop all terrorist activities.