Nadene Goldfoot
Lebanon will hold the presidency of the U.N.Security Council and will have special prerogatives in September and this is why Abbas is so hopeful of success in asking for Palestine to become a full member in the UN. Netanyahu has even offered to discuss issues at the 1967 border as Obama suggested, but this is not changing Abbas's mind. It was an offer if the Palestinians recognized Israel as a Jewish state. Lebanon is another Arab state where the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas can readily get arms that are sent over by Iran through Syria. The deck is stacked against Israel in New York.
Abbas will turn in his application September 20th but it most likely will be vetoed by the US when he presents his bid to UN Secretary Genreal Ban Ki-moon when the assembly opens. Then the Secretary will give the request to the Security Council.
What the Palestinians want is recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), Gaza and also East Jerusalem. All three places have been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War when the Arab states attacked Israel and lost. This, though symbolic, would give them more negotiating power with Israel and they would then start new peace talks holding all the aces, they think, when dealing with Israel. They easily forget that it is they that walked away from the table, not Israel.
More than 130 countries are ready to recognize the state of Palestine. One accomplishment they are seeking is to upgrade their status to become full members of UN agencies including Unesco, WHO and Unicef.
Netanyahu still believes that only through honest negotiations will it be possible to advance the peace discussions. Peres met with Abbas four times already trying to talk him into rejoining Netanyahu and was going to try again for the 5th time, this time in Amman, Jordan, when Netanyhu told him that they have tried enough times already.
No one should be surprised that Abbas, who is the PLO or Fatah President blames Israel and the USA for failed peace negotiations. Arabs have a reputation for blaming everyone but themselves for any problem they have. Dealing with Jews is especially difficult for them as Jews were the hated people of the Nazis, who they were allied with in the 2nd world war. In their own Arab lands Jews were 2nd class citizens, or Dminnis. The Jews of Palestine were seen by them as the defeated people from 70 CE and 135 CE. The Jews had no country, nothing and were outcasts even in the Christian world. No matter how badly the Arab was treated in a non Arab society, he knew that the Jew was lower than he was. To have been defeated by Jews really hurt their pride.
Arabs have learned to think in a very different way from the Western culture. They have been brought up with a determinist orientation, so they find good excuses to relegate their responsibility to external forces. The ills of his society, mistakes and failures are blamed either on fate, the devil or to imperialism. Therefore they put all blame on others but not themelves. That's why America is the big devil and Israel is the little one. Now they are of mind that their honor and pride can only be restored by the disappearance of Israel. They are still profoundly anti-semitic and teach such things in their schools and homes. The Protocals of Zion is a favorite with their people. So has been Hitler's Mein Kempf. These and many like it have not been fringe literature. Hundreds of books published since 1948 have the theme of the liquidation of Israel being a political necessity and a moral imperative and that Jewish nature is evil and it is permissable to destroy them.
Israel had come to peaceful terms with Egypt and Jordan, but a new Palestine will not be as wise, and what Egypt will be like in the future may not be the peaceful land that Sadat had finally welcomed. I'm afraid that "Palestine" is exactly like what the Arab leaders had intended them to be; the pawn in the chess game of the Middle East that is the most belligerent of all.
Battleground, fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz
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