Abbas says won't recognize Israel as Jewish state

[onthebottom]

I think Mitchell and Obama have their work cut out for them....

OTB

Abbas says won't recognize Israel as Jewish state

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Monday calls by the new right-leaning Israeli government to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, an issue emerging as a main obstacle to peacemaking.

"I do not accept it," the Western-backed Abbas said. "It is not my job to give a description of the state. Name yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic -- it is none of my business."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement last week it would be impossible to make progress on the diplomatic track and reach a peace agreement without Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
But Netanyahu said he had not made such recognition a precondition for opening peace negotiations. Netanyahu has shied away from endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state, a main goal of U.S.-backed peace talks that are currently frozen.

Palestinians fear recognition of Israel as a Jewish state could help Israeli leaders resist any return of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced to leave their homes in a 1948 war.

Those concerns were heightened five years ago after then-U.S. President George W. Bush described Israel as a Jewish state in a letter to its prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, and suggested Palestinian refugees be settled in a future Palestine rather than in Israel.

Netanyahu and Abbas plan to make separate visits to Washington next month for their first meetings with Barack Obama since he became president in January.

Obama's administration has said it would vigorously pursue Palestinian statehood, setting the stage for possible conflict with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has pledged to hold talks with the Palestinians on economic, security and diplomatic issues. Palestinian leaders have rejected any notion of an "economic peace" and said talks with Israel could not resume until he committed to statehood.

"If you do not want the two-state solution, then what do you accept," Abbas asked in his speech.

"We want a state on the 1967 borders, not a centimeter more, not a centimeter less," he said, referring to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, areas that Israel captured in a war that year.

Netanyahu, who is formulating a Middle East policy plan for presentation to Obama, has said any Palestinian entity must have limited powers of sovereignty and not pose a danger to Israel's security.

 

[Aardvark154]

I think Mitchell and Obama have their work cut out for them....

Unfortunately, I agree

 

[onthebottom]

In all fairness I have to say:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement last week it would be impossible to make progress on the diplomatic track and reach a peace agreement without Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Is profoundly stupid.

OTB

 

[scouser1]

This is just some of the nonsense and stalling that Bibi and his sidekick fascist Liebermann are doing. Unfortunately they can call for all sorts of declarations from the Palestinians, the fact that the PLO has already for over 2 decades recognized Israel's right to exist is enough. But Bibi and Liebermann (who jokes about putting Palestinians on buses and driving them up to the Dead Sea to drown them) have never supported a 2 state solution, they have 2 options only accept a 2 state solution side by side or teach your grandchildren Mawtini (Palestinian national anthem) because thats what they will be singing when they get to be of the same age.

I do have a lot of confidence in Mitchell's work having seen him solve Northern Ireland fairly well, but that took compromise on both sides of course.

 

[persis]

ABC: Iran's president signals possible acceptance of Israel

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/27/content_11262958.htm

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has signaled that his country could accept the existence of Israel, saying Iran would support a two-state solution in the Middle East, ABC television reported on Sunday.

According to the president, Iran would support the two-state peace initiative if the Palestinians voted to approve a peace agreement with Israel.

"Whatever decision they take is fine with us. We are not going to determine anything. Whatever decision they take, we will support that," the president said in an interview with ABC correspondent George Stephanopoulos in Tehran on Wednesday.

The interview was broadcast on Sunday.

"We think that this is the right of the Palestinian people, however we fully expect other states to do so as well," said the president, without specifying whether Tehran would accept Israel as part of the "two-state."

Ahmadinejad is well known by his anti-Semitic statements.

In his speech at a UN conference Monday in Geneva, the president, who had claimed that Israel must be wiped off the map, called Israel a "most cruel and repressive racist regime."

Relations between Iran and Israel have alternated from close political alliance during the era of the Pahlavi dynasty to hostility following the rise to power of Ayatollah Khomeini.

After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran cut all relations with Israel and withdrew its recognition of the Jewish state.

Israel considers Iran's nuclear program a threat to its existence, while Tehran insists the program is for civilian use only.

 

[persis]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement last week it would be impossible to make progress on the diplomatic track and reach a peace agreement without Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
But Netanyahu said he had not made such recognition a precondition for opening peace negotiations. Netanyahu has shied away from endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state, a main goal of U.S.-backed peace talks that are currently frozen.

Palestinians fear recognition of Israel as a Jewish state could help Israeli leaders resist any return of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced to leave their homes in a 1948 war.

Those concerns were heightened five years ago after then-U.S. President George W. Bush described Israel as a Jewish state in a letter to its prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, and suggested Palestinian refugees be settled in a future Palestine rather than in Israel.

Netanyahu and Abbas plan to make separate visits to Washington next month for their first meetings with Barack Obama since he became president in January.

Obama's administration has said it would vigorously pursue Palestinian statehood, setting the stage for possible conflict with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has pledged to hold talks with the Palestinians on economic, security and diplomatic issues. Palestinian leaders have rejected any notion of an "economic peace" and said talks with Israel could not resume until he committed to statehood.

"If you do not want the two-state solution, then what do you accept," Abbas asked in his speech.

"We want a state on the 1967 borders, not a centimeter more, not a centimeter less," he said, referring to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, areas that Israel captured in a war that year.

Netanyahu, who is formulating a Middle East policy plan for presentation to Obama, has said any Palestinian entity must have limited powers of sovereignty and not pose a danger to Israel's security.

I have said this many time before... Zionists do not want two state solution ... they never ever did . . . they do not want an independent Palestinian state, with its own security forces, independent foreign & trade policies, everything they claimed was nothing but "lip service" in order to point fingers at the other side ...quote, unquote "you see America...it is all their fault"

 

[Aardvark154]

Iran's president signals possible acceptance of Israel

"Whatever decision they take is fine with us. We are not going to determine anything. Whatever decision they take, we will support that"

"We think that this is the right of the Palestinian people, however we fully expect other states to do so as well," said the president, without specifying whether Tehran would accept Israel as part of the "two-state."

Unfortunately, to me, that does not sound like a forthright acceptance of Israel's right to exist as it presently is.

 

[onthebottom]

I am so farking tired of both sides and all the proxy players, even the US.....

It's 5m Jews in the desert and we spend how much time on this?

OTB

 

[gramage]

I believe the correct expression to describe Netanyahu's actions here is "moving back the goal posts."

 

[scouser1]

I am so farking tired of both sides and all the proxy players, even the US.....

It's 5m Jews in the desert and we spend how much time on this?

OTB

a better question to ask is how much money you are spending on preserving the Zionist wet dream, that is till demographics run it down.

 

[elmo]

I am so farking tired of both sides and all the proxy players, even the US.....

It's 5m Jews in the desert and we spend how much time on this?

OTB

not to mention money...how 'bout we nuke and walk away?

 

[anomandar]

not to mention money...how 'bout we nuke and walk away?

Not cool....

 

[Kitwat]

Judging by the above posts if the lord wanted to give the world an enema he'd stick the nozzle in Terb.

 

[onthebottom]

a better question to ask is how much money you are spending on preserving the Zionist wet dream, that is till demographics run it down.

Money we have - I think we pay more to Jordan and Egypt to pretend to like Israel than we pay to Israel... the damn thing's been going on for ever and I'm tired of it - fark em all.

OTB