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Abbas Should be Congratulated for Victory of Beleaguered Palestine (Estadao, Brazil)

"With the construction of an approximately 430-mile-long 'safety barrier' that isolates Palestinians, and with an influx of labor from other parts of the world, they became invisible to Israel. ... The vote in the U.N. last Thursday was an unprecedented triumph for the Palestinians, marked a return of the Palestinian Authority to the global stage, and represents the greatest personal achievement of the septuagenarian Abbas."

EDITORIAL

Translated By Andréia Barbosa da Silva

December 2, 2012

Brazil  Estadao  Original Article (Portuguese)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks to the U.N. General Assembly on the question of Palestine, Nov. 29. UNITED NATIONS TV: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian Authority, explains why he felt it necessary to change the PLO's U.N. status, at the 44th plenary meeting on the question of Palestine, Nov. 29, 00:23:42

Together, predictably, Israel and its sole unconditional ally in the world, the United States, argued that the decision of the U.N. General Assembly to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority from a "non-member observer entity" to a "non-member observer state" is, at the very least, counterproductive. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insist that from now on, it will only be more difficult to resume direct negotiations between the parties for a lasting peace and security between the two neighboring states. This is as if the Israeli government were working hard to reach an agreement giving Palestinians sovereignty and territorial independence - and the Palestinians were only inventing pretexts to avoid recognizing Israel (which, strictly speaking, they already did in talks that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords).

Since the abortive talks mediated by then President Bill Clinton between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in 2000, when according to an American analyst who followed the meetings, "Arafat refused the peace that Barak didn't offer him" - only one Israeli leader, Ehud Olmert, who fell into disgrace after being accused of corruption, made an attempt to reach an agreement with Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas. The rest is history.

Back in power in 2009, as successor to Olmert, Netanyahu only sought to expand Israeli colonization of the West Bank and the removal of the Arab population from East Jerusalem. Both of these actions were condemned, in vain, by the White House. To preserve what remains of his popularity, Abbas refused to return to the negotiating table until settlement expansion ceases. That was what Netanyahu wanted.

Furthermore, with the construction of an approximately 430-mile-long "safety barrier" that isolates Palestinians, and with an influx of labor from other parts of the world, they became invisible to Israel. If not for the missiles fired by Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is surrounded on all sides, except for a border crossing with Egypt, for many Israelis, the "Palestinian issue" would already be a closed chapter. As if that wasn't enough, Jerusalem has issued more demands for any agreement with Ramallah: Palestinian territory should be an unarmed state, and Israel should be recognized as a "Jewish state" - which would transform the 1.4 million Israeli Arabs into third-class citizens (they're already second class), as they comprise 20 percent of the nation's population. According to the newspaper Haaretz, a third of Israelis want to deprive them of the right to vote - and nearly half would prefer that they be removed from the country.

SEE ALSO ON THIS:

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Le Quotidien d'Oran, Algeria: Obama Reverts to Type on Palestine

Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, Palestine: After Obama's U.N. Veto: Awaiting the Arab Street

Le Quotidien dOran, Algeria: Obama's Disgrace Leaves Palestinians No Choice

Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, Palestine: U.S. 'Knesset' More Extreme than Israel's!

Samidoon, Palestinian Territories: 'America Cannot Be Trusted'

Haaretz, Israel: Israelis Must Brace for Dark Times

Jerusalem Post, Israel: Netanyahu and 'The Book of Why'

Israel's hegemonic mentality appears to resemble that of the ultranationalists. For them, a Palestinian state already exists - in Jordan - and a closed Jewish state should include biblical Judea and Samaria. In this scenario, Abbas wasn't at the U.N. to promote peace with Israel - "a state established years ago" as he said, but to obtain multilateral recognition of Palestine as a state as well, with the borders as they were before the 1967 War. With that, among other things, Israel's presence on the West Bank could be legally redefined as occupying a state, rather than occupying a territory. That would pave the way to bringing the occupier to trial for the commission crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The vote in the U.N. last Thursday was an unprecedented triumph for the Palestinians, marked a return of the Palestinian Authority to the global stage, and represents the greatest personal achievement of the septuagenarian Abbas. Of the 193 member states, 188 voted. Among them, 138, including France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland, and all the BRICS countries, supported Palestinian statehood. "There is no reason to oppose the initiative," acknowledged former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

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