Why Palestine's UN Bid for Statehood is a Total Non-Starter

Townhall.com ^ | August 23, 2011 | Jay Sekulow

[Kaslin]

The problem with the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is that the world has conceded to the Palestinians the exact result they desire, rather than requiring the result to emerge from bilateral negotiations with the Israelis. Whether there is to exist a two-state solution - and what the borders and qualities of that sovereign and independent state ought to be - should be precisely the question that remains to be answered. Instead, the international community has signaled to the Palestinians that they are entitled to a state no matter what.

This sense of entitlement predates the UN General Assembly's Resolution 181 in 1947, which recommended partitioning the area then known as Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state - a proposal that the Palestine Arab Higher Committee rejected in favor of war after Israel declared independence in May of 1948. Although Israel sustained punishing losses over the ensuing eight months of fighting, it managed to expand its territory and solidify its existence.

Since then, the Arab and Palestinian communities continue to operate under the belief that aggression and terrorism are costless strategies, and that if these tactics fail to achieve better results, they can simply seek the original terms later.

The latest attempt at this extortionist strategy is the Palestinians' plan to seek statehood next month at the UN via a unilateral declaration of independence. The plan is fraught with problems, beginning with the fact that the UN is only capable of admitting members to the organization, not creating states.

[quadrant]

Palestine was partitioned into two states: Israel and Jordan.
Lets not forget that the British Mandate for Palestine included the area of Israel and Jordan.

[Sherman Logan]

Palestine was partitioned into two states: Israel and Jordan.

Inaccurate. The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan was carved out of the British mandate by the UN in 1946.

The remaining territory of the mandate was divided into Jewish and Arab states by the UN in 1947. Israel declared its independence in 1948 and the Arabs all invaded. Or tried to.

[American in Israel]

A sovereign State that attacks its neighbor with missiles tends to get attacked back.

This simple fact is why the Palestinians will never go for an independent State until they have complete military superiority.

Ain't as much fun killing babies, if momma has a gun.

[quadrant]

That’s true; but the original British Mandate for Palestine included Israel and Jordan. The British and the UN simply arbitrarily created the Kingdom of Jordan in 1946 Certainly, the Hashemites had no claim to the area as they came from the Hejaz.

[Sherman Logan]

The British and the UN simply arbitrarily created the Kingdom of Jordan in 1946 Certainly, the Hashemites had no claim to the area as they came from the Hejaz.

You appear to be assigning superior credibility to the dispositions of the League of Nations than to those of the United Nations. I see no particular reason to do so.

Transjordan (and Iraq) were kind of consolation prizes for those clients of the British, the Hashemites. The Brits, via Lawrence of Arabia and others, had kinda sorta more or less promised all of Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, etc. to the Hashemites as "the leaders of the Arabs."

The Brits also had, of course, kinda sorta more or less promised Palestine to the Jews. And the French and Saudis also had something to say about who got what.

[quadrant]

And why did the Hashemites deserve any sort of consolation prize?
After all, the family never formally accepted the British offer of Homs, Homa, Allepo, and Damascus; this was all that they were promised; and even if the family had accepted, they never fulfilled the conditions of the promise.
And in any event, Palestine was never part of the promise, as the Brits planned to keep the area for themselves. They planned to construct a railroad from the Med down through the Fertile Crescent as an alternate route to India.

The League of Nations Mandate was the document that the British used to justify their rule of Palestine.

The French has a say about Syria and Lebanon; and the Saudis had a say because they drove the Hashemites out of the Arabia Peninsula.

[SJackson]

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