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Posted on 01/08/2004 2:49:11 PM PST by HAL9000
JERUSALEM (AP) - Palestinians will give up their goal of independence and push instead for a single Arab-Jewish state if Israel carries out its threat to unilaterally impose a new boundary with Palestinian areas, the Palestinian premier said Thursday.A single country including Gaza, the West Bank and Israel would spell disaster for the Jewish state because the country would soon have an Arab majority. That would force Israel to choose between giving Palestinians the right to vote and risk losing the country's Jewish character, or becoming a minority-ruled country like apartheid South Africa.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell immediately rejected the idea of a single state on Thursday, saying only a two-country solution to the violence would work.
For years, Israeli doves have cited the "demographic issue" in their calls for Israel to relinquish control of all or most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In recent weeks, Sharon and his top deputy, Ehud Olmert, have begun making the same argument - a major shift by leaders of the hawkish Likud Party.
About 3.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza, in addition to 1.2 million Arab citizens of Israel. About 5.5 million Jews live in Israel.
The past decade of Israel-Palestinian peace efforts has always been based on a two-state solution. The latest peace plan - the U.S.-backed "road map" - leads to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza by 2005. Abandoning that concept could throw Mideast politics into turmoil.
Sharon has said that if peace talks do not show progress in the coming months, he will order "unilateral disengagement." This would entail imposing a temporary boundary in the West Bank and removing some Jewish settlements from areas to be evacuated.
Sharon has said his plan is meant to improve Israel's security.
Palestinians charge that the plan amounts to Israel's taking over large chunks of the West Bank. Specifically, they point to the route of a separation barrier Israel is already building.
Its planned route would cut deep into the West Bank in several places to include some Jewish settlements on the "Israeli" side. Other Palestinian areas would be encircled by Israeli territory.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia told The Associated Press that such moves would make the drive for a Palestinian state a "meaningless slogan."
"If the situation continues as it is now we will go for the one-state solution," he said.
Qureia said the binational state idea is his own idea, not official policy, though he said Palestinians suggested it shortly after Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.
Powell, speaking in Washington, said a single country would not be viable.
"We're committed to a two-state solution," Powell said in Washington. "I believe that's the only solution that will work: a state for the Palestinian people called Palestine and a Jewish state, state of Israel, which exists."
Some Israeli analysts and politicians have said that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's goal has always been a single state eventually dominated by Palestinians.
Arafat has often declared that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be decided by the higher Palestinian birth rate.
That shows "there is no real desire on the part of the Palestinians to create a state here and now," said Efraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad secret service.
However, Arafat has said repeatedly over the past decade that he is committed to the agreements his signed with Israel, leading to a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Adopting the demographic argument, Sharon this week told members of his hard-line Likud Party that any peace accord would require removal of some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and creation of a Palestinian state.
The party officially rejects creation of such a state and has always backed expansion of settlements as part of an Israeli claim on the territory.
Sharon also said that some settlements would have to be moved under his unilateral disengagement plan.
Polls show Sharon's proposals enjoy considerable support among Israelis.
In Israeli-Palestinian violence Thursday, undercover Israeli troops shot and killed a militant from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with Arafat's Fatah movement, near the West Bank city of Jenin, militants and military officials said.
Military sources said the man was shot while trying to escape an arrest attempt. Al Aqsa vowed to retaliate.
Also Thursday, Israeli troops shot and killed a 42-year-old Palestinian man in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, hospital officials said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Correct. And if they give up the settlements, the result will be the same. The Arabs will never be peaceful towards Israel.
This is at odds with our demand for "multi-culturalism" in almost every other ethnic dispute in the world. The Bosnian war could have been avoided, for instance, if the US had not torpedoed an agreement between the three major groups (Serbs, Croats, and Muslims) to divide Bosnia among the groups. We also rejected plans floated to divide Kosovo between Serbs and Albanians.
Yawn, peace with ifs and buts. Seems to me Palies get amnestied for everything they do, using whatever kind of alibi or definition anyone can invent, Palestine included.
Actually the squatters need to give up the settlements on the West Bank (and Gaza).
All we are saying, is give war a chance.
Many ..have been near to confusion as to the path this leader seems to be taking.
Yet maybe that is the problem...Sharon shows no path...no end is seen...only a now reaction.
Certainly today I am toasting a good Glass of Vino to Arik...he has...***Humiliated the E.U. planners....Kofi and the U.N. tribes...even blocked the U.S. State Dept from having its way.
Europe threw multiple Millions at Ara-screw-up..the plan...*Get a final State..and humiliate the Jew all you can on the way for us and our money effort.
The U.N. threw in to speed things up...The U.S. State Dept,determined to rend all from the E.U.
E.U. is spent for now..literally....the money will not flow to the PaLies like before.
U.N. sulks in the background..."The Jews are escaping to freedom behind the wall..we can't have that"
Its all more about seeing the Jewish nation suffer and pay for fantacised wrong.
Now that settlements and military outposts are being moved....Israel is doing what they all wanted....and now the Violins and crying begins.
One by one..Sharon has outwitted and outmanuevered them....from the beginning days of Danny Kurtzer running around with his settlement satillite photos..to today,
Now Jordan IS being asked to just take the whole Palie land thing up and own it.
Sharon knows too well the Arab Psychy...a solution that lets Israel go..not likely.
Well Done Arik..well done Shaul Mofaz.
The world has spent Billions to crush and humiliate your nation.
Today....your oppressors can't sit and rest...they have a severe case of Hemaroids [Palestinians] : )
Like it or not, Israel will also need to revoke the citizenship of its Israeli Arab population and cut them out of greenline Israel. Leaving any significant Muslim population inside the state would be suicidal in the long run. That Muslim population would continue to grow at a faster-than-Jewish rate, with Israel no longer having extra territory to cut out for Arab populations. Eventually, the Muslims would vote themselves into power and then go about completing the Holocaust.
should read...Hemaroids [Pile-A -Stinians ] : )
And How, pray tell would this happen? Are 4 million people going to suddenly appear? Talk about clueless. The incredible lack of understanding of reality is shocking with all these political writers.
In reality, Palestine is a suicide bomber factory for the World-Wide Islamic Jihad. To protect that factory, the Arabs must use as much camoflage as possible, to stall any real decisions that will make them responsible for their actions. If Israel became a single state (which in fact by International Law it already is), the only change is that the Palestinian Authority would no longer exist as a political front, and the Islamic Jihad could be hunted down and exterminated by the IDF without the quasi independent State cover it now has.
No matter what they do, the day of justice is fast apon them. The steady supply of suicide bombers for the Iraq war effort has not pleased the Bush Administration. No matter which form it takes, an independant state, a dual state or a single state, the "refugee" status is soon to be history, and the Jihad will no longer be able to hide behind the skirts of the UN.
The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over hoping for a different result.
I listened to an interview with Palestinian School kids where the reporter asked them what was better, to be a suicide martyr or to have a State with full rights, the child answered death by suicide, for she would get her rights in paradise. I also have seen the polls taken by the Palestinians themselves that say that 80% of children 14 and below wish for death by Shahida over life. No amount of land, gifts, or genuflection before Allah is going to stop the next generation of Palestinians to find their purpose in sacrificing their lives to kill you and your family. Welcome to the Jihad.
I suggest you give them your house instead of insisting the Jews give them theirs. That at least you have the right to do. Besides it will bring you peace, for you will no longer have to worry about the war in your grave.
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