Free Republic

Washington (CNN)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state Monday, setting off another potential showdown with the Obama administration should the Israeli leader prevail at the ballot box the following day. In the campaign's waning hours, an embattled Netanyahu tried to make the case that he deserved a third term in office because he best can handle threats to Israel and that a Palestinian state won't be formed because of the danger it would pose. "Anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, anyone who is going to evacuate territories today, is simply giving...

In a definitive disavowal of his Bar-Ilan two-state speech, prime minister makes last-minute attempt to draw voters from Bennett's Habayit Hayeudi. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau said Monday that if he were to be reelected, a Palestinian state would not be created, in a definite disavowal of his 2009 speech, in which he had voiced support for the principle of two states for two peoples. Netanyahu's remarks in an interview with the NRG website - which is owned by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and tied with the settler newspaper Makor Rishon - were a last-minute attempt to pull right-wing voters away...

Whether or not he was publicly forced into stating it, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has now said what most focused Israelis and Israel-watchers have realized for quite some time: the creation of any Palestinian State now, as weak as it is and has been since its leadership began attempting to resemble a functioning state, would be immediately subsumed (or, if you will, “gobbled up”) by ISIS or any of the other Islamic extremist groups in the region. For that reason alone, if not for the myriad others – such as its own leadership’s inclination towards and support for its...

-excerpt- In 2008, Israel offered Mr. Abbas a state covering 94% of the West Bank, along with a compensatory 6% of Israeli territory and a land bridge to Gaza. Mr. Abbas never took up the offer. Last March, President Obama personally offered Mr. Abbas a U.S.-sponsored “framework” agreement. Again Mr. Abbas demurred. The following month, Mr. Abbas signed a “reconciliation” pact with Hamas. War came by summer. Now Mr. Abbas has moved to have “the state of Palestine” join the International Criminal Court, chiefly in order to harass and perhaps arrest Israeli military officers and politicians spuriously accused of war...

Russia has finally found a lever with which to gain revenge on the United States and the West for its support for Ukraine. As payback for the painful sanctions imposed on its economy, Moscow is now brandishing a new diplomatic sword. The man who handed the Kremlin this sword on a silver platter, thereby enabling it to divert the world’s attention away from what is taking place in Ukraine, is none other than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel suffered back-to-back diplomatic setbacks in Europe on Wednesday as Palestinians headed to the United Nations to try to set a two-year deadline for an Israeli withdrawal. In Geneva, the international community delivered a stinging rebuke to Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying the practice violates Israel’s responsibilities as an occupying power. The declaration adopted by the conference of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the rules of war and military occupation, emphasized a prohibition on colonizing occupied land and insisted that international humanitarian law be obeyed in areas affected by the conflict between Israel...

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predicted on Monday that the “momentum” of countries recognizing the “state of Palestine” will grow. Ban, who spoke before a UN committee on Palestinian rights, urged Israel and the Palestinian Authority to "step back from the brink" and return to peace talks. "The Israeli and Palestinian people face a shared fate on shared land. There is no erasing the other," Ban said, according to the AFP news agency. "Governments and parliaments are taking action. That momentum will grow," said Ban, referring to recent moves by governments in Europe to recognize “Palestine”. British lawmakers voted overwhelmingly...

Messianism of new age: The road to universal happiness lays through the creation of Palestinian State Right after taking office, Federica Mogherini, the new EU foreign minister, said she “would be happy if by the end of my term, a Palestinian state existed”. Her words exactly - “would be happy”. The solution of acute and painful conflict in Ukraine, the destruction of the ISIS, anarchy in Libya, hundreds of thousands of African migrants rushing to Italy (home of Mogherini, by the way), massacre in Syria, exodus of Christians from Middle East, stabilization of Lebanon, standing on the brink of chaos...

Spain is following in the footsteps of several other European countries, and its parliament plans to hold a vote next week on a resolution to recognize a Palestinian state, The Associated Press (AP) reported on Thursday. The non-binding, largely symbolic resolution, presented by the Socialist opposition party, will be debated in parliament on Tuesday, and it appears the governing conservatives will support it. It would follow moves in other European countries intended to increase pressure for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict. …

Europe’s top diplomat on Saturday called for a Palestinian state sharing Jerusalem as its capital with Israel, hours after the police killing of an Arab-Israeli further fanned tensions. The appeal by the European Union’s Federica Mogherini followed the dawn killing of the man by police in northern Israel, with his family saying he was killed “in cold blood” and a video showing he was shot in the back. “I think Jerusalem can be and should be the capital of two states,” the new EU foreign policy chief told reporters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. …

Monday, November 03, 2014 Sweden Saves the Middle East Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog On Thursday, Sweden finally solved all the problems in the Middle East by recognizing the State of Palestine. For decades all the instability in the region had been blamed on the lack of a PLO state. Foreign policy experts stood in line to tell us all that the only thing that could end terrorism in the Middle East was a terrorist state.  It was a plan so crazy that it was bound to either work or kill a lot of people. Mostly...

Will the UN Security Council Impose a Palestinian State?Posted By Joseph Puder On November 3, 2014 @ 12:25 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments January, 2015 does not bode well for Israel at the United Nations (UN). The UN Security Council (UNSC) will officially induct five newly elected non-permanent member-states replacing outgoing Rwanda, S. Korea, Australia, Argentina and Luxembourg, representing all the global regions. Unfortunately for Israel, the incoming states, particularly Venezuela and Malaysia, are hostile to the Jewish state. The other three, Angola, New Zealand, and Spain are pondering their position on recognizing Palestine as a full member-state...

Sweden on Thursday became the biggest Western European country to recognize a Palestinian state, and Israel swiftly reacted by withdrawing its ambassador from Stockholm in protest. Coming during increased tensions between Arabs and Jews over Israel’s plans to build 1,000 housing units in east Jerusalem, the move by Sweden’s new left-leaning government reflects growing international impatience with Israel’s nearly half-century control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and its blockade of the Gaza Strip. …

Even as Jerusalem and Washington locked horns earlier this month in a very public spat over construction in Jerusalem, more than three-fourths of the Jewish-Israeli public is opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state if it means dividing Jerusalem, according to a poll released on Sunday. The poll, sponsored by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and conducted by the Shvakim Panorama research institute, found that 76 percent of the Jewish public opposed a Palestinian state if it meant dividing the capital, indicating that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took no political risks—and indeed reflected a wide consensus opinion—when he...

France’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Paris should recognize a Palestinian state only if doing so would help achieve peace, not as a symbolic gesture. However, if negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel fail, Paris “would not shirk its responsibilities” but would recognize the Palestinian state, the minister, Laurent Fabius, said in answer to a question in parliament. His remarks came a day after British lawmakers voted to recognize Palestine. Their vote will not alter government policy, but it does carry symbolic value as Palestinians pursue international recognition. “From the moment when we say that there are two states,...

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. Something extraordinary has happened.On August 31, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told an audience of Fatah members that Egypt had offered to give the PA some 1,600 kilometers of land in Sinai adjacent to Gaza, thus quintupling the size of the Gaza Strip. Egypt even offered to allow all the so-called “Palestinian refugees” to settle in the expanded Gaza Strip.Then Abbas told his Fatah followers that he rejected the Egyptian offer.On Monday Army Radio substantiated Abbas’s claim.According to Army Radio, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi proposed that the Palestinians establish their...

Egyptian president General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi has offered Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas to cede 160 square kilometers of the Sinai Peninsula adjoining Gaza to the PA, thus creating a Palestinian state five times the present size of Gaza. In return, the PA would stop demanding that Israel return to the 1967 borders. The offer was revealed on IDF Radio. Al-Sisi reportedly suggested that Palestinian “refugees” be allowed to settle in the new, much enlarged Gaza, which would be demilitarized. …

Palestinian Transportation Minister Nabil Dmaidi announced on Sunday that the Palestinian Authority intends to build an airport, sea ports and a railway to connect the Gaza Strip to Egypt. Dmaidi said his ministry signed a cooperative agreement with Egypt’s civil aviation authority, in an attempt to utilize the professional experience of the Egyptians in the aerospace industry. …

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu apparently believes the greatest threat the country now faces is an escalated European trade war. He's wrong. The greatest threat we are now facing is a national leadership that cannot get its arms around changing strategic realities. Over the weekend, Yediot Aharonot reported that during Secretary of State John Kerry's seven-hour meeting in Rome last week with Netanyahu, Kerry warned that the price for walking away from the talks with the PLO will be European economic strangulation of Israel. According to the newspaper, "[T]he secretary of state told the prime minister that he heard from his...

The United States intends to try and force a peace agreement on Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), IDF Radio reported Monday. The radio station says the US has informed Israel and the Palestinian Authority that if negotiations between them do not advance, Washington will propose its own solution, that will include a US position on every point that is in contention. In effect, according to the report, this will be an attempt to force the sides to agree on a solution formulated by the US. MK Zehava Galon (Meretz) was quoted as saying Monday that senior US officials told...