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by gnoll_of_gozag 1859 days ago
US/western europe's adamant opposition to palestine is always so jarring to me, if you look at a map of all state that regognise palestine, the whole world's an almost solid green other than US and one half of europe and a couple of other countries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_t...

2 comments

On the other hand western Europe is the biggest donor to the Palestinians [1].

There are words and then there is action; If the (Arab) world wanted a Palestine state it would have been there by now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestini...

Where would this Palestinian state be located? If not in Palestine, it is as much of a solution as moving all Jewish Israelis to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, that is, not a solution at all.
The approach itself is wrong, or at least one that ensures that there will be no viable solution.

If there was any real interest to promote a solution that would reduce the suffering and improve the conditions under which Palestinians live in the occupied territories, Lebanon, Syria and a Jordan things today would’ve been quite different.

A good start would be to shelve the n State solution and focus on normalizing relations; both Palestinians and Israelis care predominantly about having a roof over their heads, food on their tables and employment opportunities for them and their children. Europe is peaceful because even the most destitute of nations in it allow a quality of life that most people on this planet would envy.

The second issue that should be the primary focus of anyone who cares about making people’s lives better rather than driving a political issue one way or another is the recognition of Palestinians as refugees and transferring their administration to the UNHCR instead of UNRWA.

UNRWA mandate is nothing less than to ensure that displaced people continue to suffer through generations, they aren’t allowed to offer anything but the most basic assistance, build permanent structures which is why refugee camps still exist and the displaced Palestinians have none of the rights that refugees do including equal access to employment, health care and education.

They do however have some “unique” rights like being able to transfer their status (males only) to their children which produces quite comical scenarios such as a person who was born to a Palestinian father in Qatar, immigrated to the United Kingdom and adopted a Malaysian child that child is now considered a Palestinian refugee.

Now I’m not claiming that the adopted child will seek to use their rights as a Palestinian refugee to return but the fact that the process that governs Palestinian “refugees” puts more focus on ensuing that their numbers continue to grow over granting them basic rights such as the right to employment or education is shameful and it was specifically created because the Arab League would not have backed the UN convention on refugees otherwise.

In the link you've shared:

"Although these countries generally support some form of two-state solution to the conflict, they take the position that their recognition of a Palestinian state is conditioned to direct negotiations between Israel and the PNA."

And I guess it's hard to negotiate with terrorists

>"And I guess it's hard to negotiate with terrorists".

I don't understand this. Are the PNA terrorists? Hamas definitely is, but the PNA?

Maybe they are not terrorists themselves, but they do pay bounties to terrorists' families; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_.... please correct me if this is untrue. I think nothing is worse then spreading lies, even inadvertently.