Brazil recognises Palestine's state as of before 1967

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Brazil Recognizes State of Palestine With Pre-1967 Borders
By Joshua Goodman
Dec 3, 2010 8:30 PM

Brazil today recognized the state of Palestine based on borders before Israel seized control of the West Bank in 1967. The foreign ministry said the recognition was in response to a request made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva earlier this year. The decision is in line with Brazil’s historic support for United Nations resolutions demanding the end of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, and doesn’t detract from the country’s support for peace negotiations between the two sides, the ministry said in a statement.

U.S. Congressman Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat who is chairman of the House subcommittee overseeing relations with Latin America, condemned Brazil’s move. “Brazil’s decision to recognize Palestine is severely misguided and represents a last gasp by a Lula-led foreign policy which was already substantially off track,” Engel, who is also co-chair of the Brazil caucus in Congress, said in an e- mailed statement. “Brazil is sending a message to the Palestinians that they need not make peace to gain recognition as a sovereign state.”

Lula, who steps down after eight years in office on Jan. 1, made his first-ever visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories in March. He was snubbed during the tour by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for laying a wreath at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafata’s grave without visiting the tomb of Zionist founder Theodor Herzl.

Lula’s outreach to Iran, which he visited in May after hosting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has also raised concerns in the U.S. and in Israel. Brazil and Turkey voted against a U.N. Security Council resolution in June imposing new sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program after the two countries negotiated a deal to swap enriched uranium for fuel to power a medical- isotopes reactor.

“One can only hope that the new leadership coming into Brazil will change course and understand that this is not the way to gain favor as an emerging power,” Engel said.

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Fantastic news.

[modern]

Good news, indeed. Be nice for other countries to follow this example...

[major.tom]

modern, your wish is granted...

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US urged to recognize Palestinian state
Dec 8, 2010

The Palestinian Authority has called for the US recognition of an independent Palestinian state in response to Israel's refusal to stop settlement expansion on the occupied Palestinian territories. Chief Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator Saeb Erekat expressed hope on Wednesday that Washington recognizes a free and independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Erekat made the remarks after the US admitted that it had failed to convince Israel to renew its partial settlement freeze in the occupied West Bank, which is the Palestinian side's main precondition for returning to talks. "We hope that the American administration would recognize the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders as a response to Israel's settlement diktats and other unilateral measures," Erekat was quoted as saying by AFP in Cairo. "Decisions are needed and if the United States wants to safeguard the two-state solution it must recognize the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders," he added.

Over the course of the past week, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have all sent letters to Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas, declaring that they recognize a free and independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. More than 100 states around the world recognize Palestine.

Israel has protested the recent recognitions, claiming that the move is against the spirit of the Middle East talks and that a Palestinian state should only be established through dialogue.

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[major.tom]

source: link

Middle East peace talks: Settlement row 'crisis'

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says Middle East peace talks are in crisis following Israel's refusal to stop building in settlements.

His comments come hours after the US said that it had failed to get Israel to renew its settlement curbs.

Mr Abbas suspended talks in September after a 10-month halt on Israeli building in the occupied West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, expired.

The US has vowed to find other ways to bring the two sides together.

The peace talks resumed in Washington in September after a break of almost two years, but broke down just weeks later over the settlement issue.

Settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

US sweeteners

Speaking on a visit to Athens, the Palestinian Authority president said there was "no doubt" that the peace talks were in crisis, the AFP news agency reported.

Washington announced on Tuesday that it had abandoned efforts to persuade Israel to renew its settlement freeze, but said that this did not mean the end of US efforts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has released a statement saying Israel was still fully committed to direct peace talks with the Palestinians without pre-conditions, and that all issues, including the status of East Jerusalem, were on the table.

But it is now clear that after weeks of trying, the Israeli prime minister has failed to get his fractious coalition to support a new settlement freeze in the West Bank, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Jerusalem.

The US government tried extremely hard to persuade right-wingers in Mr Netanyahu's cabinet that it was in their interest, even offering to give Israel 20 F-35 stealth fighters for free as an inducement, but its attempt failed, our correspondent says.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are now due in Washington for separate talks with American negotiators.

'Credibility tarnished'

Senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath told the BBC that direct peace talks with Israel would not resume until it changed its position on settlements.

Mr Shaath said that American credibility as a mediator had been tarnished by its failure to negotiate a freeze.

"[The failure] no doubt tarnishes their credibility about their ability to implement permanent settlement negotiations, but I think many options remain on the table for the United States and for us," he said.

Mr Shaath said the Palestinian leadership would seek out international support for Palestinian statehood until the Americans decided on "a more serious step to get the Israelis to comply".

But the former British prime minister and envoy of the Middle East Quartet, Tony Blair, said the US decision was a "sensible" one which would allow negotiators to step back and re-evaluate the situation.

"I would not take that in any way as a diminution of anyone's intention to get things going," he told the BBC. "It remains the fixed resolution of everyone to make sure that we put this back together in a way that's going to allow us to succeed."

Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 120 settlements.

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Nice to see Bliar approves of the continued lack of progress. Step back and re-evaluate? Isn't that precisely what they've been doing for decades? The "evaluation" period is past; action is now required.

It would help if Obama withdraw all support for Israel until they made the concessions required under international law for a just settlement. However, given his continued creep to the right, this appears very doubtful. As someone put it, "he's compromising himself right out of the job."

[major.tom]

source: link

Hillary Clinton 'frustrated' at Middle East deadlock

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed frustration at the latest setback to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but insisted that the US would continue to push for progress.

She vowed to promote indirect talks on "core issues" including borders, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem.

Direct talks were set up with great fanfare by President Barack Obama.

But earlier this week the US abandoned efforts to persuade Israel to stop new construction of Jewish settlements.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed in September after a break of almost two years.

But they were suspended within weeks when Israel decided not to extend the 10-month freeze on settlement building in the West Bank.

Ms Clinton said the time had come to "grapple with the core issues of this conflict: on borders and security, settlements, water and refugees and on Jerusalem itself."

She was making her first comments on the deadlock since Washington said it had abandoned efforts to persuade Israel to stop the construction of new Jewish settlements - something which the Palestinians are insisting on before direct talks can progress.

'Pushing core issues'

Ms Clinton repeated the US commitment to Israel's security, even as she explained why the US viewed Israel's construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land as illegitimate.

"Like many of you, I am frustrated that we have not gotten farther, faster," Ms Clinton said in a speech at the Saban Forum, a Middle East policy seminar sponsored by the Brookings Institution think tank.

Stressing that a negotiated solution remained the only way forward, she said the US would resume the role of broker, opening talks with both parties on vital issues

"We will push the parties to lay out their positions on the core issues without delay, in good faith, and with real specificity," she said.

Ms Clinton's speech was the first Middle East policy address following the US's abandoning its efforts to persuade Israel to halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Using plain language and a sometimes stern tone, she said America was "serious about peace" and would be "persistent" in its search for a solution.

Two years of preaching about the need for negotiations had not changed anything, Mrs Clinton said: "There is no viable alternative to reaching mutual agreement. The stakes are too high, the pain too deep, and the issues too complex for any other approach."

Both Israel and the Palestinians had clear motives for seeking peace, she said, explaining that without a resolution to the conflict, Israelis could become a minority within their current borders and Palestinians would be unable to sustain "the lack of peace and the occupation that began in 1967".

But she had some stark words for political leaders on both sides.

The land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was "finite", she said, and the people who live there need a clear border to map out their futures.

"Palestinians must appreciate Israel's legitimate security concerns. And Israelis must accept the legitimate territorial aspirations of the Palestinian people. Ignoring the other side's needs is in the end self-defeating."

Mr Obama has identified continued US engagement in peace talks as a key policy goal.

But the Palestinians have vowed not to return to the negotiating table while Israel continues building on West Bank settlements.

Last month the Obama administration offered Israel a sizeable package of incentives, including jet fighters and security guarantees, in return for a 90-day extension of a previous moratorium on settlement-building.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but the Palestinian Authority dismissed the idea.

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Two quotes ('without a resolution to the conflict, Israelis could become a minority within their current borders' and 'the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was "finite"') seem to hint at a possible shift of US support for a single state in Israel/Palestine. One can only hope.

If Israel will not agree to even a temporary halt to their theft of Palestinian land in return for generous bribes of fighter jets and unconditional diplomatic support, the US would face the grim reality that justice can no longer be reached through appeasement.

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Some of the comments are worth checking...