State of Hostilities (Updated)

As the Palestinian Authority continues its attempt to achieve statehood beginning with full acceptance of United Nations membership, here are three reasons why this action should be opposed by the international community.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Under international law, the first condition required for a political entity to be considered a state is as follows:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a ) a permanent population; b ) a defined territory; c ) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

The Palestininian Authority has no complete legal control over a permanent population, and therefore cannot be classified as a state.

2. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in line with the general policy of the Fatah group he leads, has repeatedly refused to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, failed to condemn terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians (something which even Yasser Arafat did, although his condemnations were obviously insincere), and rejected groundbreaking peace offerings from successive Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu (see details here, here and here).

3. By the admission of its own MPs, Fatah's drive to form a "two-state solution" based on the 1967 armistice lines is a purely practical political initiative, designed as a temporary step toward annexing the whole of Israel. This process does not differ significantly from the terrorist group Hamas' intention to conquer all of Israel - an existing United Nations member state - using a transitional "Palestinian state" as a first step in a long-term plan (see final paragraph here). This objective is clearly incompatible with the image of a "state" that wants and deserves official recognition at the UN.

UPDATE: What was I saying?

Palestinian Authority representatives in the United Nations are handing out maps of "Palestine" that show it in place of all of Israel, including Tel Aviv, reports David Bedein of the Israel Resource Review.

Bedein, who is currently in the United States, told Arutz Sheva: "They do not want a Palestinian state, but all of Palestine. The maps they hand out in their offices include all of 'Palestine.' They erase Israel completely in their maps."