There can still be a Palestine. If Israel ends the militarization of settlements, there can be a Palestine.
Israel is currently using militarized settlements as a means of maintaining an advantage over the Palestinians. That is a strategy to end the plans for Palestine. These settlements are armed with Israeli soldiers to prevent any danger to the settlers. The settlements are deeply embedded in Palestine and stand alone without connection to the rest of Israel. That is not a legitimate Israeli settlement.
Palestine is diminished in the amount of land comprising that nation of people and the strategy by Israel has stranded Palestinians from other people. There is no defense of Palestinian isolation or Israeli settlements established to end any possible sovereignty of a Palestinian country.
I don't buy the ideology that says there can be no Palestinian country because of all the Israeli settlements scattered strategically throughout those lands. The Palestinians never consented to the settlements NOR were they able to defend their land. The Palestinians have far less militarization than Israel.
Israel wants to be secure and that is important, it is important to the USA, but, it can't be at the cost of an entire ethnicity in this world. The profound loss of Hebrews in this world was met with the development of a country to call their own. How, in good conscience, can the world simply turn from the need for a Palestinian homeland?
This resolution is a reflection on the future for both Israel and Palestine. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated the UN is biased against Israel.
..."Decades of political manoeuvrings have created a disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticising Israel," Ban said. "In many cases, rather than helping the Palestinian cause, this reality has hampered the ability of the UN to fulfil its role effectively."...
The single reason there has been such maneuvering is due to the veto power of the USA. Whenever there was an attempt to end the settlements by Israel in Palestinian Occupied Territories, the USA vetoed any potential. Every strategy to obtain a Palestinian homeland was either vetoed by the USA or defeated by Israel. This can't continue. It would be best if all previous resolutions be set aside to allow this new resolution ending the settlements with the hope of a more harmonious future that allows the Palestinian people their own sovereignty takes hold.
The President Elect of the USA and the US Congress can come up with their own resolution, but, that would simply bring global disdain for such unilateral actions. The USA does not need to increase tensions in the region. The USA has to be a beacon of peace through diplomatic victories. This new resolution has the potential to bring a real peace for the future.
The current culture in Gaza is depraved. The culture in Gaza has guaranteed a piece of land, but, not a future for their children. Palestine has to carry out hope for the children that have inherited a fight and not a future. The problem with Gaza is the decades of hate and war with Israel. That has left any resources limited to nurture children of peace and abundant for children of war. Childhood is not valued in Gaza. That has been learned over decades.
The moral future of the region is to value their children enough to embrace childhood and the future of peace while rejecting further war. The settlements create far more hardship than just the lack of land for a Palestine, they end the future for the Palestinian children.
December 28, 2016
By Joshua Mitnick
An Israeli planning committee (click here) backed down on Wednesday from approving hundreds of permits for housing projects in east Jerusalem, hoping to avoid fanning controversy over settlement activity hours before a policy speech on Israeli-Palesitnian peace by Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Jerusalem municipal planning commission had been scheduled to vote on about 600 building permits in neighborhood settlements located in parts of the city that make up the proposed capital of a future independent Palestinian state. But amid a week long spat between the Obama administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning settlements, the permits were taken off the agenda.
Approval of the permits was postponed “at the request of the prime minister in order not to create an unnecessary conflict with the U.S. administration,’’ said Jerusalem council member Hanan Rubin, in an with Israel’s Channel 2 television.
“We aren’t interested in creating a storm out of nothing,’’ Rubin wrote on his Facebook page. “Building in Jerusalem isn’t something political.”...
