How not to have a Palestinian state...

A nice article by Jose Maria Aznar...

A declaration of Palestinian statehood by the United Nations General Assembly will be an act of political manoeuvring that will only make it even more difficult to find a solution. Unilateral action will have unforeseeable consequences, so the only true way forward is through a bilateral agreement.

This is not the time for destructive gestures: it is time to encourage everyone to sit down and negotiate, face to face, with no pre-conditions other than mutual and unequivocal recognition.

There cannot be two states, living in peace side by side, unless Palestinians accept that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and the Israelis accept that the Palestinian State will be the state for the Palestinian people. Absent that basis, no genuine progress will be made.

The government in Jerusalem has said on numerous occasions that it is ready to talk. Now is the moment of truth for the Palestinians. They must choose negotiation, with all that negotiating entails, including concessions by both parties.

The alternative is for the representatives of the Palestinian people to continue demonizing their only possible negotiating partner, while expecting the international community to tilt the scales in their own favour. But blackmail will lead to disaster. Negotiations must be conducted in good faith and not as a means of exerting various forms of international pressure.

It is time for the international community, starting with the UN, to say that the time for game-playing and wishful thinking is past. Serious negotiations can only be conducted by Israelis and Palestinians themselves, no matter how much help or goodwill is provided from the outside. A unilaterally declared Palestinian State, which is not the product of bilateral negotiations, is a demand that Israel accept the unacceptable.

Diplomacy demands, above all, negotiation and agreement, not unilateral demands imposed with contempt.