Italy will never recognize a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said. Berlusconi at a celebration of Israel\’s 63rd birthday praised the Jewish state as the only democracy in the Middle East. He was the guest of honor Wednesday at an Israeli Independence Day reception hosted by Israeli Ambassador Gideon Meir.
France is actively considering recognizing a Palestinian state, along with other European neighbors. “The recognition of a Palestinian state is an option that we are currently thinking about, with our European partners,” Gérard Araud, France’s ambassador to the United Nations told journalists April 22.
The European Union will not recognize Palestinian statehood until an \”appropriate\” time, its Foreign Affairs Council said in a statement.
Argentina has recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, according to a note sent from President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel\’s foreign minister presented a plan to the United Nations that would transfer Israeli Arab towns to a future Palestinian state in exchange for annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Irked by the slow rate of progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, major Arab players are threatening to withdraw their offer to normalize ties with Israel once a Palestinian state is established. Underlying the Arab reassessment is a deeper problem: Arab belief in the viability of \”the two-state solution\” is diminishing. And the worry in Jerusalem is that this growing lack of confidence could undermine the fragile negotiating process so carefully put in place at the regional peace conference in Annapolis, Md., last November.
Again and again, private organizations appear on the scene, promoting agendas designed to advance the peace process in the Middle East. In many cases, their intentions may be good; unfortunately, however, they generally lack a minimal understanding of the situation, and their programs and proposals are based on mistaken assumptions. As a result, their contribution to an easing of the prevailing tension between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is of little or no value. An examination of one of these peace efforts, the OneVoice movement.
With the pro-U.S. regime of Pervez Musharraf in crisis following the Pakistani president\’s move to suspend his country\’s constitution and scuttle planned parliamentary elections, Israel is watching the developments with great concern.
Standing in the Muqata, Yasser Arafat\’s compound in Ramallah, on his funeral day made me believe that we Palestinians must overcome a hurdle if we are to move forward.
Our youth face uncertainty, our people feel lost and beaten and our elders are sad to think that their children and grandchildren will share their same destiny — never to live in peace in an independent Palestinian state.
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