Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has expressed his opinion that Gaza and the West Bank, Palestine altogether, should be recognized in the United Nations, according to a Daily Beast report.
Here's what he wrote to the Beast's Bernard Avishai:
“I believe that the Palestinian request from the United Nations is congruent with the basic concept of the two-state solution. Therefore, I see no reason to oppose it. Once the United Nations will lay the foundation for this idea, we in Israel will have to engage in a serious process of negotiations, in order to agree on specific borders based on the 1967 lines, and resolve the other issues. It is time to give a hand to, and encourage, the moderate forces amongst the Palestinians. Abu-Mazen (Abbas) and Salam Fayyad need our help. It's time to give it.”
The U.S. has time and again vetoed and threatened to veto any actions that might even remotely result in recognition of Palestine at the U.N. Though President Barack Obama has expressed interest in a two-state solution, via '67 borders with landswaps, his position in the U.N. has indicated a less than cooperative attitude toward Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
If there's a couple things the recent conflict can remind everyone of, it's that the conflict is not going to resolve itself without concerted diplomatic steps, and that raw military power does not deter people determined to be free of harsh, longstanding trade embargoes.
In Avishai's own words:
As in 1973, it is dawning on Israelis, though first on their pundits, that “deterrence”—the sheer capacity to intimidate Palestinians—is no more a security strategy than Moshe Dayan’s “security borders” were after 1967. Palestinians can’t invade or defeat Israel, that’s clear.
Like many former Israeli officials before him, Olmert's comments will likely be brushed aside as insignificant.
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