My letter to the Boston Globe RE Who could confirm statehood on a people riven by internal conflict?

Jericho Located just north of the Dead Sea and near the Jordan River in the West Bank, Jericho (which means “City of the Moon” in Arabic) is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world

RE: Who could confirm statehood on a people riven by internal conflict?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2011/07/25/who_could_confirm_statehood_on_a_people_riven_by_internal_conflict/

Dear Editor,

No one knows if a sovereign viable Palestinian state can emerge to live side by side in peace with Israel... but I do know for a fact that, no matter what, Israel must fully respect the Palestinians basic human rights including but not limited to the Palestinian refugees inalienable right to return to original homes and lands.

Israel is obviously not going anywhere. It has many loyal citizens and supporters who will continue to do all they can to make sure Israel survives no matter what. A secular two state solution gives Palestinian refugees the ability to opt out of being Israeli and paying taxes to help fund that state. However it has to be an individual choice for the refugees.

According to the General Delegation of the PLO to the United States "Palestinian refugees must be given the option to exercise their right of return (as well as receive compensation for their losses arising from their dispossession and displacement) though refugees may prefer other options such as: (i) resettlement in third countries, (ii) resettlement in a newly independent Palestine (even though they originate from that part of Palestine which became Israel) or (iii) normalization of their legal status in the host country where they currently reside. What is important is that individual refugees decide for themselves which option they prefer – a decision must not be imposed upon them." http://plodelegation.us/palestine/core-issues/

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

"The truth elided by both parties is that the Palestinian and Israeli identities are 20th-century phenomena that emerged in parallel and in contradiction to each other. One hundred years ago, the words “Israeli” and “Palestinian” were meaningless. This is not to say that Arabs and Jews don’t have deep histories, but both political identities are recent constructs, forged in the context of the ongoing conflict." Hussein Ibish: Two Narratives for Two Peoples

FB FYI ATFP's Hussein Ibish is honored and deeply humbled to be included in Foreign Policy's Twitterati 100: A who's who of the foreign-policy Twitterverse in 2011 - http://k7.3x.sl.pt/

ATFP Resources on Palestinian State and Institution Building ATFP's unique collection of online resources on Palestinian state and institution building, including hundreds of relevant documents

Refugees, Borders & Jerusalem...

The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world." Eleanor Roosevelt

Growing Gardens for Palestine