My letter to the Boston Globe RE Jeff Jacoby's No to statehood.

RE: Jeff Jacoby's No to statehood. Palestine has refused statehood in the past because it’s not its real goal
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/09/20/statehood/GUEpZN3V99f1Mw9snA6yCO/story.xml

Dear Editor,

Obviously many Israelis are absolutely convinced that Palestinians refuse to negotiate in good faith while many Palestinians are absolutely convinced that Israel is the one refusing to negotiate in good faith.

One could argue back and forth for decades about who is most in the wrong and who has sabotaged a negotiated settlement most... but really for everyone's sake the goal needs to be to once and for all end the conflict, not exasperate it. The Arab Peace Initiative "Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties" was and remains a very good start to the process of ending the conflict with a fair and just negotiated settlement.

Israel and Palestine need to be two separate sovereign nation states committed to peace and progress for all. Supporting a fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the conflict really is the best way forward- for everyone's sake.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES

Help Build A Golden Rule Peace for the Holy Land

The Golden Rule

Growing Gardens for Palestine

ATFP Resources on September UN Initiative: An extensive set of resources on a possible Palestinian UN initiative in September, covering Palestinian and pro-Palestinian, Israeli, American, Arab, European and other international perspectives, as well as general news items. This resource list is in chronological order within each category, beginning with the most recent items, and will be updated daily. The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP)

"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