At a time when a Palestinian Arab sovereign state is so widely discussed, very few have taken the time to consider the consequences of establishing such an entity. Here are questions that every citizen can bring to the attention of the U.S. government, which conceptualizes the idea, and to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which seems ready to swallow such an idea:

1. Encirclement: Will a proposed sovereign Palestine not swallow up Jordan, most of whose population is Palestinian, leaving Israel with a hostile state from the Iraqi border to the Mediterranean Sea, with a corridor across the Negev between Gaza to Hebron?

2. Israeli Arabs: Will the Arabs of the Galilee and the Triangle not sue for “autonomy,” and then demand the fulfillment of U.N. Resolution 181 – an Israeli withdrawal to the 1947 borders (evacuation of Nahariya, Acre, Nazareth, Jaffa, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat and Beer Sheva)?

3. Terror: Why will a new Palestinian entity disband terrorist organizations? After all, Mahmoud Abbas has so far refused to dismantle or disband the Al Aksa Brigades of the Fatah which continue to fire missiles into the Western Negev.

4. Armament: Why should there be any expectation that a sovereign Palestine will uphold any commitment for demilitarization, since the Palestinian Authority never upheld any such commitment since the Oslo Accords?

5. Refugees: Based on Israel’s surprising agreement to view the Saudi plan as a basis for a state, does that not mean that Israel will have to absorb descendents of refugees and displace thousands of Israelis from places like Haifa, Tfzat and Jaffa and 80 kibbutzim which rest on Arab neighborhoods or villages from where Arabs fled in 1948?

6. Air space: Will the Israel Air Force be forbidden from flying over the “West Bank,” just as it was banned from the Lebanese skies?

7. Alliances: Based on diplomatic experience with the Palestinian Authority, will a Palestine not violate every prohibition on signing military agreements with countries hostile to Israel, placing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on Israel’s borders?

8. Water: Like the Palestinian Authority before it, will a sovereign Palestine not carry out pirate drillings, and threaten the mountain aquifer of Judea and Samaria?

9. Jewish sovereignty: Will the momentum of a Palestine not erase the right of the Jews to the land of Israel in international consciousness?

10. Loss of independence: Will Israel not become a protectorate that is subject to the Quartet – the U.S., the EU, the U.N. and Russia?

©The Bulletin 2007

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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