Palestine secures UNESCO membership

These are parallel situations. The Palestinians are demanding that Israel recognise the right of millions of Arabs to settle in Israel and destroy the concept of the Jewish state demographically. We do not say, however, that you ought to drop this demand before we negotiate. Israel recognises that this issue can be solved during negotiations, as with the settlements. We are not building new settlements. Israel are merely expanding settlements which are already in existence and the boundaries of which have gone unaltered since the Oslo Agreement. We are NOT creating new settlements.

We will negotiate with Israel, when those negotiations are between equals.

No, they are not. The Right of Return pertains to the future, so it can be negotiated. Israeli settlements are happening right now, and all we're asking is that they be put off until the future when Israel has clear boundaries to develop settlements in. Palestine has agreed to negotiate the Right of Return, and all we ask is that Israel negotiates the settlement issue rather than continuing to build instead of considering peace.

Israel understands this and would like to emphasise for the third time in this discussion that PM Netanyahu offered a temporary moratorium on government-constructed Jewish towns in the West Bank just last week.

That's not circular, those statements are the same...

That moratorium was contingent on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, and we cannot accept a deal that is guaranteed to hurt the Arab population of Israel. The PA does recognize Israel as a sovereign state, but recognizing them as a "Jewish state" (which Palestine does not see the need for) ignores the fact that at least 20% of Israel's population is not Jewish, so the designation makes no sense and puts the non-Jewish population of Israel in danger of persecution.

So we're back at the start. You do not recognise Israel as a Jewish state but demand we recognise you as a Palestinian state. A Jewish state is not an exclusionary state - all non-Jewish citizens are equal under the law. The term is to do with nationalism and that Jews are a majority in their ancient homeland. If you don't recognise this then there's no hope for peace at all. You don't know what you're talking about.

The statements are not circular because one is not being used as reason for another. Putting the same statement twice in the same sentence does not prove circular reasoning. Palestine wants to negotiate as two states because it wants to negotiate as equals.



No. We recognize the state of Israel, so we don't understand why you need more than that. Israel would obviously have an issue with recognizing Palestine as a Muslim state even though Palestine is predominantly Muslim. Palestine recognizes Israel's right to exist; we simply see the recognition 'as a Jewish state' as a redundant, unnecessary act that can only hurt. This is the problem with Israel's hypocrisy- it blames Palestine for making preconditions but it refuses to stop its aggression unless Palestine meets its conditions. It blames Palestine for not recognizing Israel in the right way when Israel does not recognize the state of Palestine at all. All that we want is to be treated equally, but Israel is not giving us any reason to believe this is going to happen, so we're turning to the international community for help.

No. We recognize the state of Israel, so we don't understand why you need more than that. Israel would obviously have an issue with recognizing Palestine as a Muslim state even though Palestine is predominantly Muslim. Palestine recognizes Israel's right to exist; we simply see the recognition 'as a Jewish state' as a redundant, unnecessary act that can only hurt. This is the problem with Israel's hypocrisy- it blames Palestine for making preconditions but it refuses to stop its aggression unless Palestine meets its conditions. It blames Palestine for not recognizing Israel in the right way when Israel does not recognize the state of Palestine at all. All that we want is to be treated equally, but Israel is not giving us any reason to believe this is going to happen, so we're turning to the international community for help.