and can you ask. china for asians rule today. eleven thirty am in moscow these iraqi headlights as colonel gadhafi is remaining forces hold out against nato against the government troops and nato air strikes in libya a french president faces a legal battle at home over his country's intervention in the war lawyers claim nicolas sarkozy should be held to account for crimes against humanity committed during the bombing of libya. international efforts to calm border tension in kosovo where neither locals nor serbs seem willing to back down after recent bloodshed he used mulling over a proposal to end the deadlock sparked by the violent seizure of two border posts by close of ins in july. and

a statehood showdown at the un as the general assembly gets ready to vote on the status of polish palestine with deep divisions preparing to crack the surface the u.s. and israel remain opposed to giving palestinians a seat at the world body. staying with that topic coming up on cross talk we take a look at whether a palestinian seat at the u.n. will mean little more than the paper it's written on if israel and the u.s. don't lay out the welcome mat stay with us. take. a lonely welcome to cross talk i'm here all about meaningless symbolism for

a game changer in the absence of a peace process the palestinians will ask the united nations to upgrade their current observer status to that of full member state world opinion backs this bill but will it change anything on the ground. to. start. to cross stop the prospects for a palestinian state i'm joined by the end of the two in crime show she's a two by initiative research fellow palestinian human rights lawyer and a former legal advisor to the palestinian negotiating team and actually mash we have many more as he is a professor at ben gurion university and his most recent book is one state to states resolving the israel palestine conflict all right cross talk rose in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it but first marcia many people are calling this a diplomatic tsunami tell us why that's right peter despite months of desperate efforts by the u.s. and israel to head off

a move that could become the next tipping point in the middle east the palestinian leadership is heading to the united nations with a firm commitment to seek recognition as a state we are going to be you and with all options open and we're going to the security council will go through exam assembly critics are more than certain the general assembly will vote in favor of palestinian statehood that president obama has been struggling to keep israeli palestinian negotiations afloat has been clear about his opposition to the david and his war and you know any such request at the security council. for the palestinians efforts to do generalize israel will end in failure symbolic actions to isolate israel of the united nations in september would create an independent state obama's fears are not unwarranted the general assembly vote would leave only be here with israel and a handful of other countries and a startling already on the issue sending a message regarding the legitimacy of a palestinian position in the conflict but above all the vote could cause significant backlash in the middle east already in turmoil from the arab spring the

stage is being set for calamity the high risk of palestinian riots to fully claim that state followed by a very tough israeli crackdowns adding fine to the unexpected and unpredictable popular upheavals in the middle east although initially the palestinians decision to go to the un became a fallback option after the negotiations hit a day then last year israeli government has warned that the un move will call the peace efforts i don't think that they will. get them any closer to their desired other country the meaning of such a step is that they are they prefer to go for provocations out of than sitting to be negotiation table it is also possible however that fears of a fallout are overblown and the both could even inject momentum into the stalled talks projections about whether the bed or even the notion of palestinian statehood

can fans of the transformed things on the ground remains to be seen in the upcoming months but thanks very much for that first i'd like to go to diana in toronto it's being called a symbolic vote and even worse it's out there you know a lot unilateral act on the part of the palestinians how do you respond to that after twenty years after all slow. well it is in fact a unilateral act which is what israel has been doing for the past twenty years of negotiations it's been you know laterally creating facts on the ground and while i'm not somebody who believes that this is going to change anything in any respect i do believe that it's about time that the united nations be used as a tool and that the this palestine or p.l.o. or whoever it is that's making that begin to put into place measures to actually isolate israel for its ongoing violations of human rights and its ongoing violations of the fortune of the convention international law you know many i mean

who can blame the palestinians are they say they haven't really gotten anything out of what's called the peace process i mean is this kind of like a last resort how do you feel about that i mean they feel like they've got nothing out of the last twenty years since oslo and this is the last card they can play well there is something in that except that then one forgets history in the year two thousand palestinians were offered a two state solution in almost all the west bank the gaza strip east jerusalem by their american president bill clinton and they would barak the israeli prime minister and they said no the problem with what they doing now not only is it you know lateral but it also involves not only recognition of israel as a jewish state in other words they're declaring their statehood a but not accepting israel as their neighbor and it's not clear whether the even will accept the sixty seven borders this is in contrast incidentally with one thousand nine hundred forty seven when the un decided on the partition of palestine into two states and israel

at the time accepted the palestinian state next to a jewish state the palestinians of course turned down the two state offer in one nine hundred forty seven as they did in the year two thousand ok dan i mean this is this issue of recognizing israel's a jewish state but would that negate the right of return for palestinians to power sign. absolutely and this is why houses will never recognize israel as a jewish state nor should we be asked to recognize israel as a jewish state in other words what morris and other individuals are saying is in demanding that palace that we call syrians recognize israel as a jewish state we're actually we're actually demanding that we accept the ethnic cleansing of our homeland and this is something that no palestinian leader including mahmoud abbas as non-confrontational as he is is going to accept but i want to get back to some of the other issues that have also been mentioned which is that of the negotiations i was somebody who was actually appen ago she asians and

there was no palestinian state that was offered during any period of the negotiations there was always and idea that israel is going to continue to control the palestinians control their lives control their air sprays their territory their water etc and there's never been this idea that powell saying should be allowed to be free this is what palestinians are seeking now whether it's going to come at the hands of the united nations or in another form what really needs to be cemented is this idea that israel has to relinquish control over our lives in order for us to be able to live i mean a lot of people would say by my international recognition of a palestinian state is that it creates a level playing field instead of this hopeless peace process that we've seen which hasn't brought peace to israel hasn't given the state to the palestinians. of enormous amount of mistrust that's there why can't another state be very and then you start to go shooting borders i mean maybe we should just do it the other way around well. well we could do that but hey i am all for

a palestinian state and i'm all for a three state solution the problem is the palestinians in this in this action and in their continuing demand for refugee return in effect saying we want all of palestine first we will take the west bank and receiver in the national recognition for that in the gaza strip and then from then from there we will use it as a springboard to conquer the rest of palestine and no israel no drew estate this unfortunately is the fear of most israelis myself included it both in terms of what a bus is doing and what is the majority party in palestine hamas once they say so clearly a bus doesn't say so clearly doing it in two stages but there are automatically aiming at the same goal and this is very unfortunate and if it can you respond to that because for twenty years the palestinians and the israelis have been working together i mean the they hasn't been a peace process but they've worked together do you believe that the there's that

deep seated plan where we just first get the west bank and we get gaza is recognized as a state and then the destruction of israel because i don't come across that argument very often but then again i don't live in israel no look i think it's really important to put this in perspective the first perspective is that the palestinians have repeatedly recognized israel they wanted it in eighty eight they did explicitly in one thousand nine hundred three in every single agreement there has been a recognition of israel every single palestinian leader has not listened to and say that they recognize israel. well you know i'm going to tell you to do it if you may if you may allow me to continue i will answer your question now the problem is that israel has never recognized callus time there is not a single israeli political party in the knesset that has recognized palestine and palestine's right to exist now going back to the issue of the jewish state the issue of the jewish state is something that was recently added to the negotiations

and during the period that actually negotiations existed there was no demand for a church state and the reason that this demand is now cropping up is because israel wants to extinguish the rights of millions of palestinian refugees and wants to ensure that it has the right and the legitimacy to continue to carry out very discriminatory measures and racist measures against the palestinian refugees and against their own citizens who happen to have who happen not to be jewish this is why no palestinian leader will accept that but in terms of recognizing the actual state and the existence of a state every single political leader has come forward and recognized israel there has not been however a reciprocal recognition of palestine its right to exist by any israeli leader hamas hamas is correct hamas has recognized israel you see every political leader hamas represents more than half of the palestinian people and they do not recognize israel under any conditions i'm going to sue the cities that. i'm betting in fact

they have many in fact they have first the machines right here in the leader of hamas just. please if you will allow me to finish and not cut me off i've given you that luxury first committee has seen the spiritual leader of hamas before he was assassinated came out in an interview in haaretz which is an israeli newspaper and said that if israel withdraws completely to the one nine hundred sixty seven borders then in exchange for that withdrawal they will recognize israel and so too has every other leader of hamas including most recently khaled mashaal who equally said that palestinians want to establish a state on the sixty seven borders and this is exactly what he would been talking about is that instead of what is really nothing through reasons to actually an interesting is not true now it is true i do you can actually go to the other try that you are a historian and you can go a mile or so to say is the most certain fact or i can tell you what my so says go he was willing to do or at least in the early truce with israel. said that he's

willing to win through a temporary a temporary truce with israel so he's really good if he is willing to accept one of those are going to say no that's true that's true he says he has indicated that are really just a chance here in germany are we going to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the palestine call state party. if you will. in the faraway land. where human life is ruled by nature.

of planet earth is scarce we. lie here in the permafrost. and for those of you with them. stored times first. mission free could you take three months for charges free to make humans free. free. free. zone free volunteer video for your media projects a free media party tom. can . welcome back across the country to go to mind you were talking about what the

future holds for the palestinians. can. ok benny and i to go to you let's do a hypothetical here i mean you know the general assembly the vast majority the country the general assembly support the palestinian bid for changing its status of the united nations and we know that the united states will veto it but in the hypothetical case how would this change once the united nations takes a vote it will be in favor of the palestinians how will this change israel's position or will it not change at all. ok let me say something first about what was said until not right the hamas says clearly it wants to destroy israel that's what it says in its founding charter that is still the constitution of that organization and mahmoud abbas the head of the p.l.o. says he will not recognize israel as a jewish state these are facts hey you can say whatever you like people can try and sell you propaganda but these are the facts as to what's going to happen on the

ground i don't know i don't know how any thought by the united nations general assembly. will change the situation on the ground what it probably will do is it will incite the masses masses of palestinians to violence and masses of arabs outside of palestine to support what they see as the palestinian cause and a we've seen some of that already in the streets of cairo when they vandalized israeli embassy i assume these sort of things are going to happen in the arab world and in this in in palestine itself in the west bank in the gaza strip there will be massive demonstrations attempts to breach israeli settlements all of this will lead to violence and where that goes where we go from there i have no idea well i think the violence has already started i mean when we look at the arab spring here it's very interesting here really the u.s. position because you know it's again it's going to look very lonely on the international stage when you look at world opinion and if we look at the arab

spring what's going on i mean you know the united states will come out and state supports the freedom of some people but it will not do that for the palestinians apparently and it doesn't do it for the people of bahrain also by the way i mean how does this change the dynamic or does it at all because there to be position of the united states in the greater middle east the arab world is so poor anyway. well this is where i think the palestinian leadership needs to take a good hard look at itself and take a take learn some lessons which is that for the past twenty years the focus has been entirely on changing opinion in washington and changing somehow getting american president to support palestinian statehood in the core palestinian freedom that's not going to happen and i think that they should begin to recognize that that's not going to happen and instead i think that leadership should start turning its direction to a completely different direction and start looking towards other countries around the world to isolate israel for its ongoing human rights abuses its ongoing

violations of international law and the fact that israel continues to build settlements in the west bank these are considered war crimes under the statute of the international criminal court so one thing that i think that might be positive and come out of this is that if palestine gets to sign on to the international criminal court then i think it's important for palestine to then start taking israel to court for the fact that these settlements continue for as much as an israeli leader and they say that they support a palestinian state one thing that they're not willing to do is to actually hold the establishment of colonies settlements and they're not willing to to evacuate the settlers who have been residing there illegally on palestinian land for more than four decades many what can be. told. moving forward their policy in recognizing a second state as you write about i mean what does it have to do with the international community saying that the occupation must come to an end a lot of israelis want to end the calculation as well how can it be done in light

of this vote or is this just symbolism so many people in israel and washington say . i believe the patient shouldn't and i think you are being unfair to the americans the americans have supported palestinian statehood and continue to support palestinian state the problem for the palestinians is that the americans also support israeli statehood and this they find anathema a one perhaps advantage which might arise from a declaration of palestinian statehood an acceptance by the united nations of palestinian statehood would be that palestinians could also be taken to court in the international court in the he say for the promotion of ted koppel promotion of terrorism in the orchestration of terrorism by people in the gaza strip and maybe in the west bank as well so i have a feeling this may be a two edged sword well it's interesting you know i was curious i really yes i see it israel's also taken to the international criminal court for particularly for its actions over gaza and the killing of over fourteen hundred palestinians in the gaza

strip half of which were children so i certainly hope that we begin to take this to an international arena and i can assure the israelis that on this level the palestinians will win because international law is on the side of the palestinian cause it's israel that has been and i was not so sure shalon not the palestinians there had been no i'm not so sure ok i'm not so sure that your history surely israelis have been. yes but i know a little more about the past apparently i don't think the policy israelis have been in violation of international law more moral than the palestinians but but yeah but history history has a different story the problem the problem is that the palestinians have been offered from state solution a compromise since one thousand nine hundred thirty seven one thousand nine hundred thirty seven one nine hundred forty seven one thousand nine hundred seventy eight two thousand and two thousand and eight when it would almost all free to begin at the state solution to the palestinians under a bus and the palestinians have always said no the problem is that this action of

going to the united nations paper is not mr marson just that the palestine papers say nothing their selection of documents from god knows where they're not important we don't really know where the palestinian stand what we do know is when olmert put the package on the table i just said no the same as when a bill clinton and barak put the package on the table a yasser arafat said no that we know ok to say i'm told and i know kids somebody said mark i think in a conversation. so i'm sure that under that package first i want to i want to put it because a question to mr morris which is that let's assume we can go back to the partition plan now would you accept the partition plan now in other words would you accept that that your state be comprised of less than fifty five percent of what it is now are you talking about the one nine hundred forty seven partition moron of the of the two thousand i'm about is can you also notice until i'm asking. you i'm asking

about the nine hundred. little you now let me recall back years ago whatever your school and actually our school is. let me respond i don't think i would rattle back no because i think history doesn't allow peoples to renege on their mistakes in other words the palestinians in forty seven should have resisted the partition plan as the jews did they said no and you lose when you go to war against and the international an internationally sponsored settlement and you lose the war then you can say well now i want to go back to the status quo ante that doesn't happen and history fast is the sell trade minister mr morris you know his position i agree to give up more or not even ish greg edition go ahead benny finish or godhead. you're not you are so you're what happened after forty acres of israel retain seventy eight percent of palestine and the arabs not the palestinians we're in

a tension of about twenty two percent and that essentially is the sixty seven border area has let me go now is the future international community that's the internet what the international community support let's unnecessarily and most bizarre using assume really support this really support the sixty seven border. my point my point in all of this my point in all of this peter is that it's very well and good for people to now in the year two thousand and eleven talk about what the policy should have done in one nine hundred forty seven but if we actually look back to what has done what happened in history if now benny morris is in that very same position he would not agree to give up any more of his of of the territory that israel controls even already he's not willing to give up the territory that israel controls in terms of the sixty seven borders so i think it's fictitious to start talking about the are first that palestinians turned down and i think we should instead start looking towards the future and the future is if the israelis want to have peace they have to begin to recognize the palestinians as equals and

this is something that no israeli leader has committed himself to whether it's under the guise of two states or one state all that i want is to be treated as an equal and all that benny morris and all of the other israeli establishment want is to continue to subjugate me their heritage here in lies the problem of any i mean. this really sorry i don't belong to this i don't belong i don't belong to the israeli establishment my historical works show that quite well. what i see is that the palestinians should ask their minds are real. and accept equal rights and have a two state solution so long as they refuse a true state solution and want all of palestine there will be no settlement no peace only violence. i think that our houses have already accepted the two state solution it's the israel has an example they have in the fact that no one has no longer there are more of them. actually housing units being established just last

month alone we saw more than six thousand two hundred housing units being established in in the west bank this is clear indication that israel doesn't want to have a two state solution but instead it wants to create bantu stands for the palestinians and this is something that no palestinian leader including the likes of us is going to accept unfortunately benny i have always i've always opposed the settlement then to prize i continue to oppose the secular settlement enterprise as an obstacle to peace it is an obstacle to peace but it's not the major obstacle to peace the major obstacle to peace is the palestinian desire to wipe israel off the map this is the problem ok all right than anybody gives you the look out that you have a lot of. what is this going to do you see is this going to isolate israel more and if it isolates israel more because it does make israel does put it back up against the wall we don't go anywhere here. i certainly hope it does isolate israel and i

certainly hope that spawning from this we begin to see boycotts of israel we begin to see sanctions imposed on israel and we begin to see more and more international activity in an international legal arena rather than through this farcical negotiations that have taken place it's time for israel to be held accountable and i hope it certainly is after this after this u.n. session. we realize we're twenty seconds go. i really wish that the palestinians would return to the negotiating table to which they've been invited repeatedly and actually do so seriously in good faith and negotiate them state solution they don't want to do that there won't be any settlement the palestinians will continue to suffer all right we'll see what happens next week many thanks my guests today in toronto and in fact that shemesh and thanks for viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember prospects will. keep. still.

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