very cool derby churchill and tomatoes. in serbia is available in most clubs where we can see they are going to. hear mostly this is us who yes colonel gadhafi is remaining true to hold out against government forces and nato air strikes in libya the french president faces and legal battle at home over his country's intervention in the ways they nicolas sarkozy should be held to account for crimes against humanity committed june the bombing of libya. it's natural that it's been stepped up to combat waters heads in the sense that they were new the lay people subs are willing to back down often listen not change any news mulling over patients and the deadlock smaller by the body and seizure to border posts on call civilians in july. plus it's estates are

shutting down at the un as the general assembly has to vote on the stages of homicide with deep divisions with parents of break the south the u.s. and israel remain big in the face to give the palestinians a state after world war two. i'm next here on. whether a palestinian scene at the u.n. will mean little more than the paper it's written on a fence around the u.s. only out any balkan mines. can. you. follow in welcome to cross talk on peter all about meaningless symbolism or

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 a full member state world opinion backs this big but will it change anything on the ground. can. start. to cross the prospects for a palestinian state i'm joined by the end of bhutto in kuranda she's a dubai initiative research fellow palestinian human rights lawyer and a former legal advisor to the palestinian negotiating team and in bet shemesh we have baby morris he's a professor at ben gurion university and his most recent book is one state two states resolving the israel palestine conflict all right this is cross talk and i very much encourage you and i guess to jump in you have different points of view and i'd like my viewers to see that but before let's have a look at what some are calling a do it diplomatic tsunami. 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 you and with all options open we are going to the security council with some of the critics are more than certain the general assembly will vote in favor of palestinian statehood but president obama has been struggling to keep israeli palestinian negotiations afloat has been clear about his opposition to the bid and his want to go any search for christ at the security council for the palestinians efforts to deal july's israel will end in failure symbolic actions to isolate israel of the united nations in september won't create an independent state obama's fears are not unwarranted the general assembly vote would leave only the u.s. israel and a handful of other countries in the start line already on the issue and the message regarding the legitimacy of the palestinian position in the conflict but above all

the both of 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 the very tough israeli crackdowns and in front of the unexpected and unpredictable pull up evils in the middle east although initially the palestinians decision to go to the un became a fallback option after the negotiations hit a dead end last year the israeli government has warned that the un move would halt the peace efforts i don't think that they will it would get them any closer to their desired other country the meaning of such a step is that they are they prefer to go of provocations out of than sitting to be negotiation table however it is also possible that cares of all out. overblown and the boat could even inject momentum into the stalled talks

predictions about whether the bid or even the notion of palestinian statehood can tangibly transform things on the ground remains to be seen in the upcoming months my chardonnay across our team. ok then i'd like to go to you first that it's being called a symbolic vote and even worse it's a unilateral act on the part of the palestinians how do you respond to that after twenty years after oslo 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 this palestine or p.l.o. or whoever it is that's making the begin to put into place measures to actually

isolate israel for its ongoing violations of human rights and its ongoing violations of the fourth geneva convention international law you know many i mean who can blame the palestinians when they say they haven't really gotten anything out of what's called the peace process i mean this is kind of like the last resort if you say how do you feel about i mean they feel like they've got nothing out of the last twenty years since also and this is the last card they can play. well there is something in that except that when one forgets history in the year two thousand the palestinians were offered a state solution a almost all the west bank the gaza strip east jerusalem by an american president bill clinton and they would barak the israeli prime minister and they said no and the problem with what they're doing now is not only is it unilateral but it also involves non recognition of israel as a jewish state in other words their declaring their statehood a but not accepting israel as their neighbor and it's not clear whether they even will accept the sixty

seven borders this is in contrast incidentally with nine hundred forty seven when the un decided on the partition of palestine into two states and israel at the time accepted a palestinian state next to a jewish state and 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 what would that negate the right of return for palestinians to palestine. absolutely and this is why palestinians 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 powerless that we 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 at the negotiations and there was no palestinian state that was offered during any period of the negotiations there was always an an 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 palestinians 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. 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 and have 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 you should just do it the other way around well. well we could do that but if i am all for a palestinian state and i'm all for a from 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 receive international recognition for that and 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 jewish state this unfortunately is the fear of most israelis myself included it both in terms of what the glass is doing and what is the majority party in palestine the hamas wants they say so clearly a bus doesn't say so clearly doing it in two stages but they're out in a cleaning at the same goal and this is very unfortunate then if it can do you respond to that because for twenty years because the means and the israelis have

been working together i mean the there hasn't been a peace process but they've worked together do you believe that the that there's that deep seated plan where we dispersed 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 now look i think it's really important to put this in perspective the first perspective is that the palestinians have repeatedly recognized israel they did it in eighty eight they did explicitly in one thousand nine hundred three in every single agreement there is been a recognition of israel every single palestinian leader has not is it true and say that they recognize israel. well you know i'm going to allow 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 palestine there is not a single israeli political party in the knesset that has recognized palestine and

palestinians right to exist now going back to the issue of the jewish state issue of a jewish state is something that was recently added to the negotiations ensuring a period that actually negotiations existed there was no demand for a jewish state in 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. 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 as 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 through so they seize the sea their. that in fact they have many in fact they have first images right here in the interior of have. seen please if you will allow me to finish and not cut me off i've given you that luxury first shot medea seen the spiritual leader of hamas before he was assassinated came out 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 enter the ring is not true now it is true you can actually go to the other tribe that you

are a historian and you can go not so to say is moshe in fact i can tell you what muscle says you know he was willing to do or at least in the early truce with israel. marshall has said that he's willing to reach a temporary a temporary truce with israel so this is really it is good if he is willing to accept this is a certainty 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 break in after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the palestine joke state or. if you want to.

today violence is once again fled up the first these are the images. from the streets of canada. for asians or. download the official policy on vacation joy for the i pod touch from the i choose option. like. video on demand keys mindful of costs an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the potty dot com.

welcome back across town people about to mind you were talking about what the future holds for the palestinians. ok benny i'd like 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 a changing of status of united nations we know that the united states will veto it but in a 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 now 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 the 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 the 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 will has already started i mean if you look at the arab spring here it's very interesting here really the u.s. position because united states again is 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 say it supports the freedom of some people but it will not do that for the palestinians apparently 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 of the position of the united states in the greater middle east the arab world or soap or any way. well this is where i think the policy leadership needs to take a good hard look at itself and 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 and corpus a 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 the palestinian leadership should start turning its direction to a completely different direction and start looking towards other countries around the world to isolate israel first on go i'm human rights abuses it's 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 that have to do i mean when the international community is 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 this is just symbolism and so many people in israel and washington say . i believe that the occupation 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 this really statehood and this they find enough them 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 the palestinians could also be taken to court in the international court in the hague say for the promotion of terror for the promotion of terrorism and 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 to. see it israel's also take it 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 is. not the palestinians go ahead ben i know i'm not so sure i had i'm not so sure that your his entourage or any 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 yeah but history history now is a different story the problem the problem is that the palestinians have been offered a 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 three to begin a 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 at the paper is not mr lauriston just that the palestine papers say nothing there a 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 said no the same as when it go clinton then it would barak put the package on the table yasser arafat said no that we know ok to say i'm glad i don't kid somebody said more i think in a conversation go ahead. so i'm sure that i'll do that package more 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 play massillon isn't this what he told you i'm asking you about the nine hundred. later you now hold back let me respond and actually our space. let me respond i don't think i would 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 cartesian plan as the jews did they said no and you lose when you go to war against and internationally 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 in history the fact is the situation is an instrument is really simple he would not agree to give up more knotty rhenish. condition go ahead benny finish or godhead. you know you're so

you're what happened after forty acres that israel retains seventy eight percent of palestine and the arabs not the palestinians we're in of about twenty two percent and that essentially is the sixty seven border so that there is relief which an international community that's the internet what the international community support let's unnecessarily and. really support this really support the sixty seven border my my point my point in all of this my point in all 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 palestinians 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 turn 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 hair and here in lies the problem very i mean i don't really i don't belong to this i don't belong i don't belong to this really establish mint my historical works show that quite well. what i see is that the palestinians should ask their minds are reasonably mr ones and accept equal rights and have a two state solution so long as they refuse a new state solution and want all of palestine there will be no settlement no peace

only violence. i think that since have already accepted the two state solution it's the israel has an example they have in the fact that knows no no no no there are more then. they should 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 i believe i have always i've always opposed the settlement enterprise 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 to give you.

what this is going to do so it's just going to isolate israel more and if it isolates israel more it doesn't that make israel does put its back up against the wall we'll 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 ok benny and 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 with them state solution they don't want to do that there won't be any second meant the palestinians will continue to suffer all right we'll see what happens next week many thanks to my guests today in toronto and in fact that shemesh and thanks for

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