Time is running out for Israel

A group of Palestinians pray, in protest against Israeli occupation of their land, under the threatening gaze of armed Israeli soldiers.

Palestine's request of being recognised by the United Nations as a sovereign member state of the UN, has caused imense alarm and fury in Israel.

With many arab countries in the neigbourhood going through profound revolutionary socio-political transformations, due to the Arab Spring, Israel finds itself increasingly isolated in an international diplomatic vice.

Claiming all of the West Bank territory, Gaza and East Jerusalem as part of the new Palestinian State, Israel would be occupying a foreign country (Palestine), land which Israel has occupied and severely controlled for more than 40 years!

In panic, Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister has said:

“We are facing a diplomatic-political tsunami that the majority of the public is unaware of and that will peak in September,” said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, at a conference in Tel Aviv last month. “It is a very dangerous situation, one that requires action.” He added, “Paralysis, rhetoric, inaction will deepen the isolation of Israel.”

Germany, France and Britain say negotiations should be based on the 1967 lines with equivalent land swaps, exactly what the Netanyahu government rejects because it says it predetermines the outcome.

“Does the world think it is going to force Israel to declare the 1967 lines and giving up Jerusalem as a basis for negotiation?” asked a top Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “That will never happen.”

The European Union, Russia and the UN have declared that the 1967 borders are the basis for negotiations for a Peace Process.

With Egyptian Hosni Mubarrak ousted by the revolution,

Israel doesn't have any supporters in the vicinity.

Thousands of settlements have been build in occupied Palestinian territory for decades.

Many of these settlers are Americans,

who could have many settlements in their own country,

without illegally occupying Palestinian land.

The West Bank settlements are the source of much of the disagreement

not only with the Palestinians but with the world.

Not a single government supports Israel’s settlements.

The Palestinians say the settlements are proof

that the Israelis do not really want a Palestinian state to arise

since they are built on land that should go to that state.

At least 100 diplomats from all over the world

will vote in favour of the creation of a Palestinian State in September.

Israel will find itself on the wrong side of life,

occupying a legitimate State, member of the UN,

with profound legal and diplomatic consequences for Israel.

A Palestinian State will be recognized internationally.

“Every military base in the West Bank

will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent U.N. member state.”

“A diplomatic siege from without and a civil uprising from within

will grip Israel in a stranglehold,”

Ari Shavit, political centrist from the Haaretz newspaper.