I wasn't. I was addressing your request that I somehow should have to disclose my personal interest in the outcome of the conflict in every post I make.

Almost everyone knows this is the way it will turn out, in some form or another.

In order to be a member state of the UN, a country must:
#2 is a political issue and not worth discussing here - the vote will go as the vote will go.

#1 refers the the UN Charter, which describes the obligations of member states.

The Palestinian "state" has some serious deficiencies, most notably its inability to live peacefully with its neighbours; the PLO has been thrown out of Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and obviously Israel, after violent, failed coup attempts. Virtually the entire Palestinian economy is built on US and European aid, with no aid from the Arab states who claim to be their biggest supporters. the PA has virtually no control over its populations.

But, at the end of the day, upon a final status peace agreement with Israel, I dont think I can argue against membership in the UN for "Palestine".

My issue is not with the existence of a Palestinian state in theory. Its with the existence of a state in the current economic, political, and conflict situation. None of the major institutions of a state are functioning, and any rights obtained by achieveing member state status would simply be used to launch attacks (diplomatic and actual weaponry) on israel, because of the "refugees".

wait, wat? How on earth would UN recognition be used for a militaristic attack against Israel? Is this just bizarre fearmongering or something? Sure elements within Hamas can - as they do today - lob rockets over the border but I fail to see how UN legitimacy means military actions to...uh...i don't even know what you are suggesting here...get back the refugees?

I have heard lots of arguments for and against UN statehood for palestine. But I have never heard a suggestion that it is going to be used to launch weaponized attacks on israel.

Plo's stages plan, look it up, some people take it seriously.

are you talking about the 10 point program adopted shortly after Yom Kippur I think? Ya, this has been used to oppose any form of recognition or peace to palestine for decades now...heck people used this to argue against oslo. But it doesn't have any differentiating ability between this or that path to peace, in particular whether that path involves UN recognition somewhere before or somewhere after a two state solution.

What's the medal count for Palestine atm?

The same as Israel's.

you talk about it like its been repealed or revoked or something.

So riddle me this: what happens to the "refugees" after a Palestinian state is created?

They get the right to became citizens of Palestine,according to most Israeli negotiating positions that I know of.

No. It is you that are missing the point.

It is an unassailable fact there are deep and fundamental cultural (not to mention religious, economic, political, etc. etc) divides between "us" and "them", as well as within "us" and "them". I present no moral or ethical judgment whatsoever about the way they do business.

However, we live with them and they with us. I don't dare judge them (or you) as evil or good, but I absolutely take into account the things they say and do before making decisions in my own interest. I don't blindly expect that any goodwill gestures will be returned in kind, or assume that any weakness in position will not be fully taken advantage of in the worst way possible. On the contrary, the entire history of this conflict shows that the particular Arabs that want to hurt Israel and/or Jews (for whatever political ends) will take advantage of any opportunity to do so.

So the real question is how to empower and increase the numbers of the ones that don't, without sacrificing the lives of Israelis/Jews in the meantime. That, in my mind, is the only real question of this conflict.

And that question imo, unfortunately, only has one answer, and that does involve sacrificing some of those lives.

That's nice that this is our position. Too bad not a single Arab public opinion agrees with it.

In fact, Abbas has specifically demanded that no refugees should ever become citizens of the countries in which they live (including Palestinian-held territory), thereby dooming the people he supposedly cares for to more decades of misery:

And a while back: Abbas was even more emphatic:
Falasteen (autotranslated by google) says the same thing: that it is better for Palestinian Arabs to be languishing in "refugee" camps with sewage running through the streets than to live in the West where they may lose their interest in destroying Israel. And this article is written by an International Solidarity Movement officer, supposedly devoted to human rights, but it openly advocates the absence of any human rights for Palestinian Arabs!

Unfortunately, they are all lying.

Every time Lebanon has (quietly) offered Palestinian Arabs the chance to be citizens, they have jumped at the opportunity (50,000 in the 50s and 60s, and another 20,000 in 1994).

Gazans have also lept at the opportunity to become Egyptian citizens in recent months; over 2000 have done that including Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar.

And when those rights are offered, even reasonable human rights like freedom of occupation, so-called human rights activists are angry!.

Human Rights Watch responded to this policy with the following:
No UN resolution or any Article refers to "descendants". Further, in their zeal to "protect" a non-existent "right of return" for Lebanese Palestinians who were born in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch is denying Palestinians in Lebanon their human rights to citizenship in the country of one's birth! Human rights are individual, not collective.

This is the crux of the matter: on an individual basis, Arabs have proven time and time again that they just want to be treated like human beings and to be able to raise their families in dignity, and they never cared whether this was in Palestine or Jordan or Syria, or Canada for that matter. Their "leaders," symbolized here by this writer, do not want to see individual Palestinian Arabs happy, because their main card in pressuring Israel is a huge amount of miserable "refugees."

The entire issue is one of individual choice. If Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon are afraid that by becoming citizens, they would compromise on the miniscule chance that they would eventually be allowed to move to Israel and rebuild a village destroyed in 1948, they can choose not to become naturalized. But history shows that most Lebanese (and Egyptian, and Syrian, and Iraqi) Palestinians would become citizens in a minute if they could.

This is the best part: Israel HAS made those efforts.

In 2011-12 alone, Israel has:

Advanced NIS 180 million to help pay PA salaries and to ease financial crisis

Built a pipeline to transfer oil to Palestinian areas
(as an aside, Salam Fayyad may also be dishonest, but he does not support terror and has a clue about finance and running a country democratically. When Abbas dies - since he clearly won't step down before his death - fayyad may be the best chance at an real peace deal).

Allowed 5000+ more Palestinian workers into Israel

Handed over a hundred bodies of terrorists who killed Israeli civilians

Made open, public offers to talk peace without any conditions

And what has Israel received in response?

Abbas: No talks without settlement freeze

Abbas says no hope for peace talks; threaten unilateral UN bid

More demands, more threats.

So yeah. I don't support any more "gestures". Sit down and we'll talk. Until then, I guess Palestinians will continue to be miserable until they tell Abbas to talk to us.

Of course, if they do, he'll just arrest them.

And I dont expect that to ever change through negotations.

I would imagine a key component is having a dialogue that does not involve one side constantly, endlessly, saying positive things about their side and negative ones about the other side. This is a standard you have utterly failed to meet.

You are the one saying UN recognition will be used for armed attacks against Israel. When I ask you why you think that you just turn it around and ask me what I think will happen? Seems disingenuous, but no matter. Anyways, there are many categories of refugees so I am happy to answer but I need some specificity. Are you talking about palestinians living in Israel? Or in neighbouring countries? Or are you talking about a right or return issue of palestinians currently in palestine wanting (or at least wanting the right) to return to land inhabited by israel? Eitherway, many of these are going to be determined by the terms of the peace agreements but if such an agreement is formed I think this will move us further away from the chances of wide scale violence not closer.

BTW, saying the state is "created" in the future tense is sloppy. A palestinian state exists already. It is a ****ty one, as are the states of other countries. That state might get recognized in new ways beyond what it is now, it might develop capacities it doesn't have now, and it might enter into peace agreements that it doesn't now, but it won't be "created".

Remember earlier when we talked about how your rhetoric kept being hyperbolic with "alls" and "not a single" and the like which could easily lead people to thinking that was what you actually meant?

I've said several times now, any value judgments (that something is "positive" or "negative") is 100%, entirely your own judgement. Not mine.

I simply state the facts as they are to show that Israeli positions are reasonable responses to Arab positions, and what Arab responses are likely to be to Israeli actions.

It is your simpleminded "good" vs. "Evil" world view that's assuming those judgments. I insist that I'm not judging them here, just using past results to predict future outcomes of various courses of action.

You have terrible reading comprehension. I specifically limited my absolute statement to public opinions. Maybe millions of Palestinians think otherwise, but not a single one has made their opinion public in any way that I've ever heard.

If you're not going to do me the courtesy of reading my posts carefully I'm going to stop responding.

Really? Good to know.What is its currency?

The shekel. Being able to mint your own currency is not a necessary condition to be called a state and, indeed, many countries around the world use the USD as their official currency but are still states.

I am just using whatever standard you used for this:
It seems you are quite happy to identify when other people are consistently praising one side and blaming the other. Yet I point out that you are doing exactly the same thing with a universally positive representation of israel and a universally negative representation of palestine in every one of your posts....and you fall back as pretending you are just some objective arbiter not making any value judgements. Please.

ahhhhh, there it is. So it isn't what you said which is that not a single arab has made such an opinion public, but the vastly more limiting statement that not a single arab has made such an opinion public that you personally have heard.

Of course, the idea that not a single arab has ever publicly supported naturalization of lebanese palestinians is laughably hyperbolic.

Dude, a Palestinian state doesn't exist. The PA doesn't really do anything useful and everyone knows it. Israel is in charge.

Yeah,no sane Palestinian would claim Palestine is actually exist as a state.
That was my point about the currency.The palestians themselves wouldn't trust a paper issued by PA.

There are lots of countries where citizens don't trust the establishment and, in particular, don't trust the state issued currency often opting for de facto currencies being the USD or other. But they still get UN recognition. Don't get me wrong, the situtation in Palestine is horrific and extensive nation building needs to occur.