This originally appeared in The Print, Volume 3, Issue 4.
Palestine wants to talk. They have said on several
occasions they are willing to enter into peace
talks with Israel. The US and the international
community want them to talk. Preventing this is
the fact that Israel is continuing to build houses on
occupied land which is illegal under international
law. They are in full control of entering the Gaza
strip and activists wishing to visit it have to lie at the
airport and pretend to be pilgrims.
The Gaza Strip has been described as the largest
open air prison in the world. Egypt has recently
loosened controls on the boarder into the Gaza
strip which is helping. The west bank has similar
problems, as well as east Jerusalem.
The state of Palestine is recognized by some
countries including Ireland, but it is not recognized
by the UN.
UNESCO, or the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization voted to accept
Palestine as a state. This proved very controversial,
as it meant the USA has withdrawn funding from
UNESCO, which was around 20& of it’s total
funding.
Obama has said they cannot support it until there
is a peace agreement with Israel. This is funny for
many reasons, the main one is that Israel hasn’t
left UNESCO. The Law which Obama used as a
justification for this action doesn’t explicitly ban
UNESCO from recognizing the current Palestinian
state, and he would be legally free to continue this
funding.
Palestine is attempting to be recognized by the
UN security council, however America has said it
will veto this move.
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