This bill is a load of feelgood cobblers.
1. As regards the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (and the ongoing Palestinian civil war), recognition and so on are just minor, no, extremely minor side issues and nothing else.
There are much more important things to be worried about.
2. The entire premise of this bill is ludicrously arrogant to the point of hilarity. The idea that some stupid feelgood resolution (accompanied by some foolish (and inevitably counter-productive) threats, but more on those later) will "free Palestine", bring peace to the Middle East or do anything other than amuse or irritate people is riseable.
3. I thought that the whole point of the peace process was to calm down and moderate people; not to panic them and drive them into the arms of hardliners. If there's one thing that you should have all learned by now, it's that there's only one way to get any progress in the Middle East; and that's a combination of compromise, arbitration, negotiation and treading carefully.
4. I could go on like this for much longer, but what would be the point? That this bill is yet another example of the student hack approach to politics is essentially self-evident. If honourable Senators want to help the Palestinian people, then they should try sending a load of aid to the Palestinians instead of this folly.
I'd suggest tabling the bill, but I'd be surprised if there's enough support for doing so.
I'm glad you're here. Seriously.
This text of the bill needs to be rewritten before it should even be considered.
Really? You want to convince Isreal to recognize Palestine by saying you deplore them? The bill doesn't say we deplore the wall or we deplore curfews, but we deplore the nation of Israel itself.
And in case no one noticed, the PLO leadership has already condemned several times the practice of terrorism. The problem is not that they won't condemn terrorism, its that their condemnations are for western consumption. They condemn terrorism, then turn around and back terrorists. Even the supposedly moderate Fatah has its own terrorist wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which as I speak is plotting and executing attacks on Israeli civilians. Acting like a public condemnation will end terrorism is, as Al said, a student hack approach.
