Good and Bad News

How Would You Like to Be a Commonwealth?
Nadene Goldfoot

The good news is that the US is stopping their insistence that Israel not build in Judea and Samaria. Abbas is ready to dissolve his Palestinian government which has been in progress since 1993 if statehood is not achieved. Now I think that is stupid. Right now they are governing themselves, which is what statehood is all about, isn't it? Why would he just give that up. Who is to step in and do the governing? Israel? Perhaps he is trying to load Israel up with this headache and then Israel would be only too happy to allow them statehood on their terms. At least he may be thinking along this line. In the meantime, Hilary is trying to renew negotiations. Netanyahu is not about to buy into any type where the outcome is achieved before the discussion.

Another piece of very good news is that the Carmel fire is out. Evidently it was started by a 14 yr old boy who was smoking some type of pipe in the woodland and turned it over, spilling cinders into the brush, and the fire started. He was frightened, ran away and didn't tell anybody about it. 42 passengers in a bus were caught in the fire on a mountain road. They were on their way to a prison to transfer the men to a safer place, being they may have been in the path of the fire. Now Palestinians area yelling about the slowness of getting them transfered. 5 million trees burned in this fire that was centered around Haifa. One good outcome was seeing so many countries (24) that came to Israel's aid. Even the Palestinians did a mitzva by coming to help. that list can be found on "The Israel Project."

The bad news is that Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay are recognizing the undeclared Palestinian state already, just when it's about to be dissolved. The US statement about this is that they aren't helping the peace process by doing so. I noticed that S. America didn't send any aid to Israel during the fire, either.

Some people fear that dissolving a two nation state plan will lead to a one nation state being Israel minus the Jewish predominance. I don't believe that will happen. The United States has several areas that are not counted as states but are under her domain, such as Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Perhaps that might happen with Judea and Samaria. I believe England has been in the same position with Scotland, Ireland and Canada besides past experiences with India and such. I may have my facts all wrong, but something very Solomonly-wise will happen. As for Gaza, that is a mystery.

I propose that like Puerto Rico is a self-governing commonwealth or Republic under the auspices of the United States, Judea and Samaria should be the same to Israel. Palestine would have control over internal affairs and Israel would have a say over external affairs. Puerto Rico had been under the government of Spain for 400 years, and at the end of the Spanish American War, came under USA domination. By 1952 they were in this commonwewalth position. They've had chances to vote as to staying this way or becoming their own country and still are a commonwealth, so I presume they are happily governed. On a positive note for them, they are not connected to our land mass, so may feel more independent. Israel, on the other hand, would find Palestine as close to them as Laurelhurst is to Ladd's Addition. Hopefully, people will see this as a third posssibility and appreciate all the advantages it has to offer.

The US Virgin Islands' government is similar to being a commonwealth. It is an organized unincorporated U.S. territory. That may be an option, also, to become an Iraeli territory, and get rid of the stigma of being occupied.

There are literally hundreds of commonwealths, etc, in the world. Not all populated areas become countries or states. My last reference lists them.

Reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101207/pl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_talks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101207/pl_afp/palestinianmideastdiplomacyargentinauruguay

brazilus

http://www.topuertorico.org/government.shtml

http://gopuertorico.about.com/od/introductiontopuertorico/f/Statehood.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Virgin_Islands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_list_of_Non-Self-Governing_Territories