Brazil Recognizes Palestinian State

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders Friday in a public letter addressed to Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas.
According to AFP, the decision came in response to a personal request made by Abbas on November 24, according to the letter published on the foreign ministry’s website.


“Considering that the demand presented by his excellency (Abbas) is just and consistent with the principles upheld by Brazil with regard to the Palestinian issue, Brazil, through this letter, recognizes a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders,” it said.

The letter refers to the “legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people for a secure, united, democratic and economically viable state coexisting peacefully with Israel.”

The international community backs Palestinian demands for a state in most of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Beit-ul-Moqaddas, all territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

But the United States and most western governments have held back from recognizing a Palestinian state, saying it should be brought about through a negotiated peace agreement with Israel.

US lawmakers condemned Brazil’s decision to recognize the Palestinian state.
Brazil’s decision “is regrettable and will only serve to undermine peace and security in the Middle East,” charged Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ros-Lehtinen, set to chair the panel come January, said “responsible nations” would wait to take such a step until Palestinians return to direct talks with Israel and recognize its “right to exist as a Jewish state.”

Abbas visited Brazil in 2005 and 2009, and Lula made the first ever trip by a Brazilian head of state to Israel and the Palestinian territories in March of this year.

Israel also on Saturday said it was disappointed by Brazil’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, saying it flew in the face of efforts to negotiate a peace deal.
“The government of Israel expresses sadness and disappointment over the decision by the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a month before he steps down,” a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

“Recognition of a Palestinian state is a breach of the interim agreement which was signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1995 which said that the issue of the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be discussed and resolved through negotiations,” it said.
Brazil has offered to help mediate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which were briefly revived in September before grounding to a halt over the resumption of Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories.

Threatening to Dissolve
Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas raised the prospect on Friday of dissolving the Palestinian Authority if a peace deal could not be achieved with Israel and the world did not recognize a Palestinian state.

In a television interview, Abbas said that if Israel failed to halt settlement building and US-backed peace negotiations broke down, he would press for an end to the limited Palestinian self-rule in occupied territory, Reuters reported.

“I cannot accept to remain the president of an authority that doesn’t exist,” Abbas said, referring to Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank.

Pressed by his questioner if he meant he would dissolve the Palestinian Authority, he replied: “I am telling them so. I say to them welcome ... you are occupiers. You are here, stay here, I cannot accept the situation will remain as is.”

The Palestinian Authority was established after an interim peace deal with Israel in 1993 gave Palestinians limited autonomy in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and where Palestinians want to establish a state.


Palestinian officials have express increasing frustration with the stalemate in the Washington-sponsored talks with Israel, which reached an impasse shortly after they resumed in September over the issue of Jewish settlements.

Abbas reiterated a Palestinian demand to halt Jewish settlement building, which Palestinians say deprives them of land for a viable state.

Israel has refused to stop the construction, saying the borders of a state must be negotiated alongside security issues, and sees the demand as an attempt to set preconditions for peace talks.

Source.

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