Palestinian Prime Minister to Israeli Leaders: We are Building a State While Under Occupation to End the Occupation
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Huffington Post (Opinion) - February 23, 2010 - 12:00am

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad forthrightly brought his case for building a Palestinian state to Israeli political and military leaders, and they applauded. The new Palestinian attitude towards how to end the occupation that began in 1967 was on full display during Fayyad's speech at the Herzliya conference in Israel earlier this month, and it has had a considerable impact on its Israeli audience. With reports that "proximity talks" between Israelis and Palestinians will begin soon, attention must be paid to Fayyad's remarks and their reception.

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Build a Partnership for Peace, Right Here in America
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Jewish Daily Forward (Opinion) - February 3, 2010 - 12:00am

With the turbulence surrounding diplomacy and the Middle East peace process, it is more urgent than ever for civil society to unite around the obvious reality that a conflict-ending solution can only be attained through the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security.

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A real plan to build Palestine
In Print by Hussein Ibish - The Guardian (Opinion) - February 2, 2010 - 12:00am

Two weeks ago the Palestinian Authority issued a detailed budget for the state and institution-building programme it adopted last August. The programme calls for Palestinians to unilaterally build the administrative, economic and institutional framework of an independent state in spite of the Israeli occupation and as a peaceful, constructive means of countering it.

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Palestine must be a secular state
In Print by Hussein Ibish - The Washington Post (Opinion) - January 27, 2010 - 12:00am

As Palestinians press the international community to live up to its commitment to ensuring the establishment of an independent Palestine alongside Israel, conversation is intensifying about the character of this new state. In their own interests, Palestinians should buck the regional trend towards religious politics and ensure, from the outset, that it is firmly and irrevocably a secular state.

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Palestinian despair for peace
In Print by Hussein Ibish - The Washington Post (Opinion) - November 11, 2009 - 12:00am

It is almost impossible to adequately convey the present degree of Palestinian despair, but the recent announcement that President Mahmoud Abbas might resign and that the rest of the Palestinian Authority leadership may follow -- in effect dissolving the PA -- should provide some indication.

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New negotiations will test Netanyahu's commitment
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Daily Star (Opinion) - October 12, 2009 - 11:00pm

Yasser Arafat was enticed to attend a meeting with Ehud Barak at Camp David during the summer of 2000 with the promise that he would not be blamed if it turned out to be a failure. It did, and he was. Last month the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was invited to attend a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York without any such promise. He was not blamed and the meeting was not a failure.

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Palestinians should trust Obama
In Print by Ziad Asali - Arab News (Opinion) - October 3, 2009 - 11:00pm

THINGS have changed over the past decade between Palestinians and the United States, and much for the better. Yasser Arafat was enticed to attend the Camp David meeting in 2000 with the promise that he would not be blamed if it failed. It did, and he was. Last week Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was invited to attend the New York meeting without any such promise. He was not blamed, and the meeting was not a failure. The meeting dealt with both an immediate crisis and a long-term strategic goal.

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The hollowness of the one-state agenda
In Print by Hussein Ibish - ATFP (Opinion) - September 7, 2009 - 11:00pm

On college campuses in the United States and the United Kingdom, and increasingly among grassroots activists in the West generally, the cause of ending the Israeli occupation and securing independence for a Palestinian state is being abandoned in favor of a much more far-reaching goal of replacing Israel with a single, democratic state for all Israelis and Palestinians, including all of the refugees. Until now, this rhetoric has been largely unchallenged from a pro-Palestinian perspective, which has probably been a significant factor in its appeal.

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If you build it, the state will come
In Print by Ziad Asali - The Guardian (Opinion) - September 3, 2009 - 11:00pm

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad's blueprint for what he has called "de facto Palestinian statehood" offers a new and important element to the quest for peace in the Middle East.

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Create a real American coalition on Middle East peace
In Print by Hussein Ibish - The Daily Star (Opinion) - June 22, 2009 - 11:00pm

For years now, my colleagues and I at the American Task Force on Palestine have argued that advocates of a two-state resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict need to form a real, functioning national coalition in the United States to support this goal. President Barack Obama has put a great deal of his political credibility and capital on the line in pursuit of negotiated resolution, forcefully articulating what all parties must do to build momentum toward this goal.

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