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Palestinians Refused Statehood in the Past Because It's Not Their Real Goal
(Boston Globe) Jeff Jacoby - Were Palestinian statehood Abbas' real goal, he could have delivered it to his people three years ago. In 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state on territory equal (after land swaps) to 100% of the West Bank and Gaza, with free passage between the two plus a capital in the Arab section of Jerusalem. Yet Abbas turned down the Israeli offer. And he has refused ever since even to engage in negotiations. For the better part of a century, Arab leaders of Palestine have consistently said no when presented with the chance to build a state of their own - in 1937, 1947, 1967 and 2000. There is no shortage of stateless peoples yearning for a homeland - Kurds or Tamils or Tibetans - whose longstanding quests for a nation-state the world ignores. They must be baffled by the Palestinians' refusal to take yes for an answer.