LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE NOT (via Kevin Whited):

Welcome to Palestine (Caroline Glick, 1/31/07, Real Clear Politics)

In the world of international diplomacy few issues receive more wall-to-wall support than the notion that it is essential to establish a Palestinian state. Leaders worldwide are so busy speaking of how essential it is for a State of Palestine to be founded that none of them seems to have noticed that it already exists.

This state was officially founded in the summer of 2005, when Israel removed its military forces and civilian population from the Gaza Strip and so established the first wholly independent Palestinian state in history. Israel's destruction of four Israeli communities in Northern Samaria and curtailment of its military operations in the area set the conditions for statehood in that area as well.

And so it is that as statesmen and activists worldwide loudly proclaim their commitment to establishing the sovereign State of Palestine, they miss the fact that Palestine exists.

Having recognized that rather obvious fact, consider what a gratuitous and counter-productive affront it is to maintain the political fiction that it isn't a state yet.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 31, 2007 9:01 PM