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The Battalion I 1.22.15
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You deserve a factual look at...
Should the U.M. Declare
a Palestinian State?
Palestinians have asked the U.N. for statehood recognition,
but would this really lead to an Israeli-Palestinian peace—
or to a viable Palestinian state?
In 1947, the United Nations proposed independent states for Arabs and Jews, but the Arabs rejected this plan.
Since then, Israel has made many offers of land for peace, all of which the Arabs rejected. In 2013, Arab
Palestinians again walked out of peace talks and instead recently approached the U.N. to recognize their stale.
But can the U.N. dictate an Israeli-Palestinian peace.. .or create a Palestinian state?
What are the facts?
Over the past 66 years, since Israel’s formation, the
Palestinians have had numerous opportunities to
create a sovereign state. Following Israel’s repulsion of
three invading Arab armies in 1967, the Jewish state
offered to negotiate peace with the Arabs and to return
land captured during that war. The Arabs rejected this
overture with their famous
Khartoum Resolution: “No
peace with Israel, no
recognition of Israel and no
negotiations with it. ”
Decades later, during U.S.-
sponsored peace negotiations
with the Palestinians in 2000,
2001 and 2008, Israel offered the Palestinians most of
its ancient Jewish lands, Judea and Samaria (the West
Bank), plus Gaza, plus a capital in Jerusalem for their
state, but the Palestinians rejected each of these offers.
At the heart of the Palestinians’ refusal to accept a
lasting peace is their steadfast rejection of the demand
that they accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish
state.
Would it bring peace if the U.N. were to unilaterally
recognize a Palestinian state? A peace accord between
Israel and the [Palestinians must resolve many thorny
issues for both sides. What should the borders of a new
Palestinian state be, since no borders ever existed?
How should the nations share Jerusalem? How can
Israel be assured of security in light of existential
threaLs from the Palestinian terror group, Hamas,
which insists that Israel must be destroyed, as well as
from terrorists such as the Islamic State and al Qaeda,
both based in nearby .Syria? If Israel relinquishes the
territories it controls, what guarantees does it have
that the Palestinians will finally accept its existence
and not continue the six-decade Arab effort to
obliterate the Jewish state? Unfortunately, a recent poll
shows that a 60% majority of Palestinians still believe
their goal should be to conquer all of Israel, from the
A majority of Palestinians
still believe their goal should
be to conquer all of Israel.
Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Surely a U.N.
resolution recognizing a Palestinian state cannot
possibly address, let alone resolve these issues. Rather,
Israel and the Palestinians must continue the arduous
path to peace—and to a Palestinian state—that can be
achieved only through negotiations.
Would U.N. recognition lead to a secure and viable
Palestinian state? Palestinian institutions are
currently so weak that it’s
doubtful their state could
currently survive on its own.
Despite tens of billions of
dollars donated primarily by
the U.S. and European
nations to aid the
Palestinians, their economy is in shambles, with few
viable industries and a crumbling infrastructure.
Indeed, without continued international aid of more
than a billion dollars annually, the economy would
likely collapse. In addition, the Palestinian political
system is dysfunctional, riven by corruption and in
lighting verging on civil war. Because the Palestinians
have held no elections since 2005, President Mahmoud
Abbas is now in his tenth year of a four-year term.
According to a 2013 European Union audit, some $2.7
billion in international aid to the Palestinians is
unaccounted for, believed to have been siphoned off to
corrupt leaders within Abbas’ ruling Fatah party.
Billions more aid dollars have been diverted to help
Hamas build rockets and tunnels used to attack Israeli
civilians. Finally, continued violent disputes between
Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza make their
"unity government” incapable of governance. In fact,
most analysts believe that if Israel were to withdraw its
security forces from the West Bank, Hamas would
quickly seize control there, too, turning the Palestinian
territories into another terrorist state. In short, no
decree by the United Nations can give the Palestinians
the strength and stability necessary to manage the
rigorous, high-stakes demands of statehood.
A unilateral UN. declaration of Palestinian statehood cannot resolve the fundamental disagreements between
Israel and its Arab neighbors, especially the requirement that the Palestinians accept the Jewish state. In
addition, such a U.N. resolution will not address the disarray and instability within Palestinian society that makes
statehood functionally unrealistic at this time. Perhaps most importantly, a U.N. declaration would only
encourage Palestinians to believe that negotiations with Israel are unnecessary to reach their goals—that they
can achieve statehood without resolving the tough issues that have to date made it illusive. Thus the U.S. arid
other U.N. Security Council members must continue to vote against and, if necessary, veto attempts by the
Palestinians to avoid good-faith peace talks with Israel.
This message has been published and paid for by
FLAME
Facts and Logic About the Middle East
P.O. Box 590359 ■ San Francisco, CA 94159
Gerardo Joffe, President
James Sinkinson, Vice President
FLAME is a lax-exempt, non-profit educational 501 (c>(3)
organization. Its purpose is the research and publication of the facts
regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false
propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its
allies in that area of the world. Your tax-deductible contributions are
welcome. They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these
messages in national newspapers and magazines. We have virtually
no overhead. Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational work,
for these clarifying messages, and for related direct mail.
To receive free FLAME updates, visit our website: www.factsandlogic.org
SpaceX's dragon capsule delivered its 5th successful ISS supply run Jan. 10.
Private companies join NASA in
America's next space race
John Rangel
SciTech editor
I ust before 4 a.m. Jan. 10, a SpaceX
I rocket conducted its fifth successful sup-
v ply run to the International Space Sta
tion. The rocket’s first stage also attempted
an engineering first by coming close to a
controlled landing after it detached from the
payload.
In any other decade, such a routine
resupply mission — and the rocket’s dar
ing landing attempt — would have been
NASA’s work. 2014 and the new year,
however, ushered in a modern era. Billions
of dollars were awarded to private compa
nies to build machines capable of carrying
men and women beyond Earth, private
rockets exploded and a private spaceplane
pilot died. Success and failure abounded, but
through it all one fact emerged — private
companies, not just government agencies,
will help carry America back to a leadership
position in manned space exploration.
No other year beside 2014 better high
lighted this trend. American ISS resupply
missions are routinely launched by private
rockets, shuttled by private spacecraft, and
managed in part by private control rooms.
NASA awarded $6.8 billion to Boeing and
SpaceX to develop next-generation craft
to replace the retired shuttle fleet. And the
Orion capsule, the development of which
was spearheaded by Lockheed Martin to
FLU CONTINUED
rector for medical services at Student Health
Services, said a number of the reported cases
of flu-related deaths can be traced back to
immune system difficulties.
"A lot of it depends on the immune status
of the person,” Teller said. “So the ones that
go on to have not such a great result, most
of them have some immune issues. There’s
something wrong with their immune sys
tems, they don’t fight infections as well.”
Mendez said many fatal flu cases are found
in the very young or the elderly.
“We see the vulnerable populations in
children, like small children, and then older
adults, just because in small kids their immune
systems aren’t built up, older adults, their im
mune systems are starting to slow down, and
so they can have more complications where
the flu can lead to pneumonia and those kinds
of things, just because their immune systems
aren’t able to fight them off,” Mendez said.
Teller said exhaustion also plays into the
strength of an immune system.
“For students at the end of the semester,
you’re probably worn out or exhausted and
that’s also a factor of the immune system,”
Teller said. “But it’s a common fact of life.
Students have to study and go on through
the fatigue, and being worn out at the end
of the semester is a fact of life. It would be
great if you could get plenty of sleep, eat well,
exercise, but when the finals start coming in,
you just run out of time.”
Communication junior Lisa Cordero con
tracted the flu over winter break and said
while a lot of people tend to overreact, if
carry men and women to Mars and beyond,
underwent its first orbital test.
1 he year’s success, however, was muted
somewhat by two catastrophic failures. An
Orbital Sciences rocket exploded just sec
onds after liftoff, destroying supplies bound
tor the ISS. And Virgin Galactic’s signature
spaceplane — SpaceShipTwo — disintegrat
ed in midair after igniting its booster rocket,
killing one pilot and injuring another.
These failures raise questions about NA
SA’s privatization gamble. Orbital Sciences
came out of the explosion with few financial
scars, but how many failures can a for-profit
company endure before it folds? NASA
experienced more failure than success at the
start of the original space race, at great cost
to their budget and to human life. It remains
to be seen if a private company is capable of
rebounding from such repeated tragedy.
But despite these drawbacks, 2014
showed that space exploration is no longer
a game restricted to superpowers who clash
over supremacy as a means to showcase
military might and ideological dominance.
America’s board pieces now include private
companies arrayed against a variety of na
tions, and themselves. Weapons research and
national prestige are still sought-after prizes,
but just as important are lucrative govern
ment contracts, and space’s untold consumer
wealth. 2014 was an exciting time — let’s
just hope future drawbacks don’t dampen
this rising spirit.
John Rangel is an aerospace engineering junior
and SciTech editor for The Battalion.
they follow doctor’s instructions the flu is
treatable.
“One thing you hear when you get the flu,
you hear that you need to go to the hospi
tal, or it’s so severe, but it’s just one of those
things where if you rest and you’re at home
and you listen to the doctor, it’s fine,” Cor
dero said. “If you get it. just drink a lot of
water, that’s about it. That’s one thing the
doctor said, to basically do overkill with wa
ter, and that definitely helped.”
Regardless of the ineffectiveness of the
vaccine, Mendez said it’s still important to
get vaccinated, even this late in the season,
because the vaccine is still the best preven
tion method.
“It’s not too late to get vaccinated now,
and it is still important just because there
are different strains in the vaccine,” Mendez
said. “So some vaccines have three different
strains, some have four, and although it may
be a mismatch on that one strain we’re still
going to get protection on those others.”
For those who are opposed to being vacci
nated or don’t have the means to do so, Teller
said good hygiene is the next line of defense.
Flu season typically lasts from October to
March, so numbers are declining. Teller is
optimistic it should continue to decrease in
scope until it disappears entirely.
“If the weather stays good, you guys stay
healthy, don’t get one Typhoid Mary’ kind
of person in the crowd, that one person that
just has to go to class and cough on every
body, is just the downfall,” Teller said. “Stay
healthy, eat right, get sleep, exercise.”
Aggieland2015
It’s not too late
to order your copy of the
2015 Aggieland yearbook.
The 113th edition of Texas
A&M’s official yearbook will
chronicle the 2014-2015
school year - traditions,
academics, athletics, the
other education, the Corps,
Greeks, residence halls,
campus organizations, and
student portraits. Distribution
will be in Fall 2015.
By credit card go online to
http://aggieland.tamu.edu
or call 979-845-2613. Or
drop by the Student Media
office in Suite L400
of the MSC.
Aggieland2015