In the midst of a UN speech praising the Israeli government and their heavy-handed tactics against the Palestinian civilian population of the territory the Israeli military has been occupying since 1967, Donald Trump voiced support for the ‘two-state solution’ to the conflict. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated that, “Palestinians will never have a state” as long as he is in power.
After Trump and Netanyahu met on the sidelines of the United Nations Wednesday, he told reporters that even though Trump said that he favored a two-state solution for the Israelis and Palestinians, “Everyone defines the term ‘state’ differently.”
However, since 1933, the Montevideo Convention has been the internationally-accepted definition for a state under international law. Adopted by the Seventh International Conference of American States, the convention stipulated that all states were equal sovereign units consisting of a permanent population, defined territorial boundaries, a government, and an ability to enter into agreements with other states.
Israel, although recognized as a state in 1948, has never defined its borders, and has, through the decades, encroached further and further onto Palestinian land, so that it now controls more than 80% of the land area of what was, until 1948, the land of Palestine.
Trump reportedly said to the reporters, “In one way it’s more difficult, because it’s a real estate deal. But in another way it works better because you have people governing themselves.”
But Netanyahu criticized Trump’s statement, saying that Israel must permanently maintain its military occupation and control over the Palestinian civil population, with no Palestinian state that is both sovereign and self-deterined.
In response, the Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah, said: “The two-state solution means to us that we have a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is the only way to achieve peace.”
