Palestine becoming a Nation

These are my main rebuttals: 1) Many people voted for the UN resolution to upgrade Palestine to the observer state status - Pro has conceded his substantive argument that we should give them statehood due to historical grievances. Pro agrees now that it should be based on consent with countries. - Factually speaking, your example is incorrect. The vote was whether to upgrade Palestine from observer entity to observer state. While this may seem like a huge jump, the other observer state is the Holy See (Vatican City), which frankly isn't an independent state. - Pushing for full membership was stopped by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who said that Palestine needed UN Security Council approval to clarify its statehood. Given that US holds a veto in the UNSC, giving Palestine statehood is unlikely to materialise. - It also matters who recognises your cause. Given that Israel (her neighbour) and the US (the dominant world power) do not recognise Palestine's claims to statehood, this means that even with substantial international support, statehood might not be 'legally' given anyway. 2) Israel doesn't want to negotiate on statehood - Fair enough, so it's Israel's fault. Today's debate isn't about Israel's responsibility in the conflict though. - Furthermore, if Israel has been unwilling to negotiate about it at all, it surely shows they are fundamentally opposed to it. Therefore, unilaterally giving Palestine statehood would simply anger Israel, flare up tensions, and destabilise the region. Hence, Israel's unwillingness to negotiate statehood proves my point about how pushing through statehood is counter-productive. 3) Jewish settlements aren't a big issue - This isn't factually true. Look at this picture: http://cdn.static-economist.com... - When these settlements are right in the middle of the West Bank, which is the land "given" to Palestine under the 1947 resolution, how can Palestine form an effective governance that excludes these Jewish settlers? - In any case, there are no Arab settlers in Israel. Therefore there isn't a way to 'swap' land either. Now, I'll go on to detailing my alternative in this debate. There is no alternative to diplomacy and negotiation. Statehood for Palestine can only follow from mutual agreements between Israel and Palestine. When we talk about statehood, we are not merely concerned with the legality or possibility of establishing today's statehood. In fact, the Palestinian Authority can simply step up and say they declare themselves as a sovereign state today, and people might agree with that. But the real question today is: can this statehood last? There are two reasons why it won't. Firstly, Israel will simply invade Palestine (again). It did so against Gaza in 2007 when tensions with Hamas ran high. It has done so for the past few decades. Simply put, Israel's top priority is the protection of her national security. Declaring statehood would pose a threat, since anti-Israel plots may be hatched without the Palestinian government attempting to stop them. Hence, Israel would simply invade and crush a rather defenceless Palestine. Hundreds of lives lost, thousands more disrupted; is this really what we want to do to Palestine? Secondly, even if Israel doesn't invade Palestine, there is no way that the Palestinian Authority can exert influence over a crucial area: the Gaza strip. Currently, Gaza is being governed by Hamas, which is a militant group bent on eradicating Israel off the face of the map. In contrast, the Palestinian Authority is more peaceful and has sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict. There is no way the PLA will be able to convince Hamas to lay down its arms and act as a peaceful government for the region. Therefore, once Hamas attacks Israel, this will constitute an act of war, and so Israel will now have legitimate reason to invade Palestine. Therefore, since statehood won't last in the long term from a forced attempt to give Palestine statehood, how will a negotiated solution allow it to survive? This is because the crucial factor determining Palestine's long-term survival is support from Israel. Palestine is defensively in shambles, and economically weak, making it a simple target for Israel to eliminate. Unless Palestine convinces Israel to support her rather than repeatedly undermine her, Palestine will never have any stability in her region. Even if Pro argued that foreign countries can send military aid or help to Palestine, this will merely exacerbate the conflict as more soldiers enter the West Bank and threaten Israel's national security. Ultimately, Palestine will become a chessboard for other governments to engage in a proxy war over the Middle East. The only losers in this conflict will be Palestinians, who are again trapped with nowhere to go. Since Israel's support and agreement is fundamental to Palestine's long term stability, and negotiation is the only way to achieve it, therefore it follows that negotiation is the best and only solution that Palestine should adopt if she wishes to gains statehood and keep it in the long run.