Star News · Wilmington, NC · 31 August 2010

CP-2010-037

Outline of Palestinian state emerges

By Ethan Bronner / New York Times News Service

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Transcribed from the clipping

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK | As preparations intensify for a Palestinian-Israeli summit meeting in Washington on Thursday, the crude outlines of a Palestinian state are emerging in the West Bank, with increasingly reliable security forces, a more disciplined government and a growing sense among ordinary citizens that they can count on basic services.

Of course, the West Bank remains occupied by Israel. It is filled with scores of Israeli settlements, some 10,000 Israeli troops and numerous roadblocks and checkpoints that render true ordinary life impossible for the area’s 2.5 million Palestinians.

The central question facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority is under what circumstances Israel might yield its control over the bulk of this territory to the emerging Palestinian state apparatus.

Most analysts remain skeptical of such a deal emerging soon, given a history of failed promises – and entrenched interests on both sides that oppose even the concept of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. There are few signs of a breakthrough.

Abbas and his aides insist that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their homes in what is today Israel, which for Israelis is just another way of ending the existence of the Jewish state. Palestinian officials say their central demand at the start of the talks is for the current settlement-building moratorium to be extended.

Netanyahu and his aides have so far rejected that.

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping. Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “Star-News”.

Context added by this archive

THE SHARPEST STAFF/WIRE LANGUAGE IN THE WHOLE BATCH, and it is a single sentence: 'Of course, the West Bank remains occupied by Israel.' Bronner then itemises it - scores of settlements, 10,000 troops, roadblocks and checkpoints 'that render true ordinary life impossible for the area's 2.5 million Palestinians'.

Nowhere else in batch B does the word 'occupied' appear outside a Palestinian's mouth. Note also the paper's 'both sides' construction in the fourth paragraph, and the photo caption, which is the only place in the batch where Palestinian citizens of Israel and unrecognized villages appear at all.

Cite this clipping

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