RAMALLAH – The Palestinians are ready for statehood now, according to a report to be presented to major aid donor countries in Brussels this week by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. He will present facts and figures to show how his Palestinian Authority has used hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign assistance over the past two years to create health, education, energy, water, security, justice and housing services.
“I believe that our governing institutions have now reached a high state of readiness to assume all the responsibilities that will come with full sovereignty on the entire Palestinian occupied territory,” Fayyad says in the 63-page document.
But he underlines that unless Israel’s military occupation comes to an end, these achievements cannot go far enough. “Without a change to the status quo, the positive impact of internal reforms to build a strong and healthy economy will be limited in both scope and sustainability,” the report says.
Palestinian leaders aim to ask the United Nations General Assembly in September for recognition of statehood on all of the territory Israel occupied in 1967, including Gaza — over which Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas actually have no control. Israel has warned that such unilateral moves are not a realistic substitute for a Middle East peace treaty that would establish a Palestinian state by mutual consent.
But the Palestinian leadership is ploughing ahead with clear signs of international encouragement. The number of countries that recognise Palestine as a state has risen this year to 110, more than half the membership of the UN.
