In spite of his aid having told the media late last Spring that "what everyone wants…is a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel," nearly one year later Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the press that "Frankly, so far nothing has been achieved…We demanded the Americans implement the first phase…that talks about the cessation of settlement expansion. This is the biggest blight that stands as a big rock in the path of negotiations…We demanded that they talk about the ’67 borders. None of them talks about the ’67 borders."
Abbas spoke and is speaking about the matter of an defined and internationally recognized independent Palestinian nation-state.
Currently, Israel in essence is the landlord of Palestine, which was originally created out of previously and anciently recognized Jewish territory in 1947 as the Jewish people were given the newly created Israel for a homeland.
Israel was attacked by five Islamic nations in 1967. The Moslems of the Middle East had declared that they would "drive the Jews into the sea" from almost the very instant that Israel was newly created and told the Palestinians that they should not settle for half a loaf.
In what is now known as the Six Days’ War, Israel defeated its attackers and, in that effort, wound up occupying the strategically vulnerable Palestinian state. Since that time, out of security concerns that repeated Palestinian Arab indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israeli towns and endless incidences of other terrorist-like attacks coupled together with the never-ending litany from the Moslems that they still desire to extinguish the Jews or at least their nation have done nothing at all to diminish, the Israelis have never fully relinquished their hold on the territory, which in accord with the "rules" of warfare they have no obligation to relinquish in the first place.
None of this, however, matters to Israel’s vociferous regional enemies nor to the unreflectingly anti-war conpiracy theorists who can always be made to sympathize with them.
As quoted by one such conspiracy theorist, on April 16th, 2008, Syrian President Basher Al-Assad boldly declared, "While war is not a preferable option, if Israel declares war on Syria and Lebanon or if America declares war on Iran, Syria would be prepared. We should analyze the situation from the perspective of American interests, because the last war in Lebanon has shown that at some point Israel wanted to stop the fighting, but was forced by the [Bush-Cheney Administration] to pursue it further.”
The Islamic nation of Turkey, which is a fellow member of NATO, an ally of the United States, and on very good terms with Israel, has repeatedly told the Syrians and other Islamic nation-states in the region that Israel’s concerns are just as valid as theirs are.
In response to Moslem accusations that the United States has been covertly backing Israeli West Bank settlement expansions, White House spokesman Sean McCormack replied that the U.S. has made it "clear over and over again that any lines that are drawn by both sides need to be negotiated by both sides and any deviation from the … known lines are going to have to be negotiated."