Birth Certificate for the State of Palestine

Sixty-five years after the U.N. partitioned mandatory Palestine, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recognize Palestine a non-member observer state. 138 countries voted in favour, 41 abstained, and 9 rejected. For Palestinians struggling for statehood, it is the beginning towards recognition as a full member state in the international body.
http://youtu.be/dxx9eoKpYBU
Though symbolic, the move was a historic recognition for the Palestinians, a step towards a dream that slowly seemed to materialize into reality. The word "PALESTINE" is rooted in the depth of every Palestinian. It means identity for the uprooted people scattered across the world, many driven in 1948 to live in squalid refugee camps, while many others became pillars and builders of countries in the Middle East.
People wept when the vote was announced at the U.N.'s General Assembly in New York today. Delegation members hugged and congratulated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who defied intense pressure from the U.S. and other Western powers to back down.
Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah and elsewhere in PALESTINE celebrated, danced, and chanted  national songs.
"We did not come here seeking to delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel; rather, we came to affirm the legitimacy of the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine," Abbas said in his historic speech at the U.N.
The Palestinian state that was recognized today is 22 percent of mandatory Palestine: the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital, a victory  for the Palestinians, a rebuff to Israel and its allies.But for the move to advance towards peace and a two-state solutio, U.S. meaningful involvement is required.
The hope that was placed on U.S. President Barack Obama after his election in 2009 subsided quickly as he proved unable or hesitant to change the rules of the Amerian game. Like his predecessors, he placed presure on the Palestinian leaders to make unilateral compromises that did not and would not lead to a 2-state solution.
The late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had accepted the Oslo Accords in 1993 as a stepping stone for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. He died without realizing the dream he lived and struggled for. His body was exhumed two days ago to search for evidence that he was poisoned. Peace talks have stalled, and violence replaced peace moves. The state that Arafat sought became cantons divided by walls and checkpoints.
Abbas believed it was now or never. Abbas, a form believer in peace, was determined to win recognition for a state under occupation.He has warned that the window  for a two-state solution was closing, and hopes the U.N. recognition would nudge the U.S. to break the impasse and work towards meaningful talks.
The boundaries of Falasteen, or Palestine, the area between the Mediterranean Sea and th Jordan River, have changed over the years.
In 1994, Jordan's King Hussein told me he worked towards peace between Israel and Jordan to protect  the borders of his Kingdom. Today, Abbas won recognition for the boundaries of the Palestinian state under occupation.

MARIE COLVIN

It is with deep sorrow that I write today about the loss of my dear friend, Marie Colvin, who, just a few months ago, urged me never to stop writing.

I still remember  the  sms messages she sent me from Cairo. I was working for UNHCR, sitting in my office in Beirut, watching the Revolution on TV and aching to be with Marie in Tahrir Square. “Your place is here, not in an office, come to Tahrir. I’m waiting for you,” Marie wrote.

Again, she would call me from Libya to tell me how much excitement I was missing by not covering the war there, and the sadness that filled her heart to see so many people killed.  

I have worked closely with Marie since 1987. We shared the good and bad times. I learned so much from her, about life, and journalism.

Our foreign correspondent friends in Jerusalem would look at us in confusion and disbelief when we told them about the great time we had covering stories in Gaza, a, a city many would visit only if a big story unraveled, but a place we made our second home.

We covered peace and war, and the adrenaline kept us going, believing that the more risk we took, the more deeply we would seek the truth and relay it to the world.

I worked with Marie during the first and second wars in Iraq. Her passion for seeking the truth stopped at nothing. I remember how her dedication to help people made her rent a bulldozer in Iraq to uncover mass graves and help families reunite with the bones of their loved ones.

Her courage was unique. Wars she covered in all places of the earth should have hardened her, but she was soft, kind, and caring. She was not tough. The kind of human stories she told so well showed the real  person she was.

She lived her life passionately, both as a journalist and as a human being. War correspondents are not normal human beings, she would tell me.

It is rare to find journalists so dedicated. She risked death so many times, we knew she would die trying to save lives, but the loss of such a legendary journalist and a good friend is always shocking.

She did not go to wars to prove herself, she had a point to prove, she was on a mission.

Last month I invited her to my new home in Washington and told her: “Take care of yourself”, she replied, “You know me”.

It’s a very sad day for all of us. This day underlines the risks journalists take.