Instead of such public diplomacy, the president night try to see what he can get out of Netanyahu privately in exchange for a joint strategy against Palestinian statehood, and then try to work — again, quietly — with Mahmoud Abbas.
In 1956, he went to Washington, D.C., to work in the Department of the Interior on Alaska statehood.
One that has been discussed is an American promise to work vigorously against an external declaration of Palestinian statehood.
India needs to work out mechanisms to consider the aspirations of statehood within smaller communities like the Gorkhas, while providing legal protection to minorities within such states.
Other administration officials were more blunt, saying that if the Palestinians did not choose leaders willing to work toward peace, then there would be no chance of their achieving statehood.
They reasonably imagined that a deal swapping all or most of the Golan Heights for rigorous security guarantees would be easier to work out than a more complex arrangement with the Palestinians involving Jerusalem, refugees and statehood.
The Brotherhood was sharply critical of the Western-backed Fatah faction that controls the Palestinian Authority for agreeing to work with Israel without receiving any real guarantees about an end to settlements or genuine statehood.
In their communiqué, the officials essentially endorsed President Bush's proposal to work first toward greater Palestinian democracy, then toward a provisional Palestinian state, and then toward full statehood.
The committee's method has been to work closely with the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, to support his plan to reform the Palestinian economy and Palestinian institutions with a view to preparing them for statehood.
Brotherhood leaders argue that if they persuade the Palestinians to work together with a newly assertive Egypt, they will have far more success forcing Israel to bargain in earnest over the terms of statehood.
