Israeli theft may mean there will never be a "Palestine"

Bill Clinton watches as the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shakes hands with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the garden of the White House after the signing of the deal transferring much of the West Bank to Palestinian control

Robert Fisk

So a bit more of Palestine has slid down the plughole. A thousand more acres of Palestinian land stolen by the Israeli government for "appropriation" is theft, is it not? The world has made the usual excuses and awkward diplomatic coughs.

The Americans found it "counterproductive" to peace, which is probably a bit less forceful than its reaction if Mexico were to bite off a 1,000-acre chunk of Texas and decided to build homes there for its illegal immigrants in the US. But this is "Palestine" (inverted commas more necessary than ever) and Israel has been getting away with theft, albeit not on quite this scale "it is the biggest land heist in 30 years "ever since it solemnly signed up to the Oslo agreement in 1993.