5 Reasons US Should Allow Palestinian State

Palestinians plan to push for full statehood in the UN later this month, and the US vows to block them. Reza Aslan offers five reasons in the Los Angeles Times why America should buck Israel ("it is not political suicide") and change its mind:

• Failed talks: Twenty years of negotiations toward a Palestinian state have gone nowhere, even as the number of Israelis in the West Bank has tripled in that time to 300,000. "A few more years and practically nothing will remain."

• Failed US policy: The Obama administration has done little to advance Israeli-Palestinian relations, despite lofty promises, and it looks weak "kowtowing" to Benjamin Netanyahu. "If for no other reason than to prove to the world that the U.S. is not Israel's lap dog, the president should refrain from vetoing a Palestinian state."
• Deja vu: The Palestinians are just trying to do what the Israelis did six decades ago. Obama has spoken of the suffering of the Palestinians. Now he can "provide the Palestinian people with the same sense of dignity that Harry Truman gave Israel 60 years ago."

Click for the full column. (More Palestinian statehood stories.)