Palestinian Authority Claims State Covering All of Israel

The Palestinian Authority (the "PA") is seeking recognition of the State of Palestine from the United Nations. One of the legal attributes of national sovereignty is control over the territory the state purports to govern. So what territory does the Palestinian Authority claim? Well, here (courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch, whose logo appears in the lower left-hand corner) is a graphic broadcast by PA TV, the official PA television broadcasting station, controlled directly by the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, commemorating the application to the United Nations for recognition of the State of Palestine. It shows the Palestinian flag wrapped around the entirety of Israel, with a key symbolizing ownership.

[Of course, the PMW logo did not appear on the original image broadcast by PA Television.]

As documented by photographs at the Palestinian Media Watch website, this is only one of many official PA maps that depict the boundaries of the future Palestine as covering all of present-day Israel.

The PA does not view its application for UN recognition and membership as the means to achieve sovereignty over only Gaza, Yehuda and Shomron (the so-called West Bank). It wants the whole cheese blintz, so to speak. It views the creation of a Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank to be just another step toward its ultimate goal of eliminating the State of Israel. That is why the PA refuses to engage in face-to-face negotiations--any peace treaty emerging from such negotiations, even if it gave the Palestinians all of the West Bank and Gaza, and East Jerusalem as its capital, G-d forbid, would also require the Palestinians to give up any territorial claims on what remained of Israel, and to give up the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the lands within the 1949 armstice lines. That goes against the PA's fundamental objective, the entire reason for its existence--the eradication of the world's only Jewish state.