According to Nouman Ali Khan, Iblis is a highly strategic and intelligent being who is neither delusional nor psychotic. He possesses free will, a sense of right and wrong, and full moral responsibility, which makes his choice to disobey far more significant than that of someone who simply does not believe in God. Unlike humans who receive divine commands through books or messengers, Iblis heard the command to bow directly from Allah. This direct interaction makes his refusal remarkable because even the fear of Allah, which he certainly possessed, was outweighed by something deeper within his personality.
That internal obstacle was his rigid self-image. Iblis had built a concept of himself as a "VIP" because he was the only jinn amongst the angels, leading him to believe he was more special than anyone else. When Allah commanded the angels and Iblis to bow to Adam, Iblis felt his status as "number one" was under threat. He was faced with a choice: break Allah’s rule or break his own prideful image of himself. He chose to protect his ego, fearing that if he let go of that special status, he would be equal to everyone else.
Following this fall, Iblis used his intellect to shift the blame, targeting both Adam and Allah for his situation. He viewed Adam as the reason he was no longer special and committed himself to a life of revenge and sabotage against humanity. Khan suggests that Iblis now attempts to infect humans with this same value system, where a person's worth is derived from their rank, possessions, or how others perceive them rather than their actual conduct or character. In this mindset, one's value is tied to being "number one" or even being the "biggest problem" just to remain relevant and visible. Ultimately, Iblis prioritises "his truth"—the story he created in his head to justify his actions—over the actual truth, and he encourages humans to do the same by clinging to their own narratives even when they are destructive.
Muslims are supposed to be like the torch that brings light to all dark corners in this world. After Islam was established in Arabia, during and after Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the companions of the Prophet (pbuh) took the light if Islam to all corners of the world. For some reason the religious Muslims want to migrate to Islamic lands and live in Khilafah.
While I would understand this if there were countries with proper Islamic shariah and proper Muslim laws and ruler but the truth is far from this.
This Ramadan lecture from Nouman Ali Khan brings this point home.
While standing in line at the airport, it's no longer a question. I approach the counter and immediately tell them to call their manager because they'll need extra approval to allow me on the plane. When finally in my seat answering a phone call, the looks I get from surrounding passengers as I greet with "Asalamu Alaikum" is a type of fear that I've never seen, one that cannot possibly be sustained in the face of all that this nation is up against.
I was raised in Michigan, where I always attended public schools. I was a decent student, played sports, served on student organizations and was even homecoming king. I have always believed in the ideals of this country, and because of that, I beat the odds and followed my dreams of becoming a working film writer and director. But at some point, I and many others who share my faith became the Other. I became one of "them."
When I turn on the TV and see another broadcast displaying Muslim extremism or terrorism, it makes me cringe. This feeling persists primarily because there are people doing these terrible things in the name of Islam. They go against everything Muslims are supposed to represent and make the lives of many people here very difficult. We have to live in fear not only of terrorists but also of being associated with them. To make things worse, there has been an unyielding and unapologetic attempt to push it in our faces for the last decade. If we're talking real numbers here, Al Qaeda represents less than 0.1 percent of the world's Muslim population. How can the actions of such a small percentage serve as the representation of a group so large?
Now this idea has manifested itself in a crucial debate, and the issue on the table has the potential to deny American citizens their basic constitutional rights. There needs to be the recognition of the problem of this argument at its core: by going against the building of a mosque near Ground Zero, you're essentially associating the ideals of extremism and terrorism with every peace-practicing Muslim American. I am appalled by this association and disappointed that so many fellow Americans have taken that stance instead of believing in what this country has represented since its birth. If this freedom is defeated, I fear what's to come.
This is not a plea for sympathy; it is a call to character. It's not a question of whether or not we should or shouldn't. Once we get past the unreasonable debates fueled by emotions and illegitimate accusations, we know what's right. As the leaders of the free world, we cannot afford another embarrassment of this magnitude on our record. It will again, in a crucial time of rebuilding, question our validity for years to come.
When I wrote my film "MOOZ-lum," which speaks about the Muslim-American experience, I had no idea so much would be at stake; I simply wanted to give a voice to a generation that is often drowned out by the heavy volume of extremism. But alas, here we are. And I'm willfully submitting my film into the discussion, hoping that it will be able to shed some light and humanize a group of people who have been demonized for far too long.
When all is said and done, the compelling statement of freedom that the construction of this mosque represents can be an ultimate sign of our country's progression.
Doctors have removed 13 nails and five needles from a Sri Lankan maid who said her employers inSaudi Arabiahad hammered them into her.
LG Ariyawathi, who returned home from Saudi Arabia on Saturday and was hospitalised in severe pain, said the family she worked for had punished her by heating the nails and needles and sticking them into her.
X-rays showed she had 24 nails and needles in her body, said Dr Keerthi Satharasinghe, of Kamburupitiya hospital. The nails ranged in length from 2.5 to 5cm (one to two inches), and the needles were about 2.5cm. They were removed from Ariyawathi's legs and forehead.
"The surgery is successful and she is recovering now," Satharasinghe said after a three-hour procedure. He said six more needles in her hands could not be removed because the operation might damage her nerves and arteries, but they would not be harmful to her.
Ariyawathi, 49, has described the abuse meted out by her employers. "They did not allow me even to rest. The woman at the house had heated the nails and then the man inserted them into my body," she was quoted as saying by the Lakbima newspaper.
She said she went to Saudi Arabia in March and was paid only two months' salary, with her employer withholding the rest to buy an air ticket to send her home.
About 1.5 million Sri Lankans work abroad, many as maids or drivers, to earn more than they can in their own country. Nearly 400,000 work in Saudi Arabia.
Sri Lanka's foreign employment bureau said Ariyawathi had been too afraid to complain to Saudi authorities, fearing that her employers might not let her return home. The deputy minister of economic development, Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, said the government would report the matter to the Saudi government and provide her with compensation.
Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment. Nimal Ranawaka, at the Sri Lankan embassy in Riyadh, said the embassy had requested a meeting with Saudi officials. "We informed Saudi authorities. They have to take action against the employer," Ranawaka said.
An African-American man who was mistakenly thought to be Muslim was harassed at an anti-mosque rally yesterday in New York City. A crowd shouting "no mosque here" confronted the man and called him a "coward." The man is led away by rally organizers while one man shouts "Muhammad is a p*g." One person shouted "he must have voted for Obama." When some rally participants seek to defuse the confrontation, one man says, "we're against the Muslims, not each other."
Allah says:
"(Since) good and evil cannot be equal, repel (the evil deed) with one that is better. Then you will see that he with whom you had enmity, will become your close friend."
For one small village on the ouskirts of Bethlehem, the wall has effectively imprisoned its Palestinian residents.
Al-Nu'man village was cut off from Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank in 2003 and it is walled-in on three sides by the West Bank separation barrier, which was illegally constructed beyond the Green Line drawn after the 1949 Arab-Israeli war.
A permanent checkpoint is now the only entrance to and from from the village.
Construction in Israel’s illegal settlements across the West Bank is continuing. That’sthe conclusion of Peace Now, an Israeli non-governmental Organisation [NGO], which has been monitoring settlement activities for years. The report by the Israeli NGO documents construction going on even at nights and on Saturdays, the Jewish Day of rest.
But wait a minute. Doesn’t the Israeli government have a so-called temporary freeze on settlement expansion in the Occupied Territory? Sure it does. These, says the Israeli ministry of defence, which provides settlements with protection, infrastructure, and free services, are ‘violations’. In fact, Israel officially and publicly admits to 28 settlements where these ‘violations’ are taking place. Peace Now puts the number at 33. Both numbers exclude the unprecedented rate of Israeli settlement expansion in Occupied East Jerusalem.
The crew and I went on a drive from Ramallah heading south to Bethlehem, trying to document for ourselves these ‘violations’. They were not hard to spot… As we approached Bethlehem, we sneak close to Nikodim, one of the cited violators. It’s the home of Israel’s minister of foreign, Avigdor Lieberman. There, construction was happening with much ease… After all, the country’s top diplomat is not only a resident in this settlement, which international law considers illegal; he is an ardent supporter of building yet more settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
Everywhere we looked, we found billboards advertising new homes for prospective settlers – most of them have not been built yet. But they are tempting. Israeli government incentives make it much cheaper for the average Israeli to buy a house in one of the dozens of illegal settlements across the West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem.
Close by in Bitar Ellit, also built on Palestinian land in Bethlehem, we documented ‘violations’ left and right. When a settler guard cited us snooping around, he called the Israeli military. We took off of course but the question that begs answering here is: If the Israeli army, which ironically grants construction permits in settlements, considers these actions to be violating the government’s moratorium, why isn’t it stopping them?
Aware of the Peace Now report, Palestinians are shaking their head, telling anyone in the international community who would listen, ‘we told you so’.
I went to see Dr Jad Ishaq, who heads the Applied Research Institute – one of Palestine’s most reputable research organisations. He told me it’s the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who should provide Palestinians with an explanation now. “Clinton should come to the West Bank and take a tour; see for herself the effects of what she called an unprecedented step for peace”.
That’s because back in November, the US Secretary of State told Palestinians the Israeli government had taken an ‘unprecedented step’ after the ‘moratorium’ announcement. She also instructed them to go back to negotiations with Israel’s rightwing government because according to her, a settlement freeze was not a precondition to negotiations. Of course, this statement ignored theinternational roadmap for peace, drafted by the previous American administration, which clearly states such a freeze is top among Israel’s immediate obligations.
Clinton’s reaction and pressure on Palestinians angered them greatly. Palestinians countered by saying the Israeli announcement was nothing but a sham. And the Palestinian public has so far been very pleased with the Palestinian President’s refusal to succumb to the pressure. In fact, this is one of the few points on which the occupied and split Palestinian nation now agree.
Israel's so-called moratorium excluded the occupied East Jerusalem and allowed for the construction of thousands of structures inside the West Bank. The offer also ignored international law, which considers all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to be illegal – null and void.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gavean advisory ruling on Israel’s wall, which de facto annex these settlements, their infrastructure, and Israeli only roads. The ICJ deemed the wall and the settlement regime illegal. Incidentally, this Wall devours approximately 30 per cent of the West Bank, including some of its most fertile lands and its most important water resources.
Some Palestinians may find comfort that their plight against Israel’s colonisation is on the right side of International law. Their dismay, however, is growing as they are coming to conclude that the international community is either oblivious to the facts these bulldozers are creating on the Occupied Palestinian homeland or unwilling to take a real stance that bring them to a halt. Either way, Palestinians have seldom felt more alone - forced to fight for the dream of statehood in their homeland, inch by inch.
It's a propaganda war. Whoever killed the Hamas official in Dubai – let's speak frankly – it's part of an old, dirty war between the Israelis and the Palestinians in which they have been murdering their secret police antagonists for decades. Whose were the passports? Or should we say "passports". So here's a moment to reflect on realities.
Many Dubaians believe that the collapse of the emirate's economy last year was the revenge of Western banks – spurred on, of course, by the Americans – to punish them for allowing Iranian shell companies to use Dubai as a sanctions-busting base during the cold-hot war between the US-Israeli alliance and Iran. Now the Americans (or the Israelis – you can take your pick) want to turn Dubai into the Beirut of the Gulf. That was actually a headline last week – in The Jerusalem Post, of course – which painted Dubai as dangerous as it was economically calamitous.
But hold on a minute. According to a Dubai "source" ofThe Independent– readers will have to judge what this means – the security forces of the aforesaid emirate informed a "British diplomat" in Dubai (presumably the consul, since the embassy is in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi) of the UK passport details almost six days ago and "did not receive an appropriate reply". If this is true – the Foreign Office will be wrathful in its denials – then why didn't the British immediately express their outrage at the use of forged British passports and cough up details of the equally outrageous frauds a week ago? This misuse puts every British citizen at risk.
Yet the Foreign Office – so keen to warn British citizens of the dangers they face in the Middle East – sat on their large behind and did bugger all. I'm sorry. If they had the details, they had a duty to UK citizens to speak up. If they hadn't got the details, they should have told us. But they were silent. Why? Was there a cold breeze coming beneath a closed door?
Far too many police forces are now sending their minions to Israel to learn about "terror". The Canadians actually dispatched a team of cops to Tel Aviv who allowed themselves to wear "suicide vests" for publicity pictures. Air France now hands the US details of all its passengers' profiles – which, of course, go straight to the Israelis – despite the fact that Israeli security officers (like hundreds of Arab security officers in the Middle East) may well be involved in war crimes.
Now a small addendum. The Dubai authorities apparently gave the British the (allegedly) forged Irish passports under the misapprehension that Dublin was still a major city of the United Kingdom. Things, needless to say, changed in Dublin almost a hundred years ago – although how many readers can name the date of Dubai's independence from British rule? – but this elementary mistake suggests that the Dubai version of events (the inexplicable failure of the British to explain their silence) may contain a distressing truth. Don't we (the British? Gordon Brown? etc, etc) care when killers use supposedly British passports?
It is too soon to give a reply. But I should add that the Dubai authorities have other information which they have not yet revealed. The world awaits.
Those schools are now under increasing scrutiny, with the United States, among the nations, concerned about a possible growing al-Qaeda presence there.
But there is another side to education in Yemen, as Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reports from the Hadramaut Valley.
In Jordan, numerous employees of government-run orphanages have been accused by orphans of committing physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
The National Centre for Human Rights says it has received 16 complaints of alleged abuse with a total of 25 children involved. But only four of the complaints have been passed on to courts because of a lack of evidence.
For its part, the social development ministry assures that every confirmed case will be taken to court.
Al Jazeera's Nisreen El Shamayleh reports from the town of Madaba on the disturbing incidence of abuse in orphanages.
In 1948, Israel's founding fathers issued a manifesto declaring among other things that the new state would uphold the equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race or creed.
Six decades later that is not a principal that many of Israel's Arab citizens - who make up about 20 per cent of the population - believe applies to them, especially in matters involving law and order.
In his film, One Law for All?, filmmaker Tony Stark investigates whether Israeli Arabs are regularly the victims of legal double standards.
On August 4, 2005, a Jewish soldier in the Israeli army boarded a bus on its way to the northern Arab town of Shafr'Amr.
It was just two weeks before Israel withdrew from Gaza and 19-year-old Eden Natan-Zada strongly opposed the plan.
As the bus entered the town, he began shooting passengers with his M16 rifle.
"I was looking through a window when I suddenly heard shooting. I looked and saw someone shoot the driver. I hid under the seats. As I lay flat, the firing continued, and I saw someone's finger fall to the floor. That's when I realised he was on a mission to kill everyone," says Ha'El al-Janhawe, a passenger on the bus.
"I didn't move a millimetre. I put my hands over my eyes and prayed and just waited for the bullets to hit my back."
During a pause in the shooting, al-Janhawe decided to try to prevent further bloodshed.
"I stood up and he had a chance to kill me. But, thank God, it seems that his magazine was empty. I pushed him near to the back of the bus. I got him onto his back and was on top of him - trying to hold the gun and stop him pulling the trigger. It was very hot and I burnt my hand."
Al-Janhawe pulled the gun away from the soldier and got off the bus. By then four people, including the bus driver, had been killed and 12 others were wounded.
As news of the shootings spread, an angry crowd gathered. Natan-Zada was still on the bus - now being held by several police officers.
"The bus was in chaos. People were falling over each other. Outside, people were screaming, climbing up trying to get on the bus. They didn't know if the killer was still alive. No one knew what was going on," says Amir Sabbah who witnessed it all.
People stormed onto the bus and Natan-Zada was attacked and killed.
"It wasn't a normal reaction. Someone had come to kill people in their hometown and they wanted to protect themselves and their town. We felt a kind of anger that can't be described," Sabbah explains.
Seven local men are now being tried for his attempted murder and a further five for lesser offences.
The decision to charge anyone caught up in the events of that day has hit a very raw nerve among Arab Israelis. Sadness at the waste of life is now mingled with anger at the prosecutions.
"This has been a racial decision at the highest level. It's obvious that the Israeli judiciary, security forces and police have two approaches: one for Arabs, another for Jews," says Morad Haddad who is part of a support committee for the 12 accused.
The court case has brought into the open a simmering distrust of the forces of law and order among Israel's 1.5 million Arab citizens.
Protests have been held outside the court in Haifa where the trial is taking place. The claim is that Jews who kill Arabs in Israel are treated in a very different way to the Arabs now being prosecuted for killing Natan-Zada.
It is a view held by some of the most senior members of the Arab community.
"Definitely there is a double standard and discrimination in applying the law towards Jews and Arabs," says Ahmad Tibi, the deputy speaker of the Knesset.
Jafar Farah, a lawyer who runs a human rights group in Haifa, has been investigating incidents in which Jews kill Arabs and says that there have been 44 such killings since 2000 that raise very worrying questions.
"The case of Imad Hamdoun, for example. He was killed in 2002. He was on his bicycle, a Jewish civilian was shooting at the bicycle. He died. The family was compensated by the police but no conviction against the Jewish civilian that shot the bicycle.
"In the 44 cases we know for sure that the victims have not been involved in violence against state authorities or against Jewish civilians," says Farah.
Israeli law is meant to apply to everyone equally. But Farah is particularly critical of the way police investigate cases where Jews kill Arab citizens in Israel.
Some Israeli Jews working inside the legal system echo these concerns.
Michael Sfard is a lawyer who acts for a number of Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations.
"I think institutional racism is evolving in my country and I am embarrassed and very sad to say that," he says.
"The Israeli police, Israeli police investigators, they all are extremely professional and extremely motivated when it comes to catching Palestinians. They are much less motivated, much less rigorous when it has to do with Jews that operate on ideological grounds and their victims are Palestinians.
"The danger is that the more discrimination will infiltrate our system, the less our system will be legitimate in the eyes of the people. That's where we are heading."
Just how far away Israel's Arab citizens are from receiving equal treatment is shown, some Arabs believe, by the police examination of Natan-Zada's attack.
The police say he was a lone gunman, who acted without help, but that is not the view of Maher Talami, a lawyer representing one of those charged with taking part in his killing.
Talami is conducting his own investigation into Natan-Zada with the help of a former Israeli secret service agent.
The investigation has taken two years and has convinced him that the police overlooked evidence indicating that the attack was a pre-planned conspiracy.
"The police investigation was reckless. They didn't investigate this case seriously. They just wanted to close this file immediately because it kind of embarrasses the state of Israel because having a soldier who is a terrorist is really embarrassing for the country," Talami says.
He says the evidence of police failings begin at the bus station in Haifa where Natan-Zada boarded the bus to Shafr'Amr.
Just two weeks before the attack, Natan-Zada was spotted acting suspiciously at the same bus station.
"He was seen by security guards in the central bus station and he was in his army uniform; he had his gun with him and he was looking around in the area where Arabs get the buses to go to the villages and towns. So that made the security guard really suspicious because he had no reason to be there," Talami explains.
The bus station guard says he spoke with Natan-Zada and later recognised him when his picture was published in the press.
Talami says he also discovered that Natan-Zada had travelled to Shafr'Amr on the same bus the day before the attack and that this is further evidence that the attack was pre-planned.
When the bus reached the end of its journey, the bus driver found Natan-Zada asleep.
"The bus driver asked him what are you doing here and he said 'oh I fell asleep'. So he gave him some water. The next day he got on the same bus, the same line at the same time and he shot first the bus driver in the head and then he started shooting at all the passengers," Talami says.
Talami also says that there is evidence that Natan-Zada had help in planning his attack.
"Three eye witnesses at least saw a suspicious car during the time of the attack in Shafr'Amr. It had three people in it. They describe them as religious Jewish people and they had the orange ribbon in the car.
"Now this ribbon used to represent the struggle of the settlers against disengagement in Gaza. The car was waiting and when they saw a police car coming they just swiftly raced out of the town."
According to Talami, the strongest evidence that Natan-Zada did not act alone was found in his mobile phone records. The lawyer tracked down who he had been speaking to on the day before the attack.
"We found out we're talking about really dangerous criminals. They are all Jews from settlements, some of them got indicted before for doing terrorist acts. So what was said in these conversations we don't know. But he didn't call for example his family or friends. He called people from Tapuah - which is a really Jewish extreme settlement in the West Bank."
Talami is now calling for the police to re-open their investigation into Natan-Zada.
One in five Israeli citizens is Arab and if a growing number of them continue to feel alienated from the forces of law and order, the legitimacy of the country's democracy will eventually be undermined.
"We think that the Jewish community have to share responsibility. We need to see the president of the state of Israel and the leaders of the police forces, all of them standing as one voice and say that we will not allow ongoing violence against the Arab citizens," says human rights lawyer Jafar Farah.
"You have to know that everybody will be equal in front of the law and if people will be criminals and they are Jews or Arabs, they will face the same treatment in front of the law."
The best documentary award has gone to one of the year's most controversial films.
Defamation is a polemic by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. In his expose of America's Anti-Defamation League (ADL), he claims anti-Semitism is being exaggerated for political purposes. He argues that American Jewish leaders travel around the world exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel.
He gets inside the ADL, which claims to be the most powerful lobby group of its type anywhere in the world. With unprecedented access, he travels with them as they meet foreign leaders, and use the memory of the Holocaust to further their pro-Israeli agenda.
At one point, an ADL leader admits to Shamir that "we need to play on that guilt".
Shamir says his film, Defamation, started out as a study of "the political games being played behind the term anti-Semitism".
"It became more a film about perceptions and the way Jews and Israelis choose to see themselves and define themselves - a lot of the time unfortunately choosing the role of eternal victims as a way of life."
He wanted to find out how this mentality has become part of Israel's national psyche. The film suggests that the attitude is thrust upon children from an early age. School trips to concentration camps in Poland run year-round.
From just 500 children in the 1980s, he claims around 30,000 are now flown to Europe every year.
He discovers that the trips are not designed to educate, but to provoke an emotional reaction. They fly out of Israel euphoric, and end their journey in tears, talking about their shared hatred.
They are accompanied by secret service agents who prevent them from talking to any locals - they are led to believe that most Poles are anti-Semites.
The end result is disturbing. The victim mentality is being used to justify Israel's occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza.
In the film, one Israeli Jew tells Shamir that she refuses to get upset by Israeli aggression against the Palestinians because "we" faced worse. To her, the Holocaust justifies anything the Israeli army does.
And for Shamir, that is the real danger. "We are experiencing the most right-wing government we've ever had, and there is very little room for discussion. Putting so much focus on hate and the negative, I don't see it as a healthy thing."
In Israel, the film has received a mixed response. "It's kind of a love or hate type of response to the film," Shamir says. "It's very hard to get people to come and watch documentaries in the cinemas in Israel."
In the UK, too, there is anger towards Defamation.
Mark Gardiner from one of Britain's biggest anti-Semitism campaign groups, the Community Security Trust, believes the film could put Jews at risk.
"All of a sudden some bloke appears out of nowhere, oh he's an Israeli, oh he's a Jew, therefore what he says must have more credence than what organisations like my own and the ADL have said for years - I think that shows a deep-seated bias."
And he is furious at the suggestion that anti-Semitism is being used for political purposes.
"This assumption that people are saying it because they're being malicious, because they know that it's not anti-Semitic, but hey lets use anti-Semitism in order to win the Israel case, that's what I find really really offensive," Gardiner says.
Shamir is not surprised by reactions like that.
"Anti-Semitism is a very touchy subject and making a film about anti-Semitism is almost like walking on thin ice, you're going to hurt people's feelings."
Martial Kurtz from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) believes the film can make a difference to activists like him.
He says all too often Israel's supporters label groups like the PSC as anti-Semitic.
"There are many Jewish organisations which campaign [with us] against the occupation, campaign against the siege in Gaza," he says. "So the whole argument falls flat."
Some of the most influential Muslim scholars in India have passed a resolution condemning all forms of violence in the name of Islam.
The Deoband is an influential Islamic school inspiring tens of thousands of religious study centres across the world, which some say has even inspired the Taliban's ideology in Afghanistan.
Prerna Suri reports on the weight of the school's declaration.
Palestinians may have to abandon the goal of an independent state if Israel continues to expand Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, the chief Palestinian negotiator has said.
Speaking to reporters in Ramallah on Wednesday, Saab Erekat said it may be time for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to "tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option".
Israel has rejected the idea of a de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank, incorporating the Palestinians as citizens, as a "demographic timebomb" that would make Jews the minority.
Citing a 2003 peace "road map", Abbas has made a cessation of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank a precondition for resuming statehood talks with Israel.
On Wednesday Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, called again for a complete freeze in Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
Clinton called the settlements illegitimate after talks with Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, in Cairo.
"We do not accept the legitimacy of settlement activity and we have a very firm belief that ending all settlement activity, current and future, would be preferable," Clinton said.
"Getting into final status negotiations will allow us to bring an end to settlement activity."
Erekat said Clinton – who had earlier praised as "unprecedented" Netanyahu's August offer to temporarily limit construction of West Bank settlements - was only opening the door to more settlements in the next two years.
The alternative left for Palestinians is to "refocus their attention on the one-state solution where Muslims, Christians and Jews can live as equals", Erekat said.
"It is very serious. This is the moment of truth for us."
Erekat said Netanyahu's concept of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel with limited powers of sovereignty, and his uncompromising position on the future of Jerusalem were tantamount to dictating the terms of peace negotiations.
Netanyahu, Erekat said, had told the Palestinian president "that Jerusalem will be the eternal and united capital of Israel, that refugees won't be discussed, that our state will be demilitarised, that we have to recognise the Jewish state, that it's not going to be the 1967 borders, that the skies will be under his control".
"This is dictation and not negotiations," he said.
Netanyahu and Abbas last met in New York in September in a handshake meeting arranged by Barack Obama, the US president.
Palestinians seek to establish the West Bank and Gaza as the territory of a Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on borders set before Israel captured land from Jordan and Egypt in its 1967 six-day war.
"Anything short of that is a non-option for us," Erekat said.
While Netanyahu's stated plan would place a freeze on new settlements in the occupied West Bank, no Israeli restrictions would be placed on 3,000 buildings already under construction.
Furthermore, no restrictions will be placed on settlement projects in East Jerusalem.
"If the Israelis believe they want to partition the West Bank with us, this is a no-go. This is a non-starter," Erekat said, in reference to Israeli control of West Bank settlements, adjacent land, and the territory's eastern Jordan Valley border.
Clinton reaffirmed in Cairo on Wednesday that Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the Israeli settlements. But she added, in another nudge to Palestinians to talk with Israel: "Getting into final status negotiations will allow us to bring an end to settlement activity."
Erekat said Palestinians had "made a mistake" in the past by agreeing to negotiate with Israel without insisting on a settlement halt, and they were not about to repeat that error.
Clinton had earlier attempted to clarify her remarks on Washington's view of Netanyahu's plan.
"It is not what we would want and it is nowhere near enough – but I think that when you keep your eye on what we want to achieve, it is a better place to be than the alternative, which is unrestrained," she told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
Israel's settlement building programme is illegal under international law and several United Nations Security Council resolutions have called for it to stop.
But Israel has repeatedly ignored all international calls for it to halt the construction.
