San Francisco, February 15 - Twitter executives reported today that in a series of messages between a Palestinian tweeter and two advocates for Israel, the Palestinian twice announced he had bested his opponents, thereby contributing to the establishment of a hoped-for Palestinian State.
The user, with 31 followers as of this writing, took on three tweeters with an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by replying to a satirical link posted by one of them regarding Israeli settlements. During the ensuing exchange, the Palestinian user repeatedly invoked what he called a legal argument regarding Palestinian statehood and the illegality of Israeli control over areas it captured in 1967, and derided his opponents for their seeming inability to muster a counterargument on a legal basis. For so doing, the Palestinian tweeter declared he had won the argument; he had thus brought his people that much closer to sovereignty.
One of his interlocutors observed that his arguments in fact featured no legal content, as they were the product of declarative, political decisions with no legal standing. This observation prompted the user to double down on his assertion, then declare again that he had bested his opponents.
Palestinians reacted with excitement to this development. "We've been waiting for so long to have someone declare victory on Twitter," gushed Saeb Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organization's chief negotiator with Israel. "This is of potentially greater weight than UN Security Resolution 2334, which we hailed as a victory - but this Twitter victory renders that diplomatic coup inconsequential by comparison. Today is a blessed day in the annals of the Palestinian struggle."
"It is good news, yes, but this must serve as the springboard to greater achievement," urged Israeli Member of Knesset Haneen Zoabi. "A self-declared victory in debate on Twitter, we can all agree, was never dreamed of by our ancestors, but that is no reason to rest now, when the objective is so much closer. I can practically taste the air of a liberated Palestine now. I guess because it would be the same air where Israel is now, just with a stronger smell of rotting corpses."
The unprecedented milestone has also galvanized supporters of the Palestinian cause around the world. "With the wind at our backs, we can press forward. Allah praise our loyal compatriot!" read a message from the Students for Justice in Palestine - Urbana-Champaign chapter. "The tactics are familiar, of course, but you have taken them to new heights!"
Israeli defense officials were reportedly quaking in their boots at the defeat.