Sorry Sarko, your position on Palestine is a mistake

France's President - Nicolas Sarkozy - has made a mistake of historic proportions - possibly dashing any hope of the two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs coming to fruition - after he told the French magazine Le Canard Enchaîne:

It is silly to talk about a Jewish state...

President Sarkozy made this comment while referring to the Israeli demand that the Palestinian Arabs recognize Israel as the Jewish state in any peace agreement.

He compounded this act of gross political ineptness by continuing:

It would be like saying that this table is Catholic. There are two million Arabs in Israel.

On the figures alone - President Sarkozy is demonstrably wrong.

Latest statistics show the Arab population of Israel is 1,610,000 (20.5%). The President also fails to mention that the Jewish population numbers 5,874,300 (75.3%) and there are 323000 not identified as Jews or Arabs (4.2%).

Tables cannot be offended - but people certainly can.

President Sarkozy's statement is extremely offensive to the overwhelming majority of Jews wherever they live - but no doubt will be met with resounding applause by Jew-haters world wide.

His statement will offend those tens of millions of Christians who support the right of the Jewish people to establish their own independent state in their ancient ancestral and legally recognized homeland,

President Sarkozy in this one brief comment has abandoned French foreign policy pursued over the last 90 years - whilst also rejecting international law principles formulated during that period - which France was instrumental in establishing.

In so doing President Sarkozy has caused great damage to France's reputation and honor,