Palestinian Arabs – The People Who Always Refuse a State

February 18, 2014 5:28 pm 14 comments

Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yassir Arafat at the Oslo Signing Ceremony, September 13, 1993. Photo: Wikipedia.

There are many peoples on this planet that would do anything for their independence, sovereignty, and a state of their own if it was offered to them. Just ask the Kurds, Tibetans, Basques, and Chechens. ‎

Yet there is one singular group that continues to spurn offers of statehood, missing and wasting numerous opportunities, and blaming others for its “victimhood”- and then commits horrendous acts of terrorism and violence when offered almost all of what it wants. We are referring, of course, to the Palestinian Arabs – a people who, unlike the Kurds, do not have their own religion, language, or culture that’s different in essence from their Arab brethren in neighboring ‎Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The Palestinian Arabs have answered every peace offer for their own “Palestinian” state with one unequivocal word, “no,” and then initiated a wave of hatred, violence, and terrorism. The reason? Because it would also mean recognition of and co-existence with a non-Arab people, the Jews.

Actually, there has been a Palestinian Arab state in the region since 1921, located in the eastern 78 percent of the Palestine Mandate designated for a Jewish National Home: ‎Jordan. Even today, more than two-thirds of the people of Jordan are Palestinian Arabs. The offers of another Palestinian Arab state (which would be the 23rd Arab state) in the remaining western portion of the Palestine Mandate date back to the 1937 Peel Commission. That began a consistent pattern of rejected offers through to the present: 1947 UN Partition Plan, 1967 at Khartoum, 2000 at Camp David, 2001 at Taba, the 2008 Olmert Plan. The current Kerry-led negotiations also appear to be heading in that direction. Yet the Palestinian Arabs still adamantly reject the “two state solution” of an “Arab State” and “Jewish State” referenced in the 1947 UN partition resolution.

So it is instructive to ask, what do the Palestinian Arabs really want? If we would only listen to what they persistently say and read their charters, we would understand: the eradication of ‎Israel through armed struggle, replacing the Jewish state with a Palestinian Arab state. Just read the charters of the Palestinian Authority, PLO, Fatah, and Hamas, and it is laid out in straightforward unambiguous terms. It really is no wonder they say “no” to a state if it also means that they have to recognize the tiny Jewish state alongside it. There are already 22 Arab states with a population of 400 million and land mass 625 times that of Israel, versus 6.2 million Jews in a sliver of land the size of New Jersey.

We have seen a preview of what their state will be like: ‎Gaza, which has become a terrorist launching pad for tens of thousands of rockets and missiles into Israel since Israel left and uprooted 8,000 citizens from their homes in 2005. It is a failed entity ruled by the corrupt, genocidal, terrorist entity Hamas, which steadfastly refuses to recognize Israel. A Palestinian Arab state in the West Bank/Judea-Samaria, the cradle of Jewish civilization, on the high ground overlooking the heart of Israel’s population centers from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, will only pose a more lethal danger to the safety and security of Israel. And the Jewish claim does not rest just on security, but on a continuous three-millennia presence in the land.

The pathology of the Palestinian Arab movement, which is actually a part of the larger Arab war on Israel, is violent rejection. It is partly fueled by Islamic beliefs that any Jewish presence on the land is a crime against the Islamic “natural order of things,” the crime of a ‎dhimmi people, the Jews, having sovereignty in their midst.

Yet Westerners fantasize and delude themselves that the Palestinian Arabs actually want to live in peace alongside ‎Israel. This was recently epitomized by Israel’s chief negotiator Tzipi Livni, who told Knesset members that they should “expect to be surprised” regarding Palestinian Authority willingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish State.  But her fairy-tale beliefs defy reality, and the bubble was burst immediately when PA negotiator Saeb Erekat reiterated yet again that the Palestinian Arabs would never accept Israel as a Jewish State.

Sheikh Jabari, the strongman of ‎Hebron, put it concisely: “We can never recognize the Jewish state. I can’t. It goes against the Koran. Tel Aviv is Waqf [Muslim] holy land. I can’t recognize you de jure, but I also recognize that you’re not going anywhere. You’re here to stay.”

Western intervention only makes things worse, and leads the PA to believe that it can maintain a culture of victimhood and pay no price for its maximalist, uncompromising beliefs. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Arab culture of incitement, terrorism, and resort to lawfare has only increased, in absolute violation of their commitments to teach and preach peace, dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, confiscate weapons, and arrest terrorists. The PA has not kept those international commitments; so what gives ‎Israel and Western diplomats confidence that any future accords – which will presumably involve Israel relinquishing vital land areas necessary for its security – will be honored? In Arab-Muslim culture, agreements tend to be broken when one side gains the strength to overcome the other, i.e. hudna. In the Middle East, the current status is what peace actually looks like: no paper agreements. At best, a détente, where only force and power prevail and are respected. That is what has enabled Israel to miraculously survive as an oasis of hope, democracy, and freedom in the midst of Arab-Muslim dominated totalitarian states, military dictatorships, and theocracies.‎

Israel ‎‎has no reliable “peace partner” in the Western sense, no matter how the mainstream media, EU, diplomats, and elites want to spin it. These apologists will always somehow find a way to rationalize and justify the Palestinian Arabs’ predictable resort to violence and in turn seek to delegitimize Israel for not making further concessions – regardless of whether it puts the Jewish State in deadly danger. The diplomatic process is not working. There must be far more onus on the PA to make true peace and prepare its own people for it. If and when Palestinian Arabs are ready, willing and able to say “yes,” Israel will be there – but not any sooner.

Lee S. Bender and Jerome R. Verlin are co-President and co-Vice President, respectively, of the Zionist Organization of America- Greater Philadelphia District. They are the authors of Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-Z (Pavilion Press, 2012). Verlin is the author of Israel 3000 Years: The Jewish People’s 3000 Year Presence inPalestine (Pavilion Press, 2011)

14 Comments

  • Re: Israel – To whom it may concern in Europe and the US and elsewhere:

    We are tired of hearing that withdrawal from Judea and Samaria will bring peace. We know and you know that it would bring another Gaza. So stop saying it and promoting this fallacy. Past experience has proven that concessions, appeasement and land for peace only increased terror, violence and more conflict.

    We are tired of hearing that land beyond the Green Line is ‘Palestinian land’. The Green Line is simply an armistice line that has no political significance. You know this too. The San Remo Treaty of 1920 Granted the Mandate for Palestine to the Jewish people, the same Allied powers also established 21 Arab States and one Jewish State – The Arabs are not willing to give up any part of the 21 Arab States and the Jews are not willing to give up any part of the Jewish State.

    We are tired of hearing about the “Palestinian people.” They are no different from the Arabs of Syria or Egypt, from which most of their ancestors migrated in the last 150 years or so. There is no Palestinian language or religion, and until very recently they considered themselves simply ‘Arabs’. Their culture is almost entirely defined by their opposition to the Jewish state. There never was an Arab-Palestinian State or people in History. The Arab Palestinians have a State in Jordan which is 80% of the land originally allocated to the Jewish people under the San Remo Treaty of 1920.

    We are tired of hearing that “the Palestinians deserve a state.” We are indigenous here, not them, and their behavior entitles them more to a trial at The Hague than to a state. The Arab Palestinians have a State it is called Jordan which was carved out of Jewish allocated land.

    And they certainly don’t deserve our state, which is the only state they want. They already took 80% of Jewish allocated land which is Jordan. Israel also gave them the Gaza Strip.

    We are tired of hearing about ‘The Occupation’. As Minister Naftali Bennett said the other day, you can’t be an occupier in your own land. The Arabs are the occupiers, Greater Israel has been a Jewish state for 4,000 years even if it was temporarily conquered and occupied by various nations over the centuries.

    We are tired of hearing that “settlements are illegal under international law.” They are not. The San Remo Treaty of 1920 expliciptly stated that Jewish people can reside anywhere in the Mandate for Palestine, those terms are set in perpetuity.

    We are tired of hearing that “settlement construction is an obstacle to peace.” Arab rejectionism and terrorism is the reason there is no peace. When the Arab-Palestinians teach and preach hate, terror and destruction to their children, this is definitely not a road to peace and coexistence.
    By the way, we are pro-peace. We are just not pro-suicide and self destruction.

    We are tired of hearing about the 5 million (or whatever ridiculous number there are alleged to be) ‘Arab-Palestinian refugees’ or the ‘Arab-Palestinian diaspora’. There were about 600,000 Arabs that left their homes in 1948, mostly of their own volition, more or less at the same time as the 980,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, of which the Arabs confiscated their homes and assets. We resettled ours with limited land and resources — resettle yours, the 21 Arab states have more land and resources.

    We are tired of hearing anything from anyone associated with the U.N. The U.N. is a parasitic and criminal enterprise dominated by our mortal enemies. The U.N. cannot create states, it can only recommend and so can other nations only recommend and not create a state that never existed before in history. If they want an Arab-Palestinian state, it already exists, it is Jordan which has taken 80% of Jewish allocated land.

    We are tired of stupid post-colonialist rhetoric. We are not ‘colonists’ and Arabs do not have the right to murder us in the name of ‘resistance’ or beheading Jewish Rabbi’s in Jerusalem’s Har Nof Synagogue. Talking this way reveals you as moral imbeciles. They train their children to be suicide bombers.

    You can not recognize a state and people that never existed and that has no borders, no single government, and no economy. They are not trusted by Arab states either.

    We know we can not depend on any kind of security guarantee from anyone except the Israel Defense Forces. So stop being insulted because we do not trust you. And do not ask us to give up any nuclear weapons we might or might not have or any other method and technology that could help protect us.

    We know that the left-wing parties in Israel are bankrupt of ideas. We are not going to vote for them, no matter how much you would like us to. So do not bother trying to influence our election. We will only vote for a government that protects its people and cares about the Jewish heritage, more than it cares for world opinion.

    Don’t believe what you read in Ha’aretz newspaper, they represent a minority that has no allegiance to the Jewish heritage.
    Jerusalem, undivided, is the capital of the state of Israel. Get used to it, because you can’t change it, the Jewish temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem.
    Sincerely,
    Ordinary Israelis who care about their heritage.
    Posted by: YJ Draiman

  • Thank you Les and Jerome for your article which was right on the money.
    Ayelet Shaked describes perfectly the hatemongers Fatah and Hamas are.

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/175924#.UsmJy_RDvls
    Shaked: ‘How Can We Make Peace With These People?’
    In letter to MKs, Ambassadors, Jewish Home Chairwoman Ayelet Shaked calls for end to anti-Semitic incitement in the PA.
    Tova Dvorin, Arutz Sheva Staff
    1/5/2014

  • The Jews offered Arabs a two-state solution in 1919; accepted the two-state solution of the Peel Commission in 1937; accepted the UN two-state solution in 47-48. Israel offered the Palestinians a state in 2000; accepted the Clinton Parameters in 2000-01; and offered a state again at the end of 2008. The Palestinians rejected every offer, becoming the first people in history to reject a state 6 times and then set conditions for discussing another one.

    From the Palestinian standpoint, the “peace process” is not about peace, or even about a state, but about reversing history: they seek a state on the 1967 lines to reverse the 1967 war and seek to flood Israel with millions of Arabs to reverse the 1948 war — to return to the time before the wars the Arabs started and lost, and before there was a Jewish state.

  • The Palestinians continue to assert they will never recognize a Jewish state. They can’t – it is inconsistent with their identity, and the purpose for which the Palestinian identity was forged. From the Palestinian standpoint, the “peace process” is not about peace, or even about a state, but about eliminating Israel.

    All any person has to do is go on Palmediawatch to see Fatah’s murderous aims. http://www.palwatch.org

    The only plan Israel can offer that is acceptable to Palestinians is one in which Israel becomes Palestinian Muslim majority and Palestinian Muslim ruled.

    What Abbas wants is 2 states.
    2 Palestinian states and no Jewish state.
    The Palestinians want a state free of Jews and to flood Israel with millions of Arabs for the 2nd state.
    And he expects Israel to agree to this.
    Why not tell Israel to change their name to Palestina too and accept Sharia law.

    3 Times from 2000 to 2008, Israel offered the Pals a state, something no Arab or Islamic country ever did.
    Israel offered the Pals a state even thought their was never in history any state called Palestine governed by Palestinians.
    The Palestinians refused to end the conflict as long as it meant that they would have to accept the legitimacy of Israel as a sovereign, permanent country and neighbor. Only when the Palestinians extremist/rejectionist/supremacist attitude changes will peace really be possible.

    Palestinians should get one thing into their heads: the world does not revolve around them. They share the blame for their situation, because they always wanted everything and never wanted to compromise. First and foremost that NOBODY, and least Israel owes them anything.

    The Palestinians’ plight is due to their own fanaticism, hatred, intolerance and intransigence.

    The Palestinians have also put a lot of energy into celebrating the murders of Israeli civilians by Arab terrorists.
    They don’t just celebrate murdering us once or twice – they still celebrate murders they committed of Israelis in the 1970s.
    Their culture is one big murder cult (with Israeli civilians as their targets)

    The Palestinians will blow up the same hospital that gave them excellent care. The will try to blow up the power plant providing electricity from Israel. Their hate knows no end. Until they love their children more than they hate the Jews as Golda Meir said.

    Palestinians get more aid per capita then any people on earth yet they are always angry. All foreign aid should be cut off till they grow up. Tell these terrorist Pals stop firing missiles at civilians, and learn to be productive humans instead of moochers and terrorists.

  • Esther Sarah Evans

    b”H
    As for going against the Koran, just check out Sheikh Adwan’s version that there is no mention of Palestine in the Koran and that Islam recognizes that Israel was given to us Jews.
    The long and the short of this matter is that the so-called Palestinian Arabs want all of Eretz Yisrael; so this is not a matter of statehood as stated by others, but a matter of a fight over who gets to seize all of and keep all of Israel, including Gaza, including Judea and Shomron. Since they have no claim to it from their sources, and since it is just a ploy by the other surrounding Arab states to use this semi-homeless group to bug us (an understatement of course), it is up to us Israeli Jews (and all Jews) to say – enough is enough. This is ours, reannex Judea and Shomron (and Gaza too, especially if they misbehave) and say, let the other Arab states take in whoever wants to go to them, or let the US and EU who have been bashing us take them in. Since some have already recognized that the USA is a Muslim country, maybe that is their best bet. Since the Obama government allows the over thirty Muslim terrorist training camps, surely they will have no problem with a few million more Arab refugees. Maybe they can take over one of the US states as their own special corner, or maybe they will take over the whole country, since it is basically in Muslim hands.
    In any case, their quarrel is not with us, but with G-d, and since talking to HIM about us is, barukh HASHEM (thank G-d) like talking to the wall, they would do best to take one of my humble hints.

    • Excellent point about what Koran says about “Palestinians” and that Israel is the land of the Jews. In essence, this is and has always been about THE LAND, not about a political state for “Palestinian Arabs”- who already have two: Jordan and Gaza– pretty darn good for an “invented People”

  • Indeed. Judea and Samaria wasn’t a “Palestine” during Jordanian occupation 1948-1967. It only became one after it was liberated. A “Palestine” is only the parts of the land of Israel that happen to be free at the moment.

  • The way the “Palestinians” think is similar to the pregnant schoolgirl rubbing her stomach with vanishing cream.

  • rachel robinson

    we knew that for 60 years now, they do not want a different state for themselves, they want to replace the State of Israel on its land. there is nothing to discuss here, and yet the Bully in charge is still pressing Israel to give in, to voluntarily self destruct if it listens to Kerry. what they offer, and what concurrs is with no future for israel as a state, and its people as refugees, scattered who knows where.

  • This article lays out an interesting factual case. What it doesn’t add to the mix, which is absolutely necessary for even a minimum rapprochement in the region, is for the Palestinian “refugees” in the 65 year old “temporary” camps to be integrated into the societies of the host countries. For example, residents of these camps in Lebanon are not allowed to be issued work permits to hold jobs outside of the camps, and they are forbidden to establish residence outside of the camps.

    Also, at the end of the piece, where it says “There must be far more onus on the PA”, this is nothing less than a call for a boycott of the PA. As the late great Vince Lombardi used to say, “The best defense is a good offense.” Unfortunately, The PA has little to boycott, divest or sanction – which also is part of the problem.

    • You are correct that a significant part of any ultimate solution will be that the “Palestinian Arab refugees” and their descendants be integrated into the greater Arab societies- and why not Syria, which up until the 1960s, any Arab who was called a “Palestinian” knew that meant Jews, and instead wanted to be called “South Syrians”, or Jordan, or Lebanon. And, while we are talking refugees, the far larger group of Jewish refugees forcibly kicked out of Arab lands where they lived for centuries, even before Islam- have to be reconciled, and compensated as well. But, alas, there is limited space to write all this in an article. Check out our book, where we discuss this in greater detail.

  • Never before in history has there been an independence movement that rejected independence because of a boundary dispute. But the boundary dispute is an excuse. The Palestinians may want a state, but more than that, they want to do what they think is “virtuous.” What is their idea of “virtue”? It is dying in a jihad while killing Jews.
    http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/Palestinians.html

    • The Arabs have always allowed statehood to escape them because the state they want is on the land…ALL the land…on which Israel exists and they will not compromise on that…EVER. Kerry can not change that…Obama can not change that. They can not change that because this isn’t negotiable as far as the Arabs are concerned and they have sacrificed decades and generations in order to promote this goal. But, there’s something that should set off alarms to anyone that cares about Israel: There are those in the Palestinian leadership that are beginning to think in terms of going ahead with creating the appearance that they will compromise to get a little NOW….because a little NOW is better than nothing NOW while they go on with their efforts to destroy Israel. They reason that the little they can accomplish now will make their goals a little more realizable. Of course, this is subterfuge, but the world is a very gullible place.

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