Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaks with Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist party Raam at the Knesset in Jerusalem, June 13, 2021. Photo: EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP

Last week, Israeli Arab politician Mansour Abbas, head of the Islamist Ra’am (United Arab List) party and a member of Israel’s ruling coalition, made a simple statement recognizing Israel’s existence as a Jewish state in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan:

“Israel was born as a Jewish state. And that was the decision of the Jewish people, to establish a Jewish state,” Abbas noted in Hebrew. “The question is not ‘what is the identity of the state?’ That’s how the state was born, and so it will remain […] This is the reality. The question is not about the state’s identity — but what the status of Arab citizens will be in it. [Translation: Israellycool]

Abbas’ declaration appeared to be at odds with his party’s rejectionist charter, as well as previous comments, and earned him praise in Israel, with some hailing the speech as “historic.”

On December 23rd, leading Israeli newspaper Maariv even printed a cartoon depicting Theodor Herzl, one of the founding fathers of political Zionism, inviting the Arab politician into his iconic 1897 portrait. “Come, there’s room,” Herzl can be seen telling Abbas.

Meanwhile, Abbas’ remarks in support of coexistence quickly drew the ire of Palestinian Authority (PA) officials in the West Bank.

In a statement, Ramallah furiously condemned what it called “irresponsible statements [that are] consistent with the calls of extremists in Israel to displace the Palestinians and harm the status of the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque and the history of the Palestinian people.”

PA President Mahmoud Abbas accused the Ra’am leader of repeating “the lies of the Zionist movement,” and said Mansour Abbas “only represents himself” when he speaks about accepting Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. “His fate and the fate of those like him will be in the dustbin of history,” the ruling Palestinian Fatah faction added.

Hamas, the US-designated terror organization that governs the Gaza Strip, similarly lashed out at Ra’am while stressing, “the Palestinian national consensus … rejects and denounces the Zionist claims.”

International news outlets dedicated precious little coverage to Mansour Abbas’ words and the ensuing Palestinian fury. In fact, reporters at major publications entirely ignored the story. But, as the international community seeks to restart talks with a view to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict through a two-state solution, the story is highly relevant.

As former US Mideast envoy Dennis Ross put it on Twitter: “if the PA accepts 2 states, why attack [Mansour] Abbas? What he said is consistent with 2 states.” Seemingly, no mainstream journalist is willing to ask this central question, as it would expose the PA’s refusal to accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state within any border.

Mansour Abbas said Israel was founded as a Jewish state and will remain a Jewish state. For this, he was attacked by the Palestinian Authority. I believe in a 2 state solution to the conflict; if the PA accepts 2 states, why attack Abbas? What he said is consistent with 2 states.

— Dennis Ross (@AmbDennisRoss) December 23, 2021

On December 21, HonestReporting challenged CNN after it published a piece that depicted PA President Abbas as having been actively engaged in peace talks with Israel that repeatedly fell apart through no fault of his own. The network failed to mention the violent rejectionism — typified by incessant incitement against Israel — that has characterized Abbas’ 17-year reign.

But CNN is not alone. Time and time again, leading media outlets have turned a blind eye to Ramallah’s anti-Israel rhetoric, even as Palestinian officials make no efforts to hide their ultimate intentions towards the Jewish state.

Earlier this year, a Fatah official appeared on official PA TV and explained that Palestinians would “continue to confront it [Israel] with bare chests until the liberation of Palestine — Palestine from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, Palestine which is Arab and Islamic. It will remain ours.”

Two months ago, the Palestinian Authority opened a new diplomatic office in Tunisia, whose entrance features a giant map of “Palestine” that completely erases Israel. According to Palestinian Media Watch, “the message of the map is, of course, that Israel has no right to exist and that the goal of the PA is sovereignty over the entire area.”

The Jewish state, on the other hand, continues to seek out peace with its Arab neighbors while indicating its willingness to make concessions. Jerusalem has signed peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, and, most recently, normalized relations with four Arab nations under the auspices of the Abraham Accords.

Regardless, Mahmoud Abbas is described as “one of the architects of the two-state solution” (The Wall Street Journal, May 12), while Israel stands accused of “making an internationally backed two-state solution […] increasingly impossible” (Associated Press, October 27).

Another tactic the media engages in, besides glossing over the PA’s violent rejectionism, is to deflect responsibility for the failure of peace talks from Ramallah to Jerusalem. By repeating such boilerplate sentences as, “…new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, opposes Palestinian independence” (Associated Press, December 9), the media assign blame to Israel for the lack of meaningful negotiations.

Since the most ideologically diverse government in Israel’s history, led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, was sworn in on June 13, prominent wire services like the Associated Press and Reuters have detailed Bennett’s political opposition to establishing a Palestinian state at least 68 times. This, even though Lapid declared to the international community in July his support for a two-state solution.

It’s worth noting that it was Yair Lapid, who leads the centrist Yesh Atid party and is set to take over as prime minister in 2023, who formed Israel’s current government.

Yet despite the existence of a strong willingness on the side of the Israeli government to improve the lives of Palestinian Arabs, Mahmoud Abbas, in the 17th year of what was meant to be a four-year term, is not held to account for inciting and financially supporting violence against the world’s only Jewish state and its civilians.

It’s time for the media to recognize who’s really responsible for preventing a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The opinions presented by Algemeiner bloggers are solely theirs and do not represent those of The Algemeiner, its publishers or editors. If you would like to share your views with a blog post on The Algemeiner, please be in touch through our Contact page.