Evelyn Gordon, Jerusalem Post, October 24, 2007
…When Palestinians say they favor a two-state solution, what kind of two-state solution are they envisioning? [T]he answer…is not a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one—the only solution that Israel could, or the world should, accept. What they want is two Palestinian states, or at best one Palestinian and one binational state.
The [Jerusalem Media and Communications Center] poll, for instance, found that 69 percent of Palestinians want all 4.4 million refugees and their descendants relocated to Israel under any agreement, dismissing alternatives such as compensation, resettlement in Palestine or a quota for relocations to Israel. Previous polls have consistently produced similar results. Yet given Israel’s current population of roughly 5.7 million Jews and 1.3 million Arabs, that is a clear recipe for eliminating the Jewish state demographically– not for living in peace with it.
Like others before it, this poll also found that 94 percent of Palestinians oppose any Israeli authority over the Temple Mount. In other words, they refuse to accept any Jewish rights in Judaism’s holiest site–and if Jews have no rights there, then by implication, they have no rights anywhere in Israel. This denial of any Jewish right to this land is incompatible with acceptance of a Jewish state….
Such polls are not merely theoretical: Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed over precisely these issues in 2000-2001. And Palestinians wholeheartedly supported this outcome: A July 2000 poll found that 83 percent approved Yasser Arafat’s rejection of Israel’s offer at that month’s Camp David summit; only 6 percent felt he should have been more conciliatory. And that is the principal reason for doubting that Palestinians’ true goal is statehood: People who actually want a state do not keep saying “no” when one is offered.
At Camp David, Israel offered the Palestinians approximately 90 percent of the territories, including parts of Jerusalem. Not only did they refuse; they responded with a terrorist war. In December 2000, the offer was upped to 95 percent, including the Temple Mount; Arafat refused again. At Taba the following month, Israel sweetened the offer to 97 percent; Arafat still said no. Yet Palestinian support for him, and his decisions, remained undiminished….
The Palestinians…rejected a proffered state that fell a mere 3 percent short of their putative demands, just because it (a) involved acknowledging a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and (b) required the refugees to resettle in Palestine rather than Israel. In other words, they preferred continued occupation to any deal that accepted a Jewish state….
Even on territorial issues, Palestinians’ lack of interest in statehood is glaring. The JMCC poll, for instance, found that 82 percent oppose Israel’s retention of any settlements, even “in exchange for equal Israeli land.” In other words, faced with a theoretical deal for statehood on the equivalent of 100 percent of the territories, fully 82 percent of Palestinians would reject it solely because it would not expel some 100,000 Israelis from their homes….
The delusion that Palestinians want a state is far from harmless. Indeed, it perpetuates the conflict by diverting Israeli and international efforts into endless vain attempts to satisfy unsatisfiable demands, instead of focusing these efforts on the true problem: Palestinian unwillingness to accept a Jewish state in any part of this land….
The only way to truly achieve a two-state solution is for Israel, and the world, to insist that there will be no progress–no talks, and no Israeli concessions–until Palestinians are prepared to accept the Jewish state’s existence. That will not produce results quickly, and success is not guaranteed. But unlike the current process, it at least offers a chance–because only if Palestinians see no hope of getting the whole loaf will they ever agree to settle for half.
Given that Palestinians want two states (for themselves) rather than a two-state solution (a separate Israel and Palestine), talks should leave out Palestinians and take place directly with Jordan, Egypt and perhaps Syria to come up with a plan to compensate those countries for a plan to take back and accept their fellow Arab brothers into their countries. This strategy would involve generous relocation grants and ongoing aid to be redirected from misused and misdirected UN and NGO aid that is, at present, keeping the Palestinians in a state of UN-sanctioned dependency, terrorism and anarchy.
The Palestinians think that their goals are doable only because they have the complete backing of an Arab world (and western world too) which is using the Palestinians to achieve their wider goal of Islamic conquest and ethnic and religious cleansing of the region.
Had the US been able to establish law and order in Iraq and implement true peace and democracy, the other Arab countries might have been encouraged to negotiate a return of Palestinians to Arab countries. Now, however, the jihads and Islamofascists have claimed victory and the liklihood of any substantive talks is almost zero. Iran has been strengthened and Iran is the poison and cancer that is taking over the ME at this time.
The world cannot correct the modern problems that are a result of the inherent predisposition for violence and fulfillment of the written dictates of the Islamic religious order. For now, the best way to control the violence coming from Gaza and the West Bank is to meet every incident with an overwhelming response that will serve as a real deterrence.
How many times and ways can you sell the Brooklyn Bridge?