Why peace won’t happen

Palestinian state alongside Israel would contradict essence of ‘Palestinianism’

Moshe Dann, YNET

Efforts to impose a Palestinian state (the “two-state” proposal) are doomed to fail for one simple reason: Palestinians Arabs do not want such a state; they don’t constitute a nation, or a people. Their nationalism is not based on a unique linguistic, historical, cultural, or religious identity; its primary goal is to wipe out the State of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants.

Any form of “Palestinian” statehood, therefore, that accepts Israel’s right to exist, is, by their definition, impossible. That is clearly evident in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter.

‘Palestinianism’ is not a national identity, but a political construct developed as part of a terrorist agenda when the PLO was formed in 1964. It was a way of distinguishing between Arabs and Jews, and between Arabs who lived in Israel before 1948 and other Arabs.

“Palestinian Arabs,” or “Arab Palestinians” is not a foreign or colonial description; it is what they used to describe themselves in their official documents. Their identity was based on a myth; their sole purpose was “the liberation of Palestine,” including what is now Jordan.

Arabs who lived in Palestine did not consider themselves separate from the greater Arab nation, as reflected in PLO documents. They rallied to the pro-Nazi Mufti, Haj Amin Hussein, not because he expressed their national identity, but because of Jew-hatred. Nor do they define their struggle as achieving statehood alongside Israel. Their goal is to replace Israel.

“Two-state” proposals, therefore, with Palestinian statehood as a territorial goal, in fact contradict Palestinianism. Such plans mean the end of Palestinianism, and of their struggle to eradicate Israel.

Statehood means ending armed struggle

This explains why no Arab “Palestinian” leader will agree to surrender to Western and Zionist interests, and why making compromises is anathema. Statehood means a denial of the Nakba (catastrophe), the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, admitting that everything for which they fought and sacrificed was in vain.

Statehood means abandoning five million Arabs who live in 58 UNRWA-sponsored “refugee camps” in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and hundreds of thousands living throughout the world; they will no longer be considered “refugees.” That means a loss of over half-billion dollars per year that UNRWA receives.

Statehood means giving up “the armed struggle,” the crux of their identity; it means that the concept of Palestinianism created by the PLO, accepted by the UN and the media, and even Israeli politicians was a hoax, a fake identity, with a false purpose. It means that their suffering was for naught.

Statehood means taking responsibility and ending incitement and violence. It means confronting the myth of “Palestinian archeology,” and “Palestinian society and culture,” and building authentic nationalism, institutions and structures with transparency.

It also means, of course, ending the conflict, an end to terrorism as official policy, an end to the civil war between Islamists and secularists, between tribes and clans, an end to corruption and lawlessness, the establishment of a truly democratic government.

No artificial construct imposed from outside can replace the establishment of a genuine process of nation-building from inside. Ironically, “Palestinianism” is the greatest obstacle to a Palestinian state alongside Israel and regional stability.

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Mort Klien’s ZOA gives us another reason

POLL: PALESTINIANS OPPOSE RENOUNCING SO-CALLED ‘RIGHT OF RETURN’ BY AN OVERWHELMING 82% TO 14%

A new poll shows that Palestinians oppose by an overwhelming 82% to 14% the renunciation of the so-called ‘right of return,’ the legally baseless demand that all Palestinian refugees of the 1948-49 war and their millions of descendants return to Israel. This opposition was expressed even if the price of maintaining the ‘right of return’ was the non-conclusion of a peace agreement with Israel. The poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO), also found that, by a nearly identical margin of 82% to 13%, Palestinians would oppose the Palestinian leadership waiving the ‘right of return’ in exchange for financial compensation for refugees and their descendants. It also found that Hamas is more than doubly popular in PA-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria than in Hamas-run Gaza (41% in the West Bank versus 20% in Gaza) (‘PCPO Poll of Palestinians – 81.8 % won’t drop right of return even if means deal breaker and no state, Hamas more popular in West Bank than Gaza,’ Independent Media Review Analysis, July 12, 2010).

This overwhelming level of support for the ‘right of return’ is consistent with past polls:

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August 2007: A Jerusalem Media and Communications Center poll found that nearly 70% of Palestinians wanted the refugee issue resolved by return of all refugees to “their original land,” not a new Palestinian state (Rick Richman, ‘What Most Palestinian Believe,’ New York Sun, November 12, 2007).
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February 2006: 83.3% of the Palestinian Arabs oppose dropping the legally and morally baseless so-called ‘right of return’ of refugees and their millions of descendants to Israel and reject substitute solutions to the refugee issue (Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO) poll, February 16-20, 2006).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is crystal clear from this poll and a great deal of other data that Palestinian society clearly opposes acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state and consistently favors by large majorities positions that indicate this – support for the co-called ‘right of return’; support for terror attacks on Israelis; and opposition to an end of claims after any signed agreement, among other things.

“Despite these poll results, the Obama Administration persists in claiming that Palestinians are committed to a peaceful future and seek only statehood alongside Israel. By stating the opposite of what the facts warrant, it is misleading the American public and pursuing a policy which lacks any factual basis. The consistent high levels of Palestinian public support for the so-called ‘right of return’ which would see Israel destroyed by inundation of hostile Palestinian refugees and their descendants, demonstrates all too clearly that Palestinian society is not reconciled to the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.”