A PALESTINIAN STATE NOW IS PREMATURE AND WRONG - For Palestinians only a state from the “River to the Sea” is their condition for “peace.”

By: Joseph Puder

Friday, February 23, 2024

In describing the day after the end of the war in Gaza, Abdulrahman al-Rashed, chairman of the Al-Arabiya editorial board, wrote (November 6, 2023) that “while the skies above Gaza rained bombshells, Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas’s political bureau chief stationed in Qatar) dropped a metaphorical bombshell himself when he announced Hamas’s readiness to accept peace in the form of a two-state solution. Haniyeh is well aware of what the war could be hiding next. Hamas is not strong enough to repel US-backed Israel, let alone without any support from its allies. Haniyeh wants Hamas to have a political front that could reap benefits of the October 7 attacks. But he and Khaled Mashal (former head of Hamas’s political bureau residing in Qatar) must first overcome a big hurdle: the leaders of Hamas in Gaza do not recognize any role by their peers abroad.”

According to al-Rashed, it has been leaked that Haniyeh and Mashal were removed from leadership roles as far back as 2017, when the military leadership under Yahya Sinwar took control of the Hamas terror group. It means that the Qatar-based political leaders appear more flexible only because they no longer have a role to play within Hamas, and perhaps the US might help them take a leadership role within a post-Mahmoud Abbas chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The Palestinian masses, however, in both the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza are overwhelmingly in support of Hamas and its October 7, 2023, unprovoked and brutal attacks on Israeli civilians. They support the Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar whose very purpose in life is the destruction of the Jewish state as indicated in the Hamas Charter. Sinwar is opposed to a two-state solution. Moreover, if free elections were to be held in the West Bank, Hamas would win easily.

In the meantime, US President Joe Biden is under pressure from his Democratic Party left-wing to end the war in Gaza. According to the Washington Post, Biden is considering extending unilateral recognition for a Palestinian State. For Israel, such a move by the US would actually reward the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza for the October 7, unprecedented attack on Israel. And Mahmoud Abbas, who has never condemned the brutal massacre of October 7, is unwilling and incapable of committing to end the conflict with Israel or running a functioning state.

As long as the people of Gaza and the West Bank consider their priority to be the destruction of the Jewish state and are unwilling to recognize Israel as the national home of the Jewish people and refuse to commit to abstaining from terror against Israel, any unilateral recognition by the US and the international community of a Palestinian state without the above conditions, would make it impossible for Israel to cooperate.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that the only way to settle the issue of a two-state solution is by direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel must see Palestinians themselves voluntarily committed to a two-state solution. If the Palestinians wished to establish a Palestinian state, they already could have easily done that 77 years ago without any wars. In November 1947 the UN voted to partition historic Palestine into two-states: an Arab state and a Jewish state. But the Arab-Palestinians immediately rejected this statehood offer. In 2000 at the Camp David summit with President Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat rejected an opportunity for a two-state solution, and the creation a Palestinian state (negotiated with Israel’s PM Ehud Barak). Once again in 2008 Mahmoud Abbas refused to compromise on a two-state solution (negotiated with Israel’s PM Ehud Olmert). Arab-Palestinians have repeatedly refused to choose statehood for themselves if the price included the simultaneous recognition of Israel as the home state of the Jewish people alongside them.

For the likes of Hamas leaders such as Khaled Mashal, a Palestinian state as envisioned by Biden wouldn’t be satisfactory. Mashal announced on January 22, 2024, in an interview with a Kuwaiti podcaster that, “The creation of a Palestinian state from the River to the Sea is a consensus among a Palestinian people.” Another Hamas senior official, Razi Hamed stated that Hamas will repeat October 7 time after time, and that “Israel is a country we want to bring down.”

In the same interview with Amar Taki, Mashal pointed out “We have nothing to do with the two-state solution. We reject this notion, because it means you would get a promise for a Palestinian state, yet you are required to recognize the legitimacy of the other state, which is the Zionist entity. This is unacceptable.”

Mahmoud Abbas had rejected bilateral negotiations with Israel. He has demanded that negotiations be indirect through “the Quartet” – (US, Russia, EU, and the UN). He has been unwilling to compromise with Israel either on the “right of return” or on borders.

An independent Jewish state isn’t acceptable to Mahmoud Abbas. He and his Fatah Central Committee have stated explicitly that the “Palestinians do not accept that the State of Israel is a Jewish state.” Abbas made the point that Israel exists, but it must be a binational state like Lebanon.

A month after the October 7 pogrom against Israelis, President Biden declared, “As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution.”

The idea of “doubling down” on a two-state solution at this time as Biden and Blinken envision it, consider Douglas Murray’s fitting words, “Is like watching an alcoholic trying to recover from a hangover by having the first drink of the morning.” The US administrations keeps repeating the same failed attempts, without understanding that for the Palestinians only a state from the “River to the Sea” is their condition for peace.

As long as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas continue to sponsor jihadist education in their curriculum and hate for Israel and Jews is emanating from official Palestinian media, as well as the mosques, it is premature and wrong to consider a Palestinian State.