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The Palestinian no’s to peace with Israel keep coming

On the off chance that BDS supporters actually wants to know why there is no formal peace between Israel and the Palestinians, they need only consult the recent secret Israeli-Palestinian talks, as reported in Haaretz.

Israel offered to stop military operations in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Jericho. The Palestinian Authority considers Ramallah its capital.

The Palestinian response: No!

“No” is not a new word in the Palestinian dictionary. Three months after the Six Day War in June, 1967, Arab leaders gathered in Khartoum and declared:

No peace with Israel.

No recognition of Israel.

No negotiations with Israel.

These were the famous three “No’s.” Not much has changed in the past half-century. Blessedly, two of more than 20 Arab states have made peace with Israel, after having negotiated with Israel. As for the rest of the Arab states, Israel is still an enemy. As for the Palestinians, they have negotiated with Israel — but not to any fruitful end.

There is still no Palestinian peace with Israel and no Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state — and no surprise. Check the recent negotiations. Israel makes a unilateral offer to withdraw militarily. Palestinians say: No! Why? Because Israel did not offer to withdraw from all of the West Bank, so an offer to withdraw from some of the West Bank is worthless. Lest this sound reasonable, consider:

Whatever Israel offers the Palestinians is always rejected by their leadership. When Israel offered to withdraw from virtually all of the West Bank in return for a full peace in 2000 and 2008, thePalestinians rejected that, too. Now, the Palestinians reject a partial withdrawal because they need a total withdrawal, but when they are offered a total withdrawl they come up with some other reason to reject it.

It’s a pattern. It’s aways the same. Whatever Israel offers is never good enough. Not to mention, more often than not the Palestinian leadership makes no counter offer.No . . . No . . . No.

There is another extremely important nuance here, blithely overlooked by BDS supporters: the specific cities that Israel offered to withdraw from are located in “Area A,” a segment of the West Bank that is supposed to be under the exclusive Palestinian control. Why isn’t it? Doesn’t Israel’s presence there make Israel an “occupier”?

Answer: “Area A” was the heartland of the second intifada — of the repeated, unprovoked, Palestinian murders of innocent Israelis, 2000-2005. Israel went into Area A to defend her citizens and put a stop to the intifada. It was only Israel’s incursion into Area A that did stop the intifada, and that still stops multiple terror attacks originating there.

Self-defense is not “occupation.”

We think Israel’s offer to withdraw from Jericho and Ramallah is rather generous, and perhaps even unwise. We don’t even understand it, given all of the stabbings, car rammings and other recent terror attacks by Palestinians against Israelis. Be that as it may, it clearly does not matter what we might think, or even what Israeli military leaders think. It takes two to tango and what the Palestinian leadership thinks is perfectly clear. No . . . No . . . No.

Same old, same old.

Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News


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