Five Non-Starters
Even before President Trump’s peace plan was released, several non-starters have made any negotiations of a peace treaty virtually impossible between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis.
Even before President Trump’s peace plan was released, Palestinian Authority President Abbas had his “1000 no’s” ready. This is due to several non-starters that have made any negotiations of a peace treaty virtually impossible between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis.
1. Jerusalem shared but not divided. The Trump plan offers Palestinians a space in East Jerusalem to call their capital – while at the same time not taking sovereignty over the most significant place – the Temple Mount – away from Israel. However, while all Muslims would continue to have access to pray peacefully at the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, Israel’s ultimate sovereignty over the place and continued Jewish “infidel” presence would be unacceptable to the Islamic Palestine.
2. Get your own state – and no more right of return. One of the more strategic demands Palestinians have come up with is the demand for the “right of return” for “Palestinian refugees” into Israel proper, with the right to citizenship. Though everywhere else on earth, the term “refugee” only describes people who actually fled from or lost their homes for one reason or another, Palestinians consider themselves and all their descendants refugees, even if they were born abroad and have never stepped foot in the Middle East. This is why, while an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 Arabs are said to have left their homes during Israel’s War of Independence, there are an estimated five million plus Palestinians who are registered today as “refugees.”
This tactic is used because numbers matter, and the end game is to overwhelm the Jewish population and essentially vote Israel out of existence. So even if Palestinians were to get their own country, they would not do so without demanding the right of Palestinian refugees to also inhabit Israel proper.
3. Stop encouraging terrorism. Yasser Arafat’s original PLO charter declared, “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase.” Abbas’ Palestinian Authority continues to push this agenda of terrorism and martyrdom as well as rewarding terrorists by supporting their families. Discontinuing this would require a complete revamping of the school system which currently lauds the virtues of paving the road to Jerusalem with Jewish and Palestinian martyr’s blood. As recently as 2016 Abbas named a school after the terrorist who killed 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972.
4. The not-so-secret map. The ultimate Palestinian goal is evident in the not-so-subtle image of their envisioned Palestine on the logo of the three main parties who have claimed leadership of the Palestinian people: PLO, Fatah and Hamas.
5. Recognize the Jewish people – Palestinians fundamentally do not recognize Jews as a race of people – descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Rather, they consider today’s Jews to be a random group of people who believe in the religion of Judaism and adhere to a book of folklore. Since the Book is fake, so are the people. Therefore, asking them to recognize Israel as a country for Jews is tantamount to asking them to recognize the Book, the people and the God of the Jews.
