The Palestinian Intention to Destroy Israel

1/   Amos Oz’s essay Help Us To Divorce helps explain the widespread appeal of the 2-state solution to ‘western’ audiences. The core argument is that two rival national groups claim the same territory. This characterization provides a logical, moral, and political basis for an agreement to divide the territory into a state for Arabs and a state for Jews. Both sides have national rights, and neither side can or should defeat, eliminate or expel the other. This perspective emphasizes the necessity of a reasonable, equitable, and practical win-win solution to the conflict.  

2/   As a result, western supporters in particular have been unable to imagine any palatable alternative to the simplicity and clarity of the 2-state compromise.  Its inherent justice appears so morally conclusive that all decent people should agree.   It is considered so self-evidently superior to alternatives that no further elaboration is required.   Consequently, due-diligence into Palestinian intentions, to ascertain if they align or not with this vision, is almost entirely absent. 

Eliminating Israel 

3/   Yet Palestinian intentions are hardly a secret.  Their manifesto, the Palestinian National Charter (PNC) 1968, openly and explicitly advocates the destruction of Israel.  Reinforced every day by the main Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, this aim dominates PA ideology, unites its various factions and saturates the speeches of its leaders.  The PA and its constituent parts live and breathe the elimination of Israel.  Consequently, the PA:

1. Refuses a two-state solution as an end to the conflict.
2. Claims all Israel – from the river-to-the sea, the ‘48 territories, the interior. 
3. Propounds the theory that Jews are not a ‘people’ but a religious community only with no independent national rights (article 20 PNC).
4. Asserts the bizarre notion that Jews have no religious or historical connection to the region (article 20 PNC).
5. Devotes zero efforts with its citizens to promote a peaceful win-win solution.
6. Devotes tremendous efforts, resources, and funds to incite and reward attacks on  Israeli Jews.

4/   Further, there is no Palestinian body with any political weight, with any social weight, with any economic weight, with any numerical weight, with any religious weight, or with any military weight, that sees the conflict differently.  As a result, the ‘West Bank’ is festooned with posters, banners, maps, wall-plaques, murals, monuments and other such material depicting only ‘Palestine’.  Signs expressing a desire for peace alongside Israel are entirely absent.   

5/   Young children ‘armed’ with toy guns and military-style uniforms are systematically educated that it is OK to kill Jews.   Summer camps are named after those who murder Jews.  Sports events and teams are named after those who murder Jews.  City squares and buildings are named after those who murder Jews.   Eulogies glorify the terrorist ‘martyrs’ who murder Jews.  Speeches and broadcasts inciting anti-Israel and anti-Jewish violence are standard.

6/   Reinforced by the educational system, the mosques, and the media, the pervasiveness of the aim of eliminating Israel is the glue that holds the different Palestinian factions together.   No other sentiment is expressed except hatred and hostility towards Israel and  non-stop  calls for its destruction.   In Palestinian governed areas, it is impossible to openly and safely advocate and organize in favor of acceptance of a Jewish state.

7/   Much is made of the diplomatic recognition of Israel by the PA – as if the existence of Israel was not an obvious fact-of-life.  Yet the PA refuses to accept Israel as a Jewish nation-state with a right to exist.  Therefore, insofar as it considers Israel a state it is not accepted as Jewish, and insofar as it is Jewish it is not accepted as a state, but is instead derisively dismissed as the Zionist Entity with a limited life – as described in the PNC.

2-State Due Diligence

8/   Even a cursory examination of Palestinian intentions reveals that they reject the characterization of the conflict as between 2-Peoples.  Simultaneously, they reject 2-states as an end to the conflict.  Instead, they see the conflict as a winner-takes-all struggle.  They do not consider 2-states a fair or equitable solution – which is why they have consistently refused solutions on this basis both before and following the creation of Israel.  Instead, they routinely claim the whole territory of Mandatory Palestine and refuse to accept a Jewish state on any part of it.

9/   Very little due diligence by advocates of Palestinian statehood is needed to grasp all this – and to realize that it destroys the simplicity and certainty of the 2-state vision.  Palestinian intentions pose an insurmountable obstacle to a peaceful and successful 2-state solution.  Yet they are overwhelmingly ignored by its advocates.   Their advocacy relies on this.   This is why they are unable to ask or answer a simple, obvious and direct question:  how can a peaceful and successful 2-state solution be achieved with a Palestinian state that intends to destroy Israel? 

10/  In sum, although the aspiration of a win-win 2-state solution may be in the hearts and minds of many in the West, it remains entirely alien to the Palestinians who claim all the territory of Mandatory Palestine.  This refusal to accept and live alongside  the Jewish state to end the conflict is the driving force of its continuation.  It remains the rock against which all peace attempts crash. 

Note: A wealth of first-hand information on these issues can be found at: 

• Palestinian National Charter HERE.
• Palestinian Media Watch HERE.
• Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) HERE.