"Come and kill the Jew"

Western leaders and the UN should stop pretending as if it’s possible to negotiate “peace” with people whose only goal is murder and mayhem.

If only Israel allowed Palestinians to have their own state, peace would reign in the Middle East, according to Western diplomats and armchair pundits. But history shows otherwise. Palestinian Arabs have no interest in a state. Nor do they want peace. 

1936 – Would you like a state? #1 Following World War I, the British took control of most of the Middle East, including the area that constitutes modern Israel. In 1936, Arabs in the area rebelled against the British, who decided the solution would be to create two independent states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs, a two-state solution. The suggested split was heavily in favor of the Arabs. They were offered 80% of the disputed territory, the Jews the remaining 20%. Despite the tiny size of their proposed state, the Jews voted to accept this offer. But rather than accept it and build their own state the Arabs rejected it in favor of continuing violence. and resumed their violent rebellion. 

1947 – Would you like a state? #2 A decade later, the British asked the United Nations to find a solution to the continuing tensions. The UN decided that the best way to resolve the conflict was to divide the land and create two states. Again, the Jews accepted the offer, and again the Arabs rejected it and did so by launching an all-out war joined by Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. But they failed. Israel won the war and got on with the business of building a new nation. Most of the land set aside by the UN for an Arab state, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, became occupied territory. Occupied not by Israel, but by Jordan.

1967 – Would you like a state? #3 Twenty years later, in 1967, the Arabs, led this time by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, once again sought to destroy the Jewish state. This conflict, known as the Six-Day War, ended in a stunning victory for Israel. Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the area known as the Gaza Strip, fell into Israel’s hands. The Israeli government split over what to do with this new territory – return the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt in exchange for peace or give it to the region’s Arabs, who had begun referring to themselves as the Palestinians* in the hope that they would build their own state there. The Arab League dismissed a two-state solution and issued a “counter-proposal,” its infamous three-NOs: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. 

1993 – Would you like peace? Oslo Peace accords were secret peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Palestinian Arabs responded to Israel’s attempts to implement the Oslo Accords by sending suicide bombers to the streets and buses of the cities of Israel, a blatant violation of their commitment to the agreement and a clear statement of their rejection of peace with Israel. 

2000 – Would you like a state? #4 In 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton mediated talks between Israel and PLO. Israel offered a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital in return for an end to the conflict. He rejected the offer. President Clinton said, “Arafat was here 14 days and said ‘no’ to everything.” Instead, the Palestinian Authority (PA) initiated a massive wave of violence, launching a bloody wave of suicide bombings in Israeli cities, on streets, in buses, and restaurants, that killed 1,200 Israelis and maimed thousands more. “Arafat’s war of terror” was unparalleled in the scale and relentlessness of its terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. 

2005 – Here’s land for a state #5 – Can we have peace? In 2005, the government of Israel carried out the unilateral evacuation of all Israeli villages from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank. Instead of nation-building Palestinian Arabs turned the Gaza Strip into a missile pad from where Hamas has launched rockets into Israeli towns for years . Rather than using this enormous concession as an opportunity to achieve peace and build an economy and future for their people Palestinian Arabs used it to empower a terrorist organization. In 2007, Hamas took control of Gaza in a violent coup, and ever since, the villages of southern Israel have been subjected to continuing downpours of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles fired fro.

Western diplomats should stop trying to force land and peace on Palestinian Arabs and their leaders. They’re not interested in either, and they’ve been straightforward about it: “So-called peaceful solutions are a waste of time. The only solution is jihad… The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth, because they have displayed hostility to Allah.”

What Hamas – which is supported by over 90% of Palestinian Arabs – wants is clearly stated in their Charter: “The day of Doom will not arrive until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them… The Jews will hide behind trees and rocks and [they] will say: Oh Muslim, Allah’s servant, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.” 

Western leaders and the UN should stop pretending as if it’s possible to negotiate “peace” or “ceasefire” with people whose only goal is murder and mayhem and honestly state where their support lies. Either they support a designated terrorist group or they support the only democracy in the Arab world. Actions speak louder than words, so we already know.

*”Palestinians/Palestinian nation” is a relatively new concept. The people who now call themselves Palestinians are Arab immigrants who came to Israel from all over the Arab world in the early 20th century during the British Mandate to work in cities and on farms built by Jews. The names of many Palestinian Arabs reflect their geographical origin, f.ex. Hourani (Houran, Syria), Tzurani (Tyrus, Lebanon), Masri (Egypt). The numerous historical accounts of and references to the Six-Day War in 1967 refer to Arabs “in the area who had begun referring to themselves as Palestinians.”