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Dear editor:
Bruce Ticker’s abbreviated history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a bit too evenhanded. A more complete history confirms that one side (Israel) has been working for peace while Arab and Palestinian leaders have rejected any and all scenarios that do not include destruction of the Jewish state (whether militarily or via replacing the nation-state of the Jews with a Muslim-majority Israel in which no Jew would be safe).
Arab countries went to war in the 1940’s rather than accepting the UN’s partition plan for Palestine, which called for the formation of a Jewish state and a second Arab state on the 22% of Britain’s Palestine Mandate not used to create the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan (now Jordan). Although Arab-initiated violence failed to prevent the creation of the modern State of Israel in the Jews’ ancestral homeland, Jordan grabbed eastern Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, dubbing those lands “The West Bank,” and Egypt grabbed Gaza. These illegal occupations continued until 1967. There was no move by either occupier to grant any degree of autonomy to the Arabs of Palestine. Indeed, the 1964 founding charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization specified that the PLO made no claim to lands then held by Jordan and Egypt. The sole aim of the PLO was “liberating” Israel from the Jews.
In June, 1967, Jordan fired on Israeli-held western Jerusalem, thus allying with Egypt and Syria in a war instigated with the open intention of destroying the Jewish state and annihilating its people. But Israel prevailed in the Six Day War, freeing “The West Bank,” Gaza, and the Golan Heights from the rule of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria, respectively. Israel’s offer to withdraw from most of the newly liberated lands in exchange for recognition and peace was rejected by the Arab League in September, 1967.
https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/141
There is no evidence that Palestinian leaders asked the League to accept the deal so they could build a state of their own. Indeed, Palestinian leaders subsequently rejected several Israeli and US proposals that should have led to the establishment of the first-ever-to-exist Arab State of Palestine. (Ehud Barak, 2000; Ehud Olmert, 2008; Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel, 2009; the Trump Administration’s Peace to Prosperity Plan, 2020).
Since the signing of the Oslo Accords, 95% of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria have been living under the administration of leaders of their own choosing. Those leaders have failed to develop the economies of areas under their control and have done nothing to prepare their people for peaceful coexistence with their Israeli neighbors. Rather than negotiating on setting secure and mutually recognized borders (as mandated by Oslo), the leaders have continued to direct all their efforts toward delegitimizing and destroying Israel. Israelis of all political stripes are correct in opposing recognition of a Palestinian state at the current time; it would, correctly, be seen as a reward for terrorism.
The creation of a viable Palestinian state will, indeed, require a change in the hostile attitude that Arab and Palestinian leaders have created in their people. Achieving that change requires the decisive defeat of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups attacking Israel, demilitarization of Gaza and freeing Lebanon from Hezbollah’s control, as well as deradicalization of the Palestinians.
Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA
