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Why Israel Cannot Accept Palestinian Conditions
By William Sullivan
Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, widely thought to be the most moderate of Palestinian diplomats, has agreed to resume peace talks with Israel by January 26, 2012 - but only on the condition that Israel cease constructing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem while also offering a commitment that it will agree to return the borders of sovereignty to the pre-1967 lines that existed prior to the Six Day War. If Israel does not agree to these prerequisites by that deadline, Abbas said, Palestinians "will take new measures," and that those measures "might be hard."
Recognizing Abbas's stance to be little more than an unreasonable demand and a thinly veiled threat, Israel has resolved that the negotiations must be entered "without prior conditions." This will undoubtedly appear as bullheadedness on Israel's part by many in the international community who, according to the Associated Press, have "largely backed the Palestinian positions on settlements and borders." However, it should be clear to any sensible person that Israel's refusal to meet the demands of these so-called "moderate" Palestinians is a matter of self-preservation, not obstinacy.
First of all, there is a certain unspoken absurdity in the international community's expectation that Israel entertain the concession of Gaza, which a return to the pre-1967 lines would require. Hamas, which won control of Gaza in a 2006 election, has in its foundational charter a primary directive of "crushing and defeating" Israel at all costs, and it has a damning record of utilizing terrorism, propaganda, and armed uprisings to achieve that goal.
Yet in spite of this, Abbas has chosen to link Hamas indivisibly to the Palestinian bid for statehood. In an effort to offer the group a semblance of diplomatic legitimacy, he has openly declared that both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to employ "popular" and "peaceful ways, rather than military resistance," and that a return to 1967 borders would be their "permanent solution." This kind of reasonable rhetoric may sound promising, but the words ring decidedly false when one considers that after Abbas made this statement, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh proclaimed that any attempt to reconcile Palestinian borders to the 1967 lines would merely be the "first stage" to more closely encroach Israeli borders and launch "intifada after intifada" until they "liberate all of Palestine - all of Palestine, Allah willing." Abbas's hollow statements were further nullified when Fatah leader Abbas Zaki showed agreement, stating that Fatah shares Hamas's ambition, though he recognizes that "you can't say it to the world. You can say it to yourself."
Suffice it to say, other Palestinian representatives that Abbas has sought to include in future negotiation seem to lack his skill at keeping their "moderate" masks in place. But that is not to say that Abbas's mask should be any more convincing to an attentive observer. Sure, he has been known to make an occasional testimony expressing his desire for "peace" and a "two-state solution," but any value in these proclamations is swiftly negated. He has memorialized the date of Israel's inception as "Nakba Day" (The Day of Catastrophe), and has immortalized murderers of Israelis by naming town squares in their honor. Most recently, he even appointed a released Palestinian terrorist to a position as a political advisor, assuring that any potential counsel could be called anything but "moderate." And while demanding that Israel concede its territory, Abbas routinely reaffirms his refusal to accept Israel's identity as a Jewish state or to accept "a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital."
It should be clearly recognizable that even the supposedly moderate Mahmoud Abbas harbors only unilateral positions that offer no consideration to Israeli interests, and as such, he, too, is little more than an impediment to the peace process.
His making threats and demanding that Israel forfeit territories over which it holds sovereign right is not a "moderate" approach to entering a diplomatic peace summit. Furthermore, there is ample evidence in Palestinian rhetoric to suggest that any acquisition of territory will only serve to provide a strategic advantage in a continued conflict with Israel, not an avenue to peace. The potential implications of appeasement by Israel or the international community in such a scenario should not be at all unfamiliar. After all, a now notorious anti-Semite once made threats of war while demanding the diplomatic procurement of sovereign Czech territory under similar pretenses in 1939. Needless to say, history provides an acute picture of the grim events that followed.
Benjamin Netanyahu told our president last year, "We don't have a lot of margin for error. History will not give the Jewish people another chance." Sadly, the murderous fervor of the enemies that surround the children of Zion suggests that he is right. As such, Israel cannot be expected to retreat to indefensible lines, particularly when openly hostile Palestinians refuse to grant the Jewish nation its most basic right to a peaceful existence.
It has become painfully obvious that Israel is not dealing with a rational, moderate counterpart in the current discussion over Palestinian statehood. And no good can come of Israel making further concessions in the hopes that its "peace partners" are.
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