Palestinians want peace?

Arab Israeli Moslem, Khaled Abu Toameh, writing months before Palestinian Authority [PA] President Abbas asked the UN's Security Council [SC] to recognize a 'Palestinian State', warned about the real mindset of the people whom the world wants living side by side with Israel in peace.

Palestinians are divided today into two camps…The radical camp is headed by Hamas and other extremist groups, whose message is:  We want all the land, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. We want to replace Israel with an Islamic state… 

The less radical camp, headed by the PLO and a minority of secular Palestinians, is also saying that it wants 100%, but only of the pre-1967 lines - meaning the entire West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. And both camps declare that they will not make any concessions to Israel on territorial demands.

Therefore, why proceed with a 'peace' process? The radicals do not want to negotiate with Israel because they do not recognize its right to exist and believe it should be wiped off the face of the earth. The so-called moderates say they are ready to return to the negotiating table, but only if Israel agrees in advance to give them 100% of their demands. Yet the central problem is that even if Israel does accept all their demands, neither camp is willing to commit to ending the conflict.

As the 'moderate' PA knows Israel will not and cannot accept all their demands, they have decided…to negotiate with the international community about the establishment of a Palestinian state… hoping the world imposes a solution on Israel. And so, Abbas' UN gambit. ("Palestinians Cannot Accept Less than 100%," K. Abu Toameh, www.hudson-ny.org, 12 July 2011)

A mid-July face-to-face opinion poll in Arabic of more than 1,000 Palestinians in Judea and Samaria did nothing to encourage Israelis that peace was near. Asked about US President Obama's vision of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people, 61% rejected it, with 66% saying the real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.

Other results were equally sobering: 72% denied thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem; 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers; 53% favored teaching songs about hating Jews in PA schools; 73% agreed with a quote from Hamas' charter of the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones and trees. ("6 in 10 Palestinians reject 2-state solution, survey finds," JP, 15 July 2011)

Why do many Palestinians think this way? One reason is found in this report of a kindergarten run by their 'moderate' PA. An end of term program had 5-year-olds acting out scenes of terror and death…Parents were moved to tears on seeing their children pretend to die as 'martyrs'… Songs were also sung, encouraging martyrdom' and bloodshed to free the land of Palestine. ("PA Teaches 5-Year-Olds to Die for Allah," Arutz 7, 17 Aug. 2011)