The photo shows a Palestinian home being demolished because it was built without a permit. It was built without a permit because the Israelis rarely, if ever, give permits to Palestinians to build or add on to their homes. When, out of necessity, they build or add on to their home they get a notice of demolition that could be carried out the next day or sometime in the future. They never know.
When the bulldozers arrive to make the family homeless they are given little time to evacuate. The family is then fined and has to pay the cost of the demolition. The Israelis do, however, have a little heart. They will allow the family to avoid paying a fine and Israeli charges for the demolition if they destroy the home themselves. Such is the "morality" of the "only democracy in the ME."
The American government has long been in Israel's pocket. With little exception the US does what Israel wants. Several years ago someone took a video of Netanyahu telling friends not to worry about what the US says because America is a country easily moved.
The Israel Lobby in America has ensured that we are easily moved.
28
Thanks Sport!
I thought the NYT picks were chosen to show different sides on an issue yet here they are all pro-Israeli. ???
8
The other side of this issue is already represented by the article itself.
6
Trump will be gone after the next election. So, all the Palestinians have to do is wait it out. But, the problem is not just Trump. The problem is that the majority of international organizations (like the EU), vast majority of Democrats, Labor and other left leaning political organizations, and other actors are afraid to say or do publicly what they say in private: that Palestine should be free on the 67 lines, and that there is no other alternative than the two state solution. As soon as an American President speaks openly about what peace requires, and does it continuously and in public, nothing will change fast. If she/he does do that, you will see a domino effect in the US and around the world.
10
@Kevin
On Dec. 2, 1947, just days after the UN General Assembly passed a resolution to partition historic Palestine into Jewish and Arab-ruled sections, the Ulama or chief scholars of Sunni Islam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo– the leading university of the Arab World– issued a fatwa calling on the world’s Muslims to launch a Jihad to destroy the incipient Jewish state. It was reiterated by the Ulama, in April 1948, days before the Egyptian Army and three other Arab armies attacked Palestine, giving the campaign a “religious imprimatur.” The fatwa was reissued later that year.
“It was clear the Arabs had lost the war,” Morris said, but reissuing the Fatwa signaled it was meant “to stand for future years, for future generations, for whatever bout there will be against the Jews.”
As noted in his book and repeated at the conference, Matiel Mighannam, a Lebanese Christian woman who headed the Arab Women’s Organization in Palestine, affiliated with the Arab High Command, told an interviewer: “The UN decision has united all Arabs as they have never been united before, not even against the Crusaders.” She added that a Jewish state had no chance to survive and “All the Jews will eventually be massacred.”
12
Mr. Erekat is a part of the problem. The Palestinian leadership has rejected every opportunity for peace. Rather than looking forward to peace and prosperity, this aged leadership remains mired in the past, rejecting the State of Israel, teaching children to hate, paying pensions to the families of terrorists, and keeping themselves in power through corruption.
In the Internet era, where young people can appreciate what peace and prosperity would mean for them, a new peace plan built on economic improvement, might lead to their demanding a change in leadership, one that no longer demands non-starter issues like a "right of return" for millions of descendents of the 1948 refugees to what is now Israel (thus destroying Israel) and using terrorists to kill innocent Israelis. Eventually, with a country of their own, the Palestinians would enjoy the same sovereign rights of any other civilized nation.
23
Let's look at this another way--Trump is a naïve neophyte when it comes to the Israel/Palestine quagmire. Does anyone really expect him or his son- in-law to solve this festering problem to anyone's satisfaction? However I believe the title of this article should be changed to read Saeb Erekat Doesn't Want Peace. Saeb Erekat Wants Israel To Surrender To Be Replaced By A Palestinian State.
Saeb Erekat should come clean and admit that what he really wants is for Israel to disappear once and for all.
19
Israel will never have peace until it figure out how to accomodate the Palestinians. It is true but irrelevant that many of the Palestinians have been radicalized. But the Palestinians will not just disappear when Israel unilaterally announces a solution, with US help.
11
The back and forth over this argument can go on forever, and it sort of has. I’m tired of it. There is always a retort, a clever response, a distorted bit of history thrown as a brick. But here is the basic issue that seems to slip the minds of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, and too much of the rest of the world, as well. Anti semitism is ancient, present and murderous. Those are the stakes for the Jews. Maybe a good place to start for the Palestinians would be to say, “We recognize you as a people and a country. We don’t hate you. We don’t want you dead. We want to find a solution and live in peace.” How refreshing that would be to hear. And how they would then find out that the Jews are generous humanitarians by instinct and creed. No doubt, at war the Jews are fearsome. But in peace, they believe in humanity. Learn some history, use some judgment, and then move forward instead of locking yourselves in your own moral, spiritual and economic poverty. The Jews are not your oppressors. You blind, ignorant hatred is.
34
Great response. Thank you.
6
Why wouldn't Jews do the same? Why don't they say to Palestinians 'We don't hate you. We want you to have your own country. we don't want to steal your land , so we are withdrawing our settlements from your land. We welcome Palestinian refugees in our state'. Israel has a number of opportunity to show off generosity of Jews but somehow, it always passes on this opportunity
14
I don't think Trump cares about anything except his own ego and his own re-election.
He favors Israel because his strongest backers, Evangelical Christians, feel the same.
But they only favor Israel because that will be the site of the Second Coming, after which Jews will convert or go to hell.
Netanyahu knows this but doesn't care because he needs the Evangelicals' political influence and tourist dollars.
It's incredible...and you can't make this up...but it's true.
13
Don't you realize, Mr. Erekat, That Trump does not want to calm the tensions in the Middle East? He wants to inflame them in order to bolster his support among extremists.
4
The real problem is and always has been that powerful factions on both sides are willing to perpetuate the conflict unless they get total victory. Because Netanyahu’s coalition has far more power they are now pushing their advantage to get their ultimate goal of total victory. Trump and Kushner are helping them do this by siding openly with Israeli extremists. Like just about all of Trump’s foreign policy initiatives this will result in more violence and suffering. It also moves Israel closer to becoming an apartheid state which will increase Israel’s isolation on the world stage. By allying himself with right wing extremist in the U.S. and the corrupt Trump administration, Netanyahu has guaranteed that the next Democratic president of the United States will be much less supportive and sympathetic to Israel than any president in since the founding of Israel. In the long run this will engender moves to reduce financial support for Israel and will exacerbate the loss of support for Israel among Jewish Millennials in the U.S. A short term set of tactics to bully Palestinians will result in a long term weakening of the alliance between the U.S. and Israel.
7
@JS
Apartheid in Israel???
Where are the separate bath rooms & water fountains?
Why are there Arabs in the Israeli Parliament & on the Israeli Supreme Court?
10
The next Democratic president should immediately recognize Jeruselem as the capital of the Palestinian state and open an embassy there. You know, to "take it off the table".
5
@Jim Dennis
Israel is a sovereign state, the Palestinian Authority is not.
Jerusalem has been identified as the capital of Jewish nation-states in Jewish and non-Jewish books, documents, artifacts etc. for milenia, Jerusalem has not been the capitol of any Muslim or Arab nation state.
These 2 facts demonstrate that your comment is an opinion, with no basis in historical facts.
12
Why not have the Arab countries put embassies in both countries establish trade and diplomatic relations? Why hasn’t that been done? That answer is everything.
4
The Kushner peace plan boils down to:
Step 1. Give Israel everything it wants.
There is no Step 2.
5
You lose a war and bad things happen. The Palestinians/Arabs have lost more then a few. I hate to break the news the author ia apparently unaware of: Losers don't get to dictate terms. They take what they can get and try and survive. The Israeli's aren't going to end their occupation no matter demands from the UN, EU, US, They would be stupid to do so. The Palestinians have after all proved they will just use their state has a staging ground for more attacks.
As for territory not changing hands by war?? Have you consulted the Republic of South Vietnam? You'll need a Ouija board as I don't believe they exist anymore and everybody acknowledges it.
The Two State solution is unquestionably dead. A Palestinian State is nonviable. Their territory wouldn't be self supporting and the Israeli's aren't stupid enough to accept a Government under current leadership. And integrating the Palestinian into the State ? Also a non starter, The Israeli's would be minority in a generation and Arab treatment of minorities is bad at best. I rather doubt the Israeli's want to be minority in an Arab state I wouldn't.
I don't have a solution I don't really see one. But the US, EU, or the UN aren't going to cut off Israel the way the author wants, And they surely aren't going to send in the troops to enforce a "Just Peace". Whatever that is?
Losers don't get to dictate terms. They have to accept what they can get from winners. The Palestinians won't accept that. Tough luck You lost
28
I hate to break it to you but the war is not over until TWO sides agree on terms of the peace. Otherwise there will be perpetual war. That is exactly what we have the right now. You can try to dictate the conditions, but please, don't call it peace negotiation.
2
The Arabs identifying as Palestinian have made it perfectly clear that they cannot be trusted with independent statehood. Is there any doubt that the Arabs...themselves the descendants of invaders, occupiers, and 20th century illegal economic migrants to the British Mandate....are still trying to win the war of annihilation they started 70+ years ago....and LOST?
Land for peace? Been there, done that, got over 20,000 Hamas rockets and a terrorist base camp on Israel’s southern border. The brink of disaster would be Israel’s capitulation to these sinister factions.
Never. The era of dhimmitude and Islamic supremacy in this, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, is over and it’s not coming back. Apart from Jordan (the defacto Arab Palestinian state situated upon 80% of what was called ‘Palestine’) what the Arabs shall have vis a vis Israel is ‘Limited Autonomy’...and after 70+ years of terror wars perpetrated against Israel’s population, it’s more than they deserve.
23
Well, I am not so sure how many countries would be happy if the international community imposed the occupation upon them. Palestinians didn't have a chance to have their independent states. By they way, other Arabs do have independent states in the region.
2
The Trump "peace plan" is actually Netanyahu plan. The Israeli's know that Trump in his delusions of grandeur can be manipulated like a puppet on a string.
And so "Trump's plan" is what the Israeli's have been carrying out systematically for years.The only difference is that gradual Israeli annexation would now accelerate.
Netanyahu knows that Trump might not get re-elected so it's time to speed up the annexation process. Falling right in line Trump endorsed annexation on the Golan and Jerusalem as if he discovered something that other administrations had not.
There is at least one virtue from this tragedy. The US charade as 'honest broker' is now over and the naked plans for an apartheid state are clearly before the American public for all to see.
In the 1970's and 80's American had to ask whether they supported an apartheid South Africa? Today the same question must be asked about Israel.
And let's be clear, in 1980 President Reagan was a firm supporter of white supremacy in South Africa. It took an international movement and the enlightened leadership of Nelson Mandela to change that policy.
The international movement against Israeli apartheid is beginning to build. But the PA so far has no one of the stature and wisdom of a Mandela. That's what is needed on the Palestinian side and it is long over due.
7
Israel is not apartheid. A Mandela would be great but it would take so much courage and would go against the will of those forces in power. That the world is against Jews and Israel is not just starting. It has always been there. What the existence of Israel says is NEVER AGAIN. That also applies to willful ignorance often declared on these pages.
19
@Drspock
South African MP Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe wrote in the San Francisco Examiner, “As a black South African who lived under apartheid, this system was implemented in South Africa to subjugate people of color and deny them a variety of their rights. In my view, Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa. Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is.” Meshoe made this statement upon visiting San Francisco, where he was shocked to learn of posters posted within the city comparing Israel to the apartheid regime in South Africa. He asserted, “As a black South African under apartheid, I, among other things, could not vote, nor could I freely travel the landscape of South Africa. No person of color could hold high government office. The races were strictly segregated at sports arenas, public restrooms, schools and on public transportation. People of color had inferior hospitals, medical care and education. If a white doctor was willing to take a black patient, he had to examine him or her in a back room or some other hidden place. In my numerous visits to Israel, I did not see any of the above.
11
"Historic Palestine", also known as Historic Israel? What is the statute of limitation on being able to go back to your home after you were driven from it by force? It's been 71 years since Israeli Independence, and 1940 years since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and banished the Jews from that land. So the statute must be somewhere between 71 and 1940. At what point did Jewish rights to their homeland evaporate in favor of the people who moved in after the Jews were forced out?
I believe in a two-state solution, and I hope to one day see peace. But the way this issue is framed, that the Jews are essentially invaders who appeared out of nowhere and stole all the land from the Palestinians, is a blatant re-writing of history. If Palestinians inherently possess the "Right of Return" to their ancestral homeland, why do the Jews not possess the same right?
When two peoples have claims to the same ancestral homeland, whose claim is superior? If you are driven from your home by force, and return many years later to find that someone else has moved in while you were gone, whose home is it?
10
Happy 71st!!!
8
An enemy of Kushner and Trump is a friend of mine. No legitimacy in anything the Trump contingent proposes. More pro Palestinian every day. Wonder if my response is what Putin had in mind don't ya.
1
Palestine already surrendered, at the end of WWI.
Mohammed let Jews live peacefully in their territories, except when Jews supported Mecca in the fight of Medina against Mecca. And Christians and Jews were allowed to practice their religion in Muslim Spain. They only had to pay higher taxes than Muslims.
So Jews and Muslims lived side-by-side in peace for centuries. European Christians, Byzantium, and Zoroastrians were where Jews had their problems.
Muslims need to remember that Abraham and Moses were revered by Mohammed as was the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Hamas needs to stand down and remember what the Quran and Mohamed said and says about Judaism and Christianity.
Israel lets Armenian and other Christians practice their religion in Jerusalem as well as Muslims. And the Muslims have their Dome of the Rock right inside Israel. So Israel is open to all religions.
So this is a political fight and not a religious one.
The Muslims lost their lands, including Palestine, when their Ottoman Empire fell. War is how land is taken. The Muslims lost then and they have lost again and again since Israel declared itself a state. Winning armies don't usually give back what they have taken.
9
@Walker Rowe
How about learning something about the subject? If you read French, then I recommend fascinating 5 volumes by Henry Laurents. You can also truy Benny Morris in English or any other Israeli historian that worked with the archives of the 1948 war.
Your note is "not even wrong".
The war is about land, please check what this man, the architect of Israel's expansion has to say:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Weitz
1
@Walker Rowe
Before the Zionists arrived:
The Jews “walked with a shuffling, cringing step that told of blows received and blows expected. No one could mistake the difference between oppressor and oppressed—“between those poor creatures and the Arabs who jostled them in these crowded alleys, …. The Arabs stride along with a spring in every step.”
Meanwhile, for all their poverty, the Jews were more heavily taxed than their Christian neighbors. All non-Muslims had to pay a poll tax, as tribute and as the price of exemption from military service. But the Jews of the Holy Land also paid, both as a community and as individuals, a host of extortionate charges to local officials, Arab notables, and Arab neighbors—whatever could be squeezed from a very dry stone. In Jerusalem, for example, they paid £300 a year to the effendi whose house adjoined the Western Wall—what non-Jews contemptuously called the “wailing wall” or “wailing place”—for permission to pray there; £100 a year to the villagers of Siloam (just outside the city), not to disturb or profane the graves on the side of the Mount of Olives; £50 a year to the Ta’amra Arabs not to injure the Tomb of Rachel on the road to Bethlehem; and about £10 to Sheik Abu Gosh not to molest Jewish travelers on the road to Jerusalem, though he was already paid by the Turkish government to maintain order on that road.
3
I got as far as“ the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967”. In 1967 Israel fought a defensive war against five Arab states bent on its destruction. Why omit that minor detail?
25
Why not? So many people willingly buy it.
6
The reality is that the Palestinian strategy since the Arab nation tried to destroy Israel in 1967 - and lost - has been a War of Attrition. Abbas and the terrorist organization Hamas use Palestinians as ‘media propaganda’. The antisemitic UN wages war on Israel with specious ‘resolutions’. Meanwhile, the Arab Spring is the model and farce of what a two-state solution would bring. The new Palestinian State would last as long as Libya or Egypt’s freedom did before devolving into chaos or autocratic order. And what would the world say then? “Oh dear; not my problem; Israel can fend for itself.”
No! Israel must protect its land, its people, its very existence.
22
There is not enough space here to refute all the lies, historical distortions and religious myths in many of the comments below. Israel does not want peace in any form. Israel wants all the land and to somehow move all the Palestinians elsewhere. The policies of driving them out, killing them, treating them with hourly brutality and driving them deeper into poverty and deprivation has not accomplished this goal. Depicting an educated people as animals has not convinced the rest of the world that they are expendable. Where have we all seen this behavior before and why does America support it when we once fought against it? Look at the photo. Israel is the bulldozer destroying thousands of Palestinian homes and commentators below have the gall to say it is the Palestinians who are at fault.
6
@Bronwen Evans you conveniently omit all the terror the Palestinians (and other Arabs) have wrought on Israel since the day it was created and still do to this day. You say that Israel does not want peace in any form. Aside from the fact that this a blatant lie what evidence do you have that the Palestinians want peace? And the only lies and historical distortions are the ones written by the author of the op-ed piece.
17
You should have plenty of room because you look at a single picture and think you know the truth and present no facts. There are and have been more Israelis who wanted peace and live next door to Palestinians in peace than in all the Arab nations combined not to mention Iran and Indonesia. The evidence for Israelis wanting peace is so abundant you should be able to see it. Look at Sinai desert. Peace offered to Jordan’s they didn’t want the Palestinians.
15
@Bronwen Evans
Every time Israel offers to end the occupation, the Palestinians say “No!”
Even Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia (certainly not a Zionist) said that Arafat’s refusal to accept the January 2001 offer was a crime. Thousands of people would die because of Arafat’s decision & not one of those deaths could be justified.
As Clinton later wrote in his memoir:
It was historic: an Israeli government had said that to get peace, there would be a Palestinian state in roughly 97 percent of the West Bank, counting the [land] swap, and all of Gaza, where Israel also had settlements. The ball was in Arafat’s court.
But Arafat would not, or could not, bring an end to the conflict. “I still didn’t believe Arafat would make such a colossal mistake,” Clinton wrote. “The deal was so good I couldn’t believe anyone would be foolish enough to let it go.” But the moment slipped away. “Arafat never said no; he just couldn’t bring himself to say yes.”
11
The Balfour declaration never talked about a 2 state solution. It supported a Jewish homeland with the inclusion of the indigenous Palestinian villages. It did not invasion a country only for the Jewish population. The Zionists had other plans. With the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Arab population, the Jewish government sowed the seeds for today’s conflict. To start a meaningful peace process,Israel has to come to terms with how it was created and offer reparations the the people it displaced.
5
@Vincent
This is correct, the ethnic cleansing is a well documented process, see the book with similar title by a Zionist B Morris, an Israeli historian.
There was a very interesting attempt to reach a compromise, the Tabs Summit, for various reasons it did not materialize but the unofficial protocol shows how far Arab and Israeli were willing to go in both recognition of the war crimes and compensation for it, without jeopardizing the state of Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taba_Summit
Sorry Mr. Erekat. We're heard this saeb story before. Until Palestinians are truly interested in living in permanent peace with a predominantly Jewish state in the Middle East they don't deserve their own state. Time's a wastin'.
18
The US has evolved from being a barely honest broker to one firmly doing Netanyahu's bidding.
4
The Israelis need to recognize the Palestinians and their land and rights are not going away. Trump and Bebe are tangential.
5
@VisaVixen
Jews accepted the 1937 Peel Partition Plan, the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the Clinton Parameters & Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented a 2-state peace plan. All of these were 2-state solutions. All these plans recognized an independent Palestine.
9
Mohammed let Jews live peacefully in their territories, except when Jews supported Mecca in the fight of Medina against Mecca. And Christians and Jews were allowed to practice their religion in Muslim Spain. They only had to pay higher taxes than Muslims.
So Jews and Muslims lived side-by-side in peace for centuries. European Christians, Byzantium, and Zoroastrians were where Jews had their problems.
Muslims need to remember that Abraham and Moses were revered by Mohammed as was the Virgin Mary and Jesus. Hamas needs to stand down and remember what the Quran and Mohamed said and says about Judaism and Christianity.
Israel lets Armenian and other Christians practice their religion in Jerusalem as well as Muslims. And the Muslims have their Dome of the Rock right inside Israel. So Israel is open to all religions.
So this is a political fight and not a religious one.
The Muslims lost their lands, including Palestine, when their Ottoman Empire fell. War is how land is taken. The Muslims lost then and they have lost again and again since Israel declared itself a state. Winning armies don't usually give back what they have taken.
2
Maybe Mr. Erakat might read this - I am not Palestinian or Israeli, I am not Arab or Jewish, so please take this as a friendly comment.
You say your goal is, " the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and the preservation of the internationally recognized inalienable rights of the people of Palestine." While this is a worthy aim, please ask yourself if in the last 20 years or so you are getting nearer to this or farther from it?
You are writing to an audience living in a country that was built on lands taken from folks who had been living here for centuries, if not millennia, by total outsiders who used violence, disease, political tricks, outright cheating and other schemes to slowly take over. What makes you think you can make a persuasive case to those running the Establishment here?
What I am getting at is - There is idealism and there is impracticality. I am sure you believe you are an idealist and mean it. But let us say I was a Native American writing a version of what you have written, would you see that idealist as being practical?
I do not have an answer for the dilemma in the Middle East, but I implore good-hearted people to write down your ideals on a piece of paper, set it where you can see it, then write a list of where your reality is on another sheet, then try to reconcile where those two will get you and your future generations down the road. They need lives too.
BTW, are they arresting a "youth" or a "boy"? Images matter, so do words.
3
Trump's attempt at resolving the interminable Israel Palatine debacle is to ensure the weaker party loses once and for all.
The occupation is necessary to prevent racist Palestinians from murdering Jews. If Palestinians were willing to live in peace with Israelis, the occupation wouldn't be necessary.
If Israel were to end the occupation of the West Bank today, Palestinians would fire rockets & mortars from the West Bank just as Palestinians fired rockets & mortars from Gaza after Israel pulled out of Gaza.
20
Mr. Erakat. Your leadership has had too many chances for a peace treaty with Israel 'blown up' through suicide bombs bloodbaths. Your children's education is rife with indoctrination glorifying 'martyrdom' death over peaceful coexistence.
Israel's Gaza evacuation some 14 years ago has given Israel a 'taste' of what is to come should it pull out the W. Bank, all as a result of that indoctrination.
Get back to Israel with a 'peace offer' when these circumstances change.
SUCH may be your most valuable 'Surrender' without which there will be no "Peace for our time".
23
The U.S. has created and enabled a Frankenstein in the middle east--namely Israel. American taxpayers and wealthy Jews enriched a poor, embryo nation, with few resources other than its people, and molded into an armed camp bursting with ultra modern weapons. Billions poured into that postage stamp nation allowing it to dominate its neighbors both economically and militarily. Make no mistake, without American huge injections of cash and weapons, Israel would have ceased to exist long ago.
Yes, Israel has a right to exist as an independent nation, but let is rise or fall of its own efforts--not at the expense of others.
Israel's heavy handed tactics towards the Palestinians must not be tolerated by the international community.
4
@FJG
What does Hamas want to do after it defeats Israel?
When the rocket attacks first began against Israel, a senior Hamas leader, Dr. Yunis Al-Astal, published an article in the Hamas journal, Al-Risala, where he compared Hamas’ al-Qassam rockets to the Manjaniq catapult which the Prophet Muhammad used against the Jews of Khaybar. The fall of Khaybar, he explained, opened the gates of the Byzantine Empire to Muslim conquest and was the first step towards the fall of Constantinople. Now, the fall of Israel, he said, would open the gates of Europe to Islam and lead to the fall of Rome.
Hamas MP and cleric Al-Astal proclaimed in 2008, “We will conquer Rome, and from there continue to conquer the two Americas and even Eastern Europe” (Al-Aqsa TV, April 11, 2008)
It’s in our interest to give Israel weapons so that Israeli soldiers will fight Hamas over there rather than needing to have American soldiers fight Hamas over here.
8
No Arab state allows religious freedom for minority religions. Only Israel does. 2 million Arabs either ran away or were forced to flee when the state of Israel was created. Every Jew has been forced out of every Moslem nation in the Middle East. About 2 million people. Israel offered a homeland to every Jew. The 300 million Arabs? They are not interested in taking in their ‘Palestinian’ Arab brothers.
The stated goal of the major Palestinian organizations is to destroy Israel. The ‘leaders’ on the West Bank have not bother to hold an election in 12 years!
20
Er, no. Go talk to the Hashemites or to the Assads -- THEY are the leaders of your "homelands", THEY led you to this pass by their warmongering and incompetence at that enterprise, and the victors are under no obligation to offer succor to their vocal, avowed enemy, in thrall to the Persian theocracy and dedicated to Israel's destruction. Emigrate north to the Western European Coalition of Hypocrites; see how supportive they are then.
7
Perhaps the Arabs...themselves the descendants of invaders, occupiers, and economic migrants to a land not their own...should have considered the prospect of ‘losing’ before waging 70+ years of terror wars in their (ongoing) attempts to wipe Israel off the map. They got precisely what they signed up for. It’s called ‘consequences’.
12
Are you asking your gov to use its money to help Palestinians? For decades, the goal has been the destruction of Israel over the quality of life for your citizens.
11
You are wrong Saeb Erekat.
I would suggest listening to the proposal first and then make your point.
I would suggest that you say publicly if Hamas and Islamic Jihad did not constantly threaten Israel's rights by teaching children in schools to destroy Israel, killing anyone that disputes this idea and spending much needed aid on weapons, than Israel would not need a blockade and the lives of people in Gaza would improve beyond their comprehension.
I would suggest that you openly say that Israel exists today because they have historical, religious, cultural and indigenous claims everywhere and you understand their pain when the Arabs (like yourself) deny Jewish history even at the Temple Mount or their claims on Hebron with the cave of the Patriarchs.
I would suggest that you stop using the word "occupied" and use the word "disputed" because no real negotiation can take place until you fully knowledge the other sides rights and that failure to do so hides your long term goal to "wipe Israel off the map".
I would suggest that you acknowledge a leadership failure when you have rejected deal after deal including one with 90% of the West Bank with land swaps for the rest.
And finally, I would suggest that you admit that if the Palestinians become an economic powerhouse, that they might see you as old and antiquated and the cause of the lack of Palestinian success.
Face it. You are scared of success. An end of conflict may mean the end of your political career.
15
Muslims living in Syrian and Yemen.
Hopefully, Ms. Erekat read the recent Times' report about the brutality being meted out to Syrian Muslims by President al-Assad.
Muslims living in Yemen are suffering from famine and malnutrition caused by warring Muslim factions.
Palestinian Muslims enjoy the protection of the Israel. As bad as they think Netanyahu may be, he is no al-Assad.
If we are going to help Muslims in the Middle East, let it be those in Syria and Yemen, whose suffering is unimaginable.
5
Mr. Erekat is a part of the problem. The Palestinian leadership has rejected every opportunity for peace. Rather than looking forward to peace and prosperity, this aged leadership remains mired in the past, rejecting the State of Israel, teaching children to hate, paying pensions to the families of terrorists, and keeping themselves in power through corruption.
In the Internet era, where young people can appreciate what peace and prosperity would mean for them, a new peace plan built on economic improvement, might lead to their demanding a change in leadership, one that no longer demands non-starter issues like a "right of return" for millions of descendents of the 1948 refugees to what is now Israel (thus destroying Israel) and using terrorists to kill innocent Israelis. Eventually, with a country of their own, the Palestinians would enjoy the same sovereign rights of any other civilized nation.
11
The Palestinians were given complete political control of Gaza. they elected Hamas, an organization committed to the utter destruction of Israel. Tell me again how they want to recognize the pre-1967 border and live peacefully side by side.
12
One can look at a map of Israel/Palestine from the Balfour Agreement to the UN in1947 forward to see how Israel has encroached upon and taken Palestinian territory. Trump upped that by moving Jerusalem as the author mentions. Bibi continues to encourage settlements on land deemed for Palestinians but not enforcing that, rather building and building. Israel's claims that the land is theirs are as nefarious as the US's claims when pushing out the Indians. We were hypocrites using our claims as the will of God; those who lose obviously pray to the wrong deity.
2
@Katalina
If Arabs can live in Israel, why can't Jews live in Palestine?
The first settlement on the West Bank after the Six Day War was Kfar Etzion. The land was bought by Jews in 1927. In 1929, Palestinians destroyed the settlement. In the 1930, Jews rebuilt the settlement, but again it was destroyed by Palestinians. It was rebuilt in 1943, but destroyed again in 1948. 157 Jews were murdered. 4 Jews survived. It was rebuilt by the survivors in 1967. Was it wrong to rebuilt Kfar Etzion?
3
“Historic Palestine” includes what is now Jordan, and thus Israel sits on 15% of historic Palestine, not 78%.
Also, Palestinians rejected offers for their own state in 1937, 1947, 2001 and 2008 - preferring instead war, airplane and cruise ship hijackings, suicide bombings, missiles, knifings and truck attacks, mostly on civilians - not to mention the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
Yet, the two state solution is the only viable solution. And it should look very close to this:
1. Most of the West Bank and Gaza will be Palestine, but the large settlement blocks will stay with Israel. The Jewish settlements in Palestine would only stay by agreement.
2. Jerusalem (which is two-thirds Jewish) will be divided based on where most of the Jews and Arabs live.
3. The old city of Jerusalem will be shared, but Israel will be responsible for its security and protection.
4. The status quo at the religious sites in both Israel and Palestine would be preserved.
5. Any “right of return” is discretionary by Israel and Palestine.
I have no illusions that the current leadership on either side will agree to this, but it remains the only workable solution. And the sooner they get there, the better.
5
Anyone who predicates a contention on documentation from two feckless organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank should truly consider surrendering.
1
The problem is not peace but justice. Until the problem is defined that way, it will never be solved
1
@Carol
I think that people disagree about what is just.
4
You (all) might want to re/read this great piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/opinion/sunday/martin-luther-king-palestine-israel.html and also reflect on the fate of native Americans in this great land of liberty. Are we learning anything to bring us all closer together in peace?
1
You don’t make peace when only one side has a place at the table.
1
@Jsbliv and you don't make peace when the stated purpose of the party on the other side of the table is your destruction!
8
As much as I disapprove Trump, his Middle East policies are long due: halt financing Hamas infrastructure- money which was intended for assisting refugees; trying to bring prosperity to Palestinians rather than abuse and waste inflicted on them by their authorities, etc.
7
I am not a fan of Israel, which is too often confused as the 51st state by lapdog Congressmen and women.
I detest Donald Trump and every day he spends in office debases the values of our country.
That said, the Palestinian political leadership is founded on the terrorism of Arafat, sustained by the generosity or cynicism of nations which provide them aid and motivated by their need to do something useful for their financial backers.
The world does not need either Israel or the Palestinians, anymore than it needs any of the other de jure or de facto theocracies that preach their faith as the singular truth that all must follow.
1
@TDurk
Israeli rescue team applauded in the streets of Mexico
Dozens of individuals, some waving Mexican flags, spontaneously cheer delegation which is aiding in search for survivors following earthquake
Israel is a wonderful country that sent doctors to treat people injured in the Japanese earthquake. Israel even treated wounded Palestinians in the middle of the Gaza war. Israel set up field hospitals in Haiti & Nepal to help those hurt by the earthquakes & to help those in the Philippines who were injured by the typhoon. Israel helped when a dam burst in Brazil. Israeli advances in science, medicine & agriculture have helped billions of people all over the world.
Israeli medical humanitarian work along Syrian border deserves U.N. recognition
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/israeli-humanitarian-work-along-syrian-border-deserves-united-nations-recognition/
7
I'm always interested in the opinions that Americans have about the construct of peace in the Middle East as it applies to blaming Israel.
Here we are living on lands confiscated from Natives, enjoying an economy whose basis was slavery, and descended from peoples (the majority) who traveled the world conquering and enslaving and stealing from the residents of less developed areas.
What is the statute of limitations on that? Why was it ok for Christians and Muslims but not for Jews? He who live in glass houses, etc.
8
Israel needs to tell West Bank Palestinians that they can forget about an independent state on the West Bank. They had their chance. They didn't take it. That ship has sailed. The region's demographics have changed.
The West Bank needs to be incorporated into Israel-proper. West Bankers should get full Israeli citizenship and rights. Palestinians who lost land, money or businesses should get Just Compensation as under the legal Doctrine of Eminant Domain. Forget about "right of return". People get cash instead. You want something back, take your cash and buy it back if it's available.
West Bank Palestinians can get some autonomy as French Canadians do in Quebec. And that's it. Case closed.
With the huge influx of Jews since 1948 the region alloted to Jews is too small to support a viable state for Jews much less two states.
The UN should declare Gaza an independent state whether Gaza wants it or not. Israel vacated Gaza years ago. Egypt doesn't want Gaza back. Independence is the only viable outcome.
There's your Palestinian State. Gaza!
7
The author is correct. This is an attempt to sanitize and put in place a type of apartheid in the occupied lands. Having Greenblatt, Kushner and Friedman as negotiators is like having David Duke in charge of race relations in the US. They actually represent Israel’s interests more than a plan for peace.
3
@Ezekial
No occupier has ever treated the occupied the same way that it treats its own citizens, but no one has ever called that apartheid unless the occupier is the Jewish State. Why is that?
6
Trump doesn’t care what happpens in the Middle East or in Chicago or New York as long as he keeps hearing that he’s great, the greatest, the smartes, the youngest and of course those checks keep rolling in.
The GOP should be ashamed but then it’s a party made up of small petty men whose lust for power isn’t about making the USA great but rather confirming that they are men and that THEY CAN destroy anyone they please.
Remember when we said it can’t happen here. Think again.
1
The economic vitalization of Palestinian properties smells already of Trump and Kushner royalties. No different from Trump Moscow, Trump Gaza would make Trump richer and with no greater hope for a two state solution than when old addled Arafat confused statehood with autonomy. It will help if one or another Israeli PM can stay out of the slammer for crimes and misdemeanors. Hard to hear any of these patriots defend their politics when they’re stealing shekels night and day.
1
I am amazed that Mr. Erekat is able to write such a succinct and clear-eyed discussion of what needs to occur in the name of justice for Palestinians in the occupied territories. To be dispassionate on paper while you are justifiably seething inside must be very difficult. When will American leaders finally use US leverage to push Israel to release the occupied territories?
2
@Maureen I am amazed that you fell for Mr. Erekat's argument which is full of lies and historical distortions. There is nothing clear-eyed about this op-ed at all. As he has been doing for a long time, Mr. Erekat blames Israel for all the woes of the Palestinians without accepting any blame for the current situation. As many writers have pointed out, the Palestinians have been offered peace for land many times and have turned it down 100% of the time. Whether it's the PLO or Hamas, the leaders line their pockets with money intended for the average Palestinian or spend it on tunnels and missiles thereby keeping them in a poverty state. In school, children are taught to hate Jews and to believe they should all be killed. Families of terrorists are financially rewarded when their members commit suicide attacks. Oh, but I guess Israel is to blame for all those things too.
14
Israel and it's supporters control US foreign policy to an embarrassingly high degree.
The war moves against Iran is a combination of Israel (primary) and Saudi (secondary) influence. The war on Iraq was driven to a large extent by pro Israeli neo conservatives.
Trump's mid east peace team - Greenblatt, Friedman and Kushner are all orthodox Jews with strong ties to Netanyahu. Netanyahu boasts about sleeping over in the Kushner house during visits, for Pete's sake! Kushner is up to his eyeballs in funding settlement activity that is constantly stealing Palestinian land. Friedman claims that God is on the Israeli side.
Today we find out that even Russian communications through Mike Cohen were facilitated by Andrew Intrater, whose cousin is a Russian oligarch. Both Andrew and his cousin are Jewish and significant pro Israeli donors.
Amidst all this, we are supposed to believe that Trump has a plan for the Israeli Palestine conflict that is not completely driven by Israeli agenda?
Yeah, right!
2
@Andy
A higher percentage of American Jews than of American gentiles were against the Iraq war.
Israel warned us against Iraq invasion, US official says
Chief of staff of former secretary of state reveals that large number of senior Israeli officials warned Bush administration that invasion of Iraq would be destabilizing to region.
4
What Trump wants from the Middle East is the same as what he wants from everything; adoration. This psychological weakling governs by applause lines, and pro-Israeli groups offer loud applause often. The time has passed for believing that this president has any strategies beyond his own craven narcissism.
5
When Palestinians stop lobbing missiles into Israel and start acknowledging Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, there will be two states and peace.
15
Lots of comments here about what the Palestinians want - to utterly destroy Israel, based mostly on comments made by Arab politicians decades ago. But no mention of what the Israelis seem to want - to annex the entire West Bank, one settlement at a time, ever so patiently and gradually, based on what they are actually doing.
5
The West Bank is not occupied Palestinian land. In fact, it is neither occupied, nor Palestinian land. It is land that last belonged to Jordan, not Palestine, and it was taken by Israel after Jordan attacked Israel. Land taken by an aggressor is “occupied”. This is land taken by the victim of war. Therefore, it is neither Palestinian land, nor an occupied territory. It is Israel. Has been since 1967.
16
Saeb Erekat,
Japan and Germany attacked multiple countries, including the USA. The US occupied Japan (and part of Germany) demanding complete surrender. Surrender. Both Japan and Germany have thrived and done well for their people. When they demonstrated that they could function as non-corrupt democracies, the US left them to be independent.
The Palestinians should learn this. You have attacked and continued to threaten Israel. You lost several wars and your Gazan Palestinians continue to attack Israel as recently as a few weeks ago. You must surrender. Economic growth will come for your people. Your people will have a true democracy when you show peace and are occupied by a country that insists on it. (Israel doesn't want that job, frankly.)
Israel left Gaza completely with no conditions, except that you not attack Israel. You have yet to be able to fulfill that minimal condition.
Learn from history.
16
The author somehow forgets to mention that under Obama, Netanyahu agreed to a settlement freeze and the Palestinians still refused to negotiate unless Israel agreed to their biggest demands BEFORE the negotiations started.
If you were Bibi, would that experience make you want to agree to something similar again.
10
The two state solution is the only viable solution. And it should look very close to this:
1. Most of the West Bank and Gaza will be Palestine, but the large settlement blocks will stay with Israel. The Jewish settlements in Palestine would only stay by agreement.
2. Jerusalem (which is two-thirds Jewish) will be divided based on where most of the Jews and Arabs live.
3. The old city of Jerusalem will be shared, but Israel will be responsible for its security and protection.
4. The status quo at the religious sites in both Israel and Palestine would be preserved.
5. Any “right of return” is discretionary by Israel and Palestine.
I have no illusions that the current leadership on either side will agree to this, but it remains the only workable solution. And the sooner they get there, the better.
4
@Steven Roth
The so called "right of return" will be non negotiable by the Palestinians.
I might offer payment to anyone alive who left their home to be able say that some right of return was offered but not to their desendants.
Of course I would demand the same for the Jews that were forced to leave Arab countries after the creation of the State of Israel
3
To add to my prior comment. First, I have no recollection of the Palestinians ever putting forth a definitive proposal of their own to initiate negotiations with the Israelis. Second, as I reflect on her piece, the kind of certainty that Erekat demonstrates states in my view is only second to disease and famine in causing human suffering throughout history.
6
No money for the Trumps to make from Palestinians.
How could the Palestinians take seriously Trump's overtures by a son-in-law, an Orthodox Jew who has financial ties to Israeli businesses?
Any professional diplomat could be Orthodox and still be a square shooter, but Kushner has no such skills or predeliction.
The financial ties of this crime family makes a farse of the entire attempt at peace.
5
The arrogance in this is breathtaking. The world Must—What? Do what the Palestinians want that their leaders have not?
The Palestinian Arabs, now called Palestinians, have rejected everything proposed toward a Jewish state and an Arab State since the Mandate. The Arabs lost the war against the new Jewish state. The Arabs lost the 1967 War. Then the Palestinians rejected everything offered or discussed since. Now he claims Palestinians have inalienable rights to their land back. Beggars belief he thinks this valid
17
This is how US supported settler colonialism works, if it's allowed, it slowly trys to crush its victims, silences them, doing everything to make the occupied, partners in their immiseration. Won't work, nonviolent BDS will eventually help overturn this massive crime against humanity. This peace plan is doomed, justice in the area is not.
3
When was the last time that Israel agreed to accept a Palestinian state with full sovereignty over its own borders, its own airspace, its own water sources, its own electro-magnetic sphere, and its own self-defense force?
NEVER
Hence, Israel has never "negotiated" in good faith. All it offers is a prison which it agrees to label as a "state".
BDS will change their calculations, though.
5
The Palestinians should surrender for their own good. They have lost every war. Other key Arab states have come to accept the reality of Israel. Once the PA acknowledges its defeat, there can be a new beginning much like the Marshall Plan. It led to peace and prosperity for Germany and Japan. A similar plan will do the same for all Palestinians who come to recognize the reality. There is no shame. Their will only be a peaceful future between two equal states. Look at how much better Israeli Arabs live than do their brothers and sisters who remain in a state of denial.
12
Everyone, including both Mr. Erekat and Mr. Kushner, knows very well that the “two state solution” is dead, rendered impossible by Israel’s relentless ownership of all the land claimed by Palestinians. There is no “occupation”. That is a fiction which usefully obfuscates the reality that Israel’s ownership is obviously intended to be permanent. And it will be: Greater Israel. Continuing talk of “occupation” only fools people into thinking Israel may possibly one day “withdraw” from somewhere. It won’t.
For all of his vicious idiocy, in a way Trump has actually done the Palestinians a favor by his insane pandering to Netanyahu and Sheldon Adelson. His actions have accelerated the awareness that talk of “two states” is pointless.
For Palestinians to obtain justice and dignity in Greater Israel they must cease asking for an end to the “occupation” and instead demand that Greater Israel become a genuinely democratic nation, one which affords equal rights and respect to all its citizens regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. It’s not a hard concept. Seems pretty fair at least to most Americans, I would think.
Imagine a Palestinian campaign for “civil rights”. It could have its own marches, mass demonstrations intended to be peaceful. Maybe even freedom riders. Get out the vote efforts. Of course Israel makes even travel impossibly difficult for them, but Palestinians need to try harder.
May 23, 6:30am
4
@FB
Israel signed peace treaties with both Jordan & Egypt even though that meant giving up large areas of Biblical Israel. This shows that Israel is more interested in peace than in territory.
8
sorry power catch opinion pieces always invariably intentionally and disingenuously omits the reality that the Palestinians are also represented by Hamas, a terrorist entity elected to office by the Palestinians who does not recognize Israel's right to exist and denies the right of Jews to Israel as a sanctuary and homeland. So long as a significant portion of the Palestinian people continue to support terrorism and the destruction of Israel, Israel can never permit a Palestinian state that would be an existential threat. When Hamas agrees to recognize Israel as the homeland and sanctuary for the Jewish people then the parties can negotiate.
7
The issue needs to be upgraded to an International level. At present it is just Israel and the United States dictating all the terms, and they are both in bed with each other. Many of the US negotiators over years have been Jewish which Seemingly further adds to the conflict of interest.
The following countries have responsibility given that they voted in favour of the partition plan in 1948.
Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic,Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua,, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Belorussian SSR, Cczechoslakia, Poland, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, Liberia, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Canada, United States.
All of the above bear a collective responsibility. You break it, you own.
The United Kingdom abstained, as they predicted the inevitable bloodshed.
3
What exactly was "historical Palestine"? Did both Jews and Muslims live there? When did the PLO and Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist? How did the wars start in 1967 and 1973? It's hard to broker a just peace without addressing questions this article seems to sweep under the table. Negotiations require frankness.
11
historical Palestine is the stretch of land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, inhabited by Palestinians, most of whom were Muslims in the nineteenth century but a sizable number were Christians and Jews. The war of 1967 was started by Israel (operation Moked: surprise airstrikes that basically wiped out Egypt's airforce) and it was basically a land grab directed at Egypt, Syria and Jordan. the 1973 war was an unsuccessful attempt by Egypt and Syria to recover the territory they lost in 1967. The PLO formally recognized Israel as a state through the treaty of Oslo in the early nineties, Hamas does not recognize Israel. Your questions are easy to answer by a quick web search, all you have to do is avoid deeply partisan sources.
3
@Ghassan
The 1967 War was started by Egypt's act of war-Blockading the port of Eilat.
Jordan and Syria attacked Israel - not the other way around. Go lookup the recording of the telephone recording of Nasser convincing Hussein to open a second front against Israel.
The PLO committed to recognizing Israel in the Oslo accords, but the PLO charter has never been amended accordingly, and the Palestinian National Congress has never even taken the matter to a vote.
Your answers are easily shown to be false, since you apparently are relying on partisan sources. Try to do actual research next time.
7
@Ghassan
The '67 war was just a continuation of the '48 war. Egypt broke the cease fire by blocking the Straits of Tiran so the war resumed. Israel didn't start a war.
"We will not accept any ... coexistence with Israel. ... Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel .... The war with Israel is in effect since 1948." - Nasser, May 28, 1967
6
Germany and Japan lost territory after WWII and were occupied. For years all governing decisions were made by their occupiers. Germany and Japan accepted those facts and rebuilt, focusing on restoring and improving the lives of their citizens. Both were denied armies until they were no threats to their neighbors. Why can't the West Bank/Gaza Arabs follow those examples?
14
@Donna Gray
Just for a little perspective, the Allied occupation of Japan lasted just under seven years.
The post-war occupation of Germany last ten years, apart from the Cold War occupation of Berlin.
The military occupation of the West Bank--measured from the end of the Six-Day War in 1967--has continued for over half a century. Three generations of Palestinians have been born in the occupied territories, refugee camps or in exile.
And there has never been an Israeli or international 'Marshall Plan' initiated to restore and improve the lives of those living under Israeli occupation.
2
@Obie
The occupations of Germany & Japan could end because they signed peace treaties.
The occupation of the West Bank can't end because the Palestinians have refused to sign a peace treaty.
2
Every person in good faith should agree with the essence of this article. Unfortunately opportunism and bias has always been part, and often the winning part, of any conflict: the stronger dictates the rules.
Israel pushed strongly for the war to Iraq, no mystery here only disasters, pushed for the destabilization of Assad in Syria, no mystery only disasters, and now is pushing for the war to Iran.
I think this says it all, Israel with its right wing government wants to dominate the area in the name of expansionism and noting else.
Thinking they they will allow for a fair solution of the Palestinian stare is pure illusion or hypocrisy. Only the US has the power and the means to help solve this problem, let us hope that a new administration will work in that direction.
5
@Mur
Israel warned us against Iraq invasion, US official says
Chief of staff of former secretary of state reveals that large number of senior Israeli officials warned Bush administration that invasion of Iraq would be destabilizing to region.
6
Well, yeah, and sorry to say Mr. Erekat, at this point the actions of the Palestinians have done nothing but give him the ammunition to fuel his argument.
Do you not think that--right or wrong aside--that as many generations of Palestinians that have suffered over these wrongs, at some point the Palestinian leadership needs to look FORWARD to the future and stop looking BACKWARD? The missed chances and the current climate that our world is in (both political and natural) are not going to be amenable to a better resolution. My heart goes out to you but at some point you gotta just move on.
3
Mr. Erekat has been rejecting peace talks for many years while the leadership of the PA puts foreign aid in their own pockets. His voice is absolutely worthless here.
14
In 1947, the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan.
From 1948 to 1967, Israel did not control the West Bank. The Palestinians could have demanded an independent state from the Jordanians. They didn’t.
The Oslo agreements of the 1990's laid out a path for Palestinian independence, but the Palestinians opted for terrorism.
In 2000, Ehud Barak laid out an offer of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank. His offer was rejected.
In 2008, Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank and partition Jerusalem on a demographic basis.
And what do their peace-making efforts consist of today other than arms buildups, tunnel building and missile launchings sponsored by Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
Interested onlookers like Mr. Netanyahu would like to know.
20
I think the time has come that we should surrender. It's the bitter truth that there will never be a truly sovereign Palestine that those of us in the diaspora can look to with pride. We'll never get the chance to build a start-up nation of our own, to see how high we can jump without the weight of occupation on our shoulders, to see what happens when a scattered people come together again.
I so envy my Jewish friends. They have Israel. They can reflect on the triumphs of their people, the miracle that is their thriving existence, and stand tall. I think we could have had that too.
After we surrender the dream of Palestine, we can start to dream a new dream - one that will hopefully become reality. We can dream of an Israel that belongs to us too. A state that is the home of all of those who are native to this land, Jews and Arabs both. A nation that will someday remember this time as a long civil war, the painful birth of new society where tolerance and pluralism reign supreme - a true light unto the world. A nation bound together by a shared love for this wonderful, captivating, holy land.
18
@Mustafa- Why not try destroying the rockets aimed at Israel, declare an end to hostilities and then work to rebuild your nation on the West Bank and Gaza land currently held?
15
101-economic interdependence ( combined with strong borders) are the driving policies of superpowers and world nations today . This does not negate the necessary issue of conflicting values , or human rights policies between nations who establish trade and investment policies -which both increase commercial economic agreements and produce an interdependent web which overrides conflict . Thinking how wealthy Arab nations might invest in building infrastructure and trade not only in the “territories “ but also in Israel ( venture capital , high tech, commercial ports , building projects). Sounds corny but it’s already happened in the USA and other western nations light years ago . We are just less familiar with those facts because our news services and political culture distract us on other issues ( many of them inciting public hatred in the process ). If you lived in Israel you’d be aware that our greatest internal security risk today is growing economic gaps and poverty as families have too many children to be able to support in a modern world, yet our culture does not discuss this. If regional agreements bring more capital into this area to develop infrastructure and economy, our borders will become safer and strife will necessarily decline . I’m astounded that our general news service chooses to fabricate fear and incitement rather than to carefully track what US and Israel dollars have already done ( peace with Egypt , recent 15 billion gas agreement) in this direction
3
It seems obvious to this non Mideast expert that Trump's only "peace plan" is to give Palestine to Netanyahu gradually, like boiling a lobster, until there is nothing left for Palestinians. The real question is whether Trump will be gone before hisjob is done and what will the world be like and able to do after Trump. Palestine is like so many other issues subject to Trump, climate change, Iran relations, trade relations with our allies, Russian and Republican interference with elections, abortion, prison reform and on-and-on.
7
I guess I should have known better than to be surprised by the inhumanity of most of the reader responses so far. "Both sides are at fault." "They want to drive the Jews into the sea." The reason why David vs. Goliath is such an inspiring story to people of any religion is that it's just about the only one in which the Goliaths of the world don't end up writing the history books. And in this story, the Palestinians are David. If it were the Palestinians keeping the Israelis in Bantustans, we wouldn't be hearing "both sides are at fault."
The truth on the ground doesn't depend on what you think about Yasser Arafat's secret motives, or on how the 1948 border was drawn. It's that one people are violently and arrogantly oppressing another. To pretend that a kid throwing a rock is the cause, and the oppression the effect, is fatuous. The fact that it's my people doing the oppressing (I'm an atheist Jew) is mortifying to me.
All the above, I claim, is fact. What follows is opinion, for you to take or leave: I don't like state religions, whether they're practically invisible like the Church of England or horribly oppressive like Iran's state version of Islam. I don't like state religions, whether they're official as in Israel or de facto as in the United States (at least with respect to abortion). I think the only solution in Palestine (all of it, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River) that's viable in the long run is a single secular state, one person one vote.
12
I think it is about time a population exchange was done.In fact, it should have been done in the 1950s.
No, it is not a controversial idea.Many nations from the Czechslovakia to Greece and Turkey as well as India and Pakistan and Eastern Europe and Germany have done population transfers.
And there is a legitimate reason. In 1948, the Arab countries started expelling their Jewish citizens, most of whom migrated to Israel.How about those nations resettle Palestinians and give them the Jewish property and assets that they confiscated. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Iraq can easily share out the 3 million Palestinian population and the Gulf can give citizenship to the ones already there. Even Israel can contribute to their resettlement.
Again, before you claim things like historical homeland, the Greeks who lived in Northern Turkey had been there for at least 2,000 years and those in Western Turkey had been there since the Ancient Greek era. Nobody protested when all these populations, who predate the Turks by millenia were moved to Greece. Nor did anyone protest the transfer of 12 million Germans from Eastern Europe to Germany, or the exchange of Muslims and Hindus+Sikhs between India and Pakistan, despite Hindus having an 8,000 year claim to the Indus Valley
9
Right, encourage ethnic and religious groups to consolidate in their own states. Mixing these groups only leads to oppression by the majority culture. Then a “strong man” will achieve power by declaring de facto war against the victims.
Let religious states cohere into separate states, and then those states will war against each other.
The end result will be war—unless ethnic and religious groups learn to coexist. Why does it have to devolve into barbarism?
4
@Gerald
The "expulsion" of Jews from Arab countries is a myth.
"Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine. Many Palestinian communities were destroyed in 1948, and some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled, or fled, from the borders of historic Palestine. Those who left did not do so of their own volition.
“In contrast, Jews from Arab lands came to this country under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations. Some came of their own free will; others arrived against their will. Some lived comfortably and securely in Arab lands; others suffered from fear and oppression.”
From “Hitching a ride on the magic carpet: Any analogy between Palestinian refugees and Jewish immigrants from Arab lands is folly in historical and political terms” by Prof. Yehouda Shenhav of Tel Aviv University (Haaretz, Aug 15, 2003).
2
All delusions eventually come to an end. The idea of an independent Palestinian-Arab state never made sense in the real world -- not territorially, not economically, and not militarily, except as a euphemism for what Arabs were unable to accomplish by war: Squeezing Israel into indefensible borders toward its final elimination (in line with the PLO's 1974 Phased Plan).
Now hopefully we can go back to the basics of coexistence, which were always the following:
(1) People have been manipulated for too long to think that there are no solutions besides the two extremes of 2-state 1-state outcomes;
(2) For starters, any territory in the West Bank vacated by the Israel military would be quickly taken over by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or even worse terror organizations, rendering life into a bloody inferno for Jews and Arabs alike;
(3) Instead the parties should pursue the only coexistential and sustainable path: A 3-STATE SOLUTION composed of (a) Israel, (b) Egypt (with link to Gaza turned into a Dubai-on-the-Med by way of Saudi/Gulf funds and Israeli high-tech), and (c) Pal-Jordan Federation (incorporating Arab-inhabited segments of the West Bank, with Israel annexing Area C of the West Bank).
10
America always recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital - Trump merely ended an ongoing exception to that.
The obstacle to peace, as has been the case since Arafat, is the inability of Palestinian civil society to police itself. Israel can’t end the occupation until the Palestinians can show that they can prevent terrorist attacks against Israel on their own. Of course it’s true that the occupation embitters Palestinians and is one factor in promoting those attacks (though hardly the only factor; Britain isn’t occupying ISIS lands, but ISIS attacks anyway). But the primary responsibility of a state is to protect its citizens, and all of Erekat’s political manoeuvring is nonsense without a guarantee of security. Yet the Palestinians continue to pay blood money to the families of suicide bombers.
Gaza is the only argument anyone should need to dismiss this little piece of glib propaganda. Israel ended its occupation and Gaza was a terrorist stronghold days later, not because of Israel’s and Egypt’s control of the border but because that is what Palestinians mean by “peace”.
8
Israel would have to be suicidal to agree to a Palestinian state. Having a hostile nation devoted to Israel's destruction literally next door would create an untenable danger that would result in all out war. As far as Israel is concerned, the 2 state solution is dead and buried, and rightfully so. The only solution is to create autonomous, non-contiguous territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Gaza in particular is a humanitarian disaster and it needs to be completely rebuilt and expanded into the Sinai desert. However, that would require the overthrow of Hamas, renunciation of terror, formal recognition of Israel, an agreement to end the bogus right of return, and, most importantly, Egypt's agreement. All of this is predicated on ending the corrupt Palestinian kleptocracy. Start with real free and fair elections and ending Abbas's 15 year, four year term. Palestinians must show that they can be good neighbors and upright world citizens focused on personal growth and prosperity instead of antisemitism and Israel's destruction. Their future is in their hands
10
Oh, just stop it. The last thing we need is another one-sided collection of cherry-picked facts and arguments.
You, Trump, and Netanyahu are just talking past one another. The only difference now is that the Israelis and US have joined you in your intransigence.
Abba Eban famously observed that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It's great to see that Palestine, the US, and Israel now see eye-to-eye, and have joined together to maintain a status quo that would be absurd if it didn't have a human cost.
2
As a new Jewish resident of Israel I see an imperfect yet amazing country. I see Jews from all over the world (today so many from France) who came to a strip of once desert land for many reasons, including the continuing threat of antisemitism (see comment about France). Why has Israel found a place for these Jews in this former desert when the oil rich Arab countries cannot do the same for their people in the huge swaths of land which they control?
I’m a retired NYC teacher and I volunteer at a local school where I’ve worked with kids from Ethiopia, Sudan and France (again France) as well as those who are children of Filipino moms. The kids are not all Jewish. I’ve seen more dark faces in my neighborhood than I ever saw when I lived in Silicon Valley.
And who funds the antisemitism found at US colleges and universities? Perhaps that money could be better spent feeding people and not subsidizing suicide murderers. In the age of Pittsburgh do not expect Israel to just roll over.
14
As to the alternative one state democratic solution mentioned by Erekat, what country in the Middle East (other than the Jewish state of Israel) would Erekat look to as a model of what that state would be? Egypt? Syria? Saudi Arabia? Gaza? The only possible solution is a two state solution, which the Palestinians should take every opportunity to pursue rather than reject. And then they can create a state based on the model they prefer.
22
@GFCommenter why does he only need to look to countries in the Middle East as a model? How about looking to the United States? Despite our many flaws, we give citizenship and the right to vote to all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, etc. It is past time for Israelis and Palestinians to accept a single state where all people living between the Mediterranean Sea the Jordan River received citizenship and the right to vote. The current situation, where Christians and Muslims living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank don't receive citizenship but Jewish people living in the same areas do is unsustainable.
6
@Sagar
Why should Israel allow the people who attacked Israel to vote in Israeli elections?
Should the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Denmark. Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, France, Greece, Russia, Monaco, Albania, Hungary, etc. allow Germans to vote in their elections?
5
US has had no foreign policy on Israel - Palestine disputes from day 1. Look at her actions at UN and reactions to Israel's unilateral, uncontrolled behaviors over the Palestine people in the occupied lands - stop power or water, destruction of houses, snipers against slingshots, . It is quite understandable for Israel government to protect its security. However, they have used cannons to catch a sparrow. US has been insensitive on her actions largely due to the political influence and economic power of the specific ethnic group in the States. After Trump, US government waived its lip service for two-nation principle, no more settlement on occupied territories, withdrawal from the occupied territories, supply of basic services, etc. US should recognize that no peace with Muslims would be possible without a peaceful settlement of the Palestine issue. No dispute would be settled by force. Such settlement would back fire with more outlasting counter-force.
2
@Young-Cheol Jeong
If you do the calculations on the ballistics, on the stopping power of the rock fired from David's sling, it's roughly equal to the stopping power of a [.45 caliber] handgun.
2
"What the Trump administration is seeking is not a peace agreement but a Palestinian declaration of surrender."
Trump's idea of negotiation and making a deal is bullying a surrender from the opposition. That is what he did throughout his lifetime of conning others, never paying what he owed, and suing everyone.
Winning is getting a surrender out of his opponent - that's how he has operated as president. Only it hasn't worked. The wall? Mexico didn't pay. Congress didn't pay. He tried with Canada and Mexico. Same with EU, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and China. Have any of them surrendered? Tariffs are his way of bullying til they surrender.
So expecting
2
@Mimi
Why is it that when Israel compromises, it's called compromise, but when Palestine compromises, it's called surrender?
4
Peace means that you surrender. Maybe this fundamental misunderstanding is why the peace process is stalled.
3
As he has for the past twenty-five years, Mr. Erekat confuses compromise with surrender.
32
@Alan Sokoloff the Palestinians compromised 26 years ago when they officially gave up any claim to 78% of Mandatory Palestine/historic Israel. Yet, the Israelis rejected that compromise and continued to incentivize the building of settlements on the remaining 22% of the land.
2
@Sagar
Palestinians are still demanding "From the River to the Sea." The Palestinian Authority flag shows Palestine from the River to the Sea.
1
The photos accompanying the column tug at the heartstrings and inflame our emotions. They portray Israelis as oppressors and Palestinians as victims. The reality and the truth behind those photos and what’s occurring in them, starting with what specific events led up to them, is far more complicated.
9
Sadly the only thing I see happening are decades more conflict.
2
There can be no even-handed negotiations when Israel has such a dominating military presence. Israel negotiates from a position of strength and sees no need to give up anything in negotiations. Like the U.S., the religious conservatives in Israel have an inordinate amount of influence. Since the religious right in Israel believes they were destined to possess all of the Promised Land, they would never allow Israel to make any concessions on land to the Palestinians.
Trump has thrown his full support behind Netanyahu and against the Palestinians. Since a sizeable amount of Trump's financial and political support comes from the American Jewish community, he will continue to curry favor with Netanyahu. However, by supporting a Fascist, the members of the American Jewish community, who support Trump, have made a deal with the Devil. They have chosen to ignore the lessons of the past.
4
Israel has already given up land including the Sinai to Egypt. They returned the land in South Lebanon only to have it taken over by Hezballah where thousands of missiles are now aimed at Israel. They’ve returned Gaza only to have Hamas move their missile launching pads closer to the new border. If the Arabs are truly seeking peace, they need to find another way to express it other than moving up their launching pads to wreak more havoc on Israeli citizens. And, BTW, what has the other side, the side that initiated several wars to destroy Israel offered in return for peace ? Can you name one thing ?
5
@Michael Trainor
If "Israel has such a dominating military presence," how have the Palestinians been able to murder & injure so many Israelis? Why are Israelis living in fear?
4
If by surrender, you mean that the Palestinian Arabs must acknowledge that the State of Israel is the homeland of the Jews and it's not going away and that the Palestinian Arabs who were displaced in 1948 are not going ever to return to the homes they left and Israel is not going to become a majority-Arab state ruled by an Arab dictator, then yes, surrender is exactly what is required for there to be peace.
31
@Douglas
"surrender" means that you have nothing to say about your fate, have to accept whatever happens and simply "dissolve" in an encounter with a much stronger enemy.
Mr Erkat realizes that there is no Palestinian political future, lets hope that regular people will be able to create acceptable life for themselves.
1
Without knowing the details of Trump’s proposed peace plan Erakat, their spokesperson has rejected it, stating it is a “nonstarter”. No reason to explore it because certain “leaked elements” are unsatisfactory and do not address Palestinian goals that have not been addressed in the leaks. She has certainty on her side. No reason to meet with the Israelis and and try to achieve those aims. Better to see if Europe will intercede on a peace process as to which he details are as yet unknown. The only certainty I see is the unwillingness of the Palestinians to embrace oppurtunity albeit uncertain because of their certainty.
17
@Michael Ashner: the kingpin to moving forward to peace is that Israel occupies territories. Why do those arguing for Israel never simply agree that Israel will relent from its occupation? History shows that it is actually just a real estate deal.
@Michael Ashner As they say, "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Hopefully this time will be different.
3
The only solution is a one state democratic non-sectarian state with equal rights and responsibilities for ALL of its people.
One state that serves as a homeland for two peoples. The only way to get to this is by waging peace.
10
Excuse me, but did you read the article? It says: "Our recognition of Israel on the 1967 border, equivalent to 78 percent of historic Palestine, was a painful compromise. Our support for the two-state solution was reaffirmed by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which offered full normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world." I know ideologically driven beliefs are impervious to facts, but come on!
2
That is no solution at all since the vast majority in both sides most certainly do not want it. A much better solution is a 20 year trusteeship for a Palestinian autonomous area led by development experts which will slowly be transitioned to Palestinian control based upon their actions.
2
@Valerie Elverton Dixon
Given the Arabs track record with minorities in their own countries? The Israelis would have to be certifiably insane to do that has the Palestinians would be a majority in generation.
3
There shall be no Peace without Justice.
Justice is immutable. It cannot be purchased or attained at the point of a gun. It cannot be redefined as "prosperity" and enforced by repression. Justice cannot be parsed...it is whole, necessary and sufficient unto itself.
6
Justice is in the eye of the beholder making your otherwise eloquent statement quite ridiculous.
3
Putting the fate of Middle East peace in the hands of his wholly inexperienced and unqualified son-in-law Jared Kushner pretty much says it all about Trump’s approach.
I’m delighted, of course, to see that one’s relationship with his in-laws can be so good, but that’s not the point.
We can disagree about the terrorist tendencies of the Palestinians, and the past history of the Israelis and particularly Netanyahu, when it comes to their lack of cooperation and resort fo distasteful in-your-face policies. I suspect that we do.
But this history, alone, should strike sober fear, not admiration, in the heart of a president who purports to see himself as an emerging candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize. It should prompt Donald Trump to employ and deploy experienced Middle East negotiators, well-schooled in the issues on both sides, in a concerted effort to achieve what, for so long, has been deemed impossible.
No, it appears that Trump does not want peace. He wants surrender, and he wants his trip to Oslo. Perhaps, once he’s out of office, he can go there, on his own nickel. That may, in fact, be the only fjord in his future.
6
@Quoth The Raven You object to the peace plan being placed in the hands of the "inexperienced and unqualified" Jared Kushner. What experienced and qualified negotiators in the past have had any luck?
2
Maybe it's just as well that yet another "peace plan" backfired. I don't see why America should get involved in trying to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian quagmire in the first place. The Art of the Deal just doesn't work in the tangled world of Middle East politics.
5
The idea that Israel is going to just vacate the occupied territories is absurd. Hamas will simply come in and take over, and the situation will just get worse. No, Hamas probably doesn't have popular support, but they will win any election, no matter how anyone really feels.
And as noted, there are consequences to losing not just every war, but every battle.
The Palestinians don't want the best deal they can get, they want Israel to go away. It's not going to happen.
I do not understand the desire by the Palestinians for self-rule: Gaza has that, and how are they doing. Syria has that too. so do the saudis, and it works great for the princes.
The Palestinians are better off now than they would be with any other system.
36
Thanks so much for the way you stated your opinion. In addition, the so called occupation came about due to winning wars against multiple mortal enemies. In what world does the winning country give back its spoils? I continue to be outraged that people and NYT don’t pay attention to why things are safer this way and how this all started. Wish people would focus on something else like those in poverty in our country.
14
The problem is that Israeli government's aim is to continue the status quo because it serves their purpose. Peace is against their nature.
15
@Rolex
Well, let's see. They handed the Sinai over to the Egyptians in 1979 in exchange for peace. They handed Gaza over in 2005, and has been attacked by the official government of Gaza - Hamas, a terrorist group - ever since. Should Israel give over the West Bank, and worry about rockets being shot off to all areas of the tiny country that is Israel? And if Israel doesn't want peace, why have they given away a huge percentage of their own country in an attempt to attain it? Would you say that handing over Gaza and receiving terrorism in return has been successful? Does shooting off rockets and building terror tunnels show a desire for peace?
3
Mr, Erekat is an excellent speaker and even better writer, very much like Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif. These diplomats express their nation's case beautifully, in a sense making way as long as the reader or the listener is not familiar with the facts. The bottom line is the fact that the Palestinians always rejected every peace proposal since 1947. But this is only part of the problem. The main problem is that the Palestinians Authority (in which Mr. Erekat serves as a senior diplomat) do not represents (since the Oslo Accord that was signed in 1993) "the Palestinian people" only part of them and not even a major part. I want to remind Mr. Erekat that the group that he represents exists only because of the protection of Israel. Without this protection the Hamas will certainly take over as it did in Gaza. Yes Mr. Erekat, you got it right, the Palestinian Authority must be forced to make peace with Israel or its dreams about Palestinian State will never materialize.
37
Economic interdependence in our region ( and with the world )will improve commerce and a mutual commitment to peace ( even if the internal politics , values and government systems of these nations often clash greatly )
Normative strategies of the worlds most powerful nations are built on policies of economic interdependence,and this would be a huge step towards regional peace and development.
8
It is unfortunate that a 2 state solution has been illusive. Extremists on both sides are holding peace a hostage for so long. Violence has no place in the region and leaders on both sides that to demonstrate that Jews and Palestinians can live in harmony forever. Common guys and gals I am not going to be living forever but certainly would not like to die before there is a comprehensive peace and a swift implementation of a 2 state solution side by side in the land soaked with blood and hatred for decades. Is it too much to ask for compassion and camaraderie from both sides and let bygones be bygones? Language of non-starter and I will not come to the table does not do any side any good when dealing with a formidable military power in the middle east.
Mr. Erekat has been a capable and reasonable negotiator for the PLO and should not wait for Trump to come to the table to achieve peace. Just develop a bilateral peace plan under the UN or any neutral country that has not given up on peace in the middle east.
7
This is a peace plan that could have (and probably was) dictated by Benjamin Netanyahu. Other than that, it is the product of a fair and even-handed mediator.
Of course, the Palestinian have no leaders who are capable of (or given the opportunity to) communicate with the American audience on a regular basis (as Israeli leaders are accustomed to doing), and that is the only thing that might make a difference here.
4
@Mike No American will ever be prepared to listen to Palestinian's concern. Not when the Friends of Israel is rooted deep in American politics and wields massive power.
Palestinians will not be allowed to have a functional army until decades of proof show that
1. Another genocidal war will not be waged on Israel by the
Palestinians and their allies.
2. The irrational and life denying extremist Islamic fervor that
motivates groups like ISIS and Hamas, will not suddenly
seize the Palestinians in the West Bank as it has some of
those in Gaza.
With that in mind, I wonder what exactly Mr. Erekat means when he complains that "[the US] does not require Israel to end its military control over the land and people of Palestine".
Israel will not jeopardize her security. No sane Israeli government (left or right) would uproot all of its military control in the West Bank and Gaza. Mr. Erekat is arguing that without an army you cannot have a state. But he is wrong. It is not hard to imagine a demilitarized Palestinian state, along side the Israeli one.
There are consequences to waging war and losing, stipulations written into the agreements that you won't like. But tough luck, deal with it and come to the negotiation table willing to compromise.
I shudder to think what kind of "agreement" Israel would get if she lost the '67 war (or any other one).
Nonetheless, many of us want peace. If Palestinian leaders showed their willingness to compromise they would force a two state negotiation by sheer moral force. Most of the Israeli public can be swayed. Polarize them, ignite the left and center
by being a true partner for peace
69
Bassem Eid, a Palestinian who lived in a refugee camp for over 35 years, states clearly that dignity for the average Palestinian requires only three things:
A job [which pays for shelter and food], healthcare for their family and education for their children.
This has no relationship to the goals of the non-representative leadership who foment hate and division in order to preserve their gravy train from naive charities and governments.
The path to peace is already being implemented each day by Israel in the West Bank with industrial parks, health services and modern universities. I personally witnessed this a year ago and interviewed Palestinian university students who were studying civil engineering.
41
@Robert Goldschmidt That is all beyond the point. As Mr. Erekat states in his well articulated and coherent article, the main issue is the brutal occupation of one people by another and the inherent denial of self determination to those living under occupation. People don't exchange these fundamental rights for jobs, healthcare, education, etc. If that were the case, then someone might reasonably argue that: since the Israelis seem to have all of these, and more; then they should not demand (or be entitled to) a country of their own in Palestine.
27
@M. Shana
What do you mean; "then they {Israel} should not demand (or be entitled to) a country of their own in Palestine".
Israel is not in the former or present country of Palestine.
That is historical revisionism. There has never been a 'Country of Palestine'. Using historical fiction does not help resolve anything.
Please give us facts that establish a historical country called Palestine.
3
@M. Shana
In many life stories of the Gaza inhabitants, there is one nostalgic motive, the good times, when Israelis had control and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crossed into Israel every day for work. The life was good, meat on the table several times a week...
3
As long as trump and Netanyahu are in power, there will be no peace and no two states. Trump has a peace plan like he has a health care plan, which means, he has nothing.
47
@BB how do you explain the many years where Trump and Netanyahu were not in power and yet there was no peace. The answer Palestinian rejectionism. Ask Bill Clinton.
3
@BB Are you suggesting that the Palestinians has zero accountability in this? Is it ok that Mahmoud Abbas is in power for so long without even holding an election? Abbas will bring peace?
3
@BB
Democracies are inherently stable because most people support the leader. After all, they voted for him or her. Most Arab countries are not democracies. Furthermore, many Arab countries consist of many tribes. Therefore, Arab leaders need an external enemy to keep their countries together & to keep themselves in power. They need to keep the Israel/Palestine conflict continuing so that Israel will be the external enemy. The problem is the Arab leaders, not Trump or Netanyahu.
2
Seventy years ago a UN vote served to create the state of Israel, a unique gesture of trust on the part of the family of nations that afforded Israel all the rights, and imposed upon it all the solemn responsibilities, inherent in such recognition. A UN vote to censure Israel for its refusal to deliver on the promise of her nationhood after so many disappointing decades filled to the brim with misery for her neighbours may be as futile a gesture as Congress impeaching Mr Trump for his high crimes and misdemeanours, but the UN, like the Congress, has a duty to its foundational mission that cannot be shirked without devastating consequences to its own legitimacy and reasonable hopes that are still shared by billions for a day when there will be justice for all and peace on Earth.
22
@Leigh
The UN did not ‘create’ Israel. The UN simply endorsed it and voted in favor of partition...Resolution 181....which the Arabs rejected in favor of perpetrating endless war.
6
@Leigh The thing is, the Arabs who were supposed to be part of the multi-ethnic state, which btw, the Jews accepted to be a part of have long established they want to destroy it. Given how Palestinians support Hamas, it is not surprising that Jewish views of Palestinians are just as hardline
2
Four million Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank are prisoners of Israel. The U.S. government, including the Obama administration, has steadfastly taken the position that the prisoners can gain their freedom only with the permission of their captor.
Their captor, long controlled by the settler's movement and the Israeli right, doesn't want them to be free unless and until they agree to move out of the land of Zion, according Israeli Jews a greater Israel with a democratic Jewish majority. Palestinians will never do this, but the day is coming when the prisoners will nevertheless be freed, if not by their captor, then by international command. There will be no possibility of peace until then.
Kushner's idea that the prisoners will submit and accept their status in exchange for economic prosperity is fantasy. Palestinians don't see any just reason why they were expelled from their homes and imprisoned in the first place, and are convinced they have time on their side to gain their freedom within Palestine.
42
Let’s have the Trump/Kushner/Netanyahu plan and then we can all react. I share the srticle’s pessimism, but let’s have it and then we will all know what the powers at be propose.
12
The second photograph accompanying the article, I feel, is worth a million words. I see nine people in it: a young boy to the lower right; a man in the background; four women of different ages; an older boy being taken into custody without undue force; and two young soldiers. The soldiers are Israeli, and presumably Jewish; the other seven individuals. are Arab.
I see distress in the photograph, shared by all, even the soldiers--but particularly by the young boy. I perceive nine individuals linked in a shared humanity and a tragedy not of their own making, but rooted deep in history.
Leaving President Trump aside now--for which readers will undoubtedly take me to task, I would like to shift my focus to Jared Kushner. As I see humanity in all the faces of the nine individuals in yesterday's photograph, I see it constantly in the face of President Trump's son-in-law, who is a key person in the peace negotiations which are being planned. Though evaluations of his character in the press may run 98% negative, I don't buy them. Jared Kushner, acknowledged to be a supportive and responsible husband and father, strikes me as a thoughtful, temperate, kind, and decent young man. The prayers of the world, as are mine, should be directed Heavenward that this time the peace initiated by President Trump, his son-in-law, and others should have a chance.
Sadat and Begin were not "rejectionists" in 1981. I pray Erekat might follow suit.
5
Jared Kushner as a diplomat? That naive and callow youth, with no experience of the world except for running his own family's real estate business into the ground, won't do anything but bring forth a phony peace plan that would be laughable if it didn't extend the tragedy. The only difference here is the extent of the arrogance of Trump and Kushner, thinking that they alone could solve this problem. There are lots of reasons their plan could not work, but there's no need to look beyond the fact that they purposely excluded the Palestinians, and only spoke to Israelis, while creating their supposed plan for peace. It's just another scam.
2
The Palestinians have demonstrated again and again that they do not want an Arab state next to a Jewish one. They want either one big Arab majority state, or two smaller ones, even if one of those is temporarily called Israel. By rejecting something out of hand with no clear idea of what it is, Erekat and his cronies are indicating that the deal would be a very good one indeed for their people. After all, if it is what he says it is - without having a clue of course - he has noting to lose by playing along. There is plenty of time to reject the deal later as the Palestinians have rejected every deal that preceded it.
30
This editorial headline could have multiple uses.
1. Trump doesn't want collaboration. He just wants Democrats to surrender.
2. Trump doesn't want to negotiate. He just wants China to surrender.
3. Trump doesn't want a free press. He just wants it to surrender.
I'm always baffled by his self-adoration of being a great deal maker. He just wants the other side to cave and if it doesn't, he simply picks up his toys and leaves. (See today's headlines.)
21
Kushner is just offering what Netanyahu tells him. Netanyahu wants the Palestinian arabs out of Israel with no indpendent state anywhere within the former land of Palestine. Trump is just letting Kushner be Netanyahu's representative. He could not care less about the Palestinian Arabs and he wants to stay in good stead with Israel and Netanyahu.
41
On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper "Trouw" published an interview it had with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. He said: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.
52
@Rich Davidson. Historically, its equally appropriate to say "The Jewish people does not exist. The creation of a Jewish state is only a means for continuing their struggle against European anti-Semitism ..."
1
@David. True, so long as you ignore history and evidence - the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel were the States of the Jewish people in Antiquity. Roman historians wrote of the Jews as a people, a peculiar one, but a people nonetheless.
Jewish scripture consistently describes the Jews as a people. Even the Qur'an speaks of the “children of Israel” as a separate ethnic group.
And I’m not too sure that the Jews living in what eventually became Muslim controlled, who constituted the majority of Jews in the world, thought of “European anti-Semitism." They had to endure the Islamic version and, having been forced out after Israel's creation, were fortunate to have a liberated homeland to which they could return, as opposed to simply moving from one exile to a new one as had previously been the norm.
6
Whether one favors President Trump or detests him, his administration’s approach on this issue has been correct. The notion that the Palestinians want a state (their second actually, as Jordan was expressly created to be the Palestinian Arab state) is a fallacy. Their inherent goal has always been, and is today, the destruction of the one and only Jewish state. Note Mr. Erekat emphasizes that the PA recognized the State of Israel, but to this day the PA will not recognize it as a Jewish state. Despite the Arabs having 22 states, and the Muslims some 51, the Jews cannot have one.
In recent years, as it has become clear that Israel is strong and prosperous, the PA’s theme has been to take Israel over as “one-state Democracy,” something repeated in this essay. Abetting that vision is to charge Israel with apartheid; maybe to compare Israel with apartheid South Africa will hasten a similar result. The so-called Palestinians, a label that didn’t refer to Arabs specifically until the early 1960s, will achieve dignity and prosperity when they behave accordingly, and it appears the administration’s plan aims to facilitate those goals. To the extent the Palestinians are oppressed it has been by their own self-pity and perpetuated by the Western elite who think that living in security is something meant for themselves in their own regions, but not for Jews and not for Middle Eastern Christians.
58
I strongly support a 2-State solution but you will not get there by faking the facts. Just a couple of items: 1) You claim that "Our recognition of Israel on the 1967 border, equivalent to 78 percent of historic Palestine, was a painful compromise". First, historic Palestine, as defined by the British mandate over Palestine included Transjordan (about 80% of historic Palestine), which was given away unilaterally to form the Kingdom of Jordan. The remainder was divided by the U.N. between A Jewish State (Israel) and an Arab Palestinian State. The actual percentage of historic Palestine given to form a Jewish State was about 12% (half of which was desert). And your assertion that this was a painful compromise is an obscene falsehood.The new nation of Israel was not accepted by the Arabs and was immediately invaded by the armies of 5 Arab nations, with the stated goal of driving the Jews into the sea. 2) You state that you want the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. But you fail to tell us that for the previous 20 years or so (1948-1967) the West Bank was totally occupied by Jordan while Gaza was totally occupied by Egypt. Can you please explain why an Arab Palestinian State was not declared during that period? The most recent attempt to form 2 States side-by side was at Oslo during Clinton's administration. Both sides agreed but the agreement was vetoed by Yasir Arafat. I also hope for a 2-State solution but it will not be obtained by falsifying history.
108
@JerryV
Thank you for your excellent letter. I was going to write one myself, but you did a better job explaining it than I would have done.
10
@JerryV. You left out the part where the PLO representing the Palestinian Arabs, explicitly relinquished all claims of sovereignty to the lands held by Jordan and Egypt in their original 1964 Charter. Pretty strange behavior for a real national liberation movement- but, of course, the PLO was birthed in the Soviet Union and was meant for a different political purpose. These are the same lands they now demand Israel give them. Go figure.
7
Seriously folks. Name one thing Trump will definitely want that Netanyahu will definitely not want. He's nothing more than a shoehorn for conservative Israeli policy.
19
Wow. That photo is heart wrenching.
10
How do the Palestinians expect Israel to negotiate when they keep launching rockets into their land? Egypt has also blocked the other border, why do you fail to mention that?
58
Because it doesn’t fit his narrative. Good point.
24
Mr. Erekat is exactly right. The United States and Israel want not true peace between adversaries, but peace and quiet, which is not the same thing. But this was always what was masked by the so-called peace process. The US-Israeli side never contemplated a real Palestinian state, but rather an armless-legless thing. Now even that is off the table and Israeli actions have, as a practicable matter, narrowed the options to those encompassed by one state. If the Israelis have their way, it will indeed be an apartheid state. But it doesn't have to be that way. The world has to insist on equal rights for all. For America, that is the only result consistent with American values.
20
The two state solution is dead. There are currently 600,000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank over the green line and it is ludicrous to think that the Israeli government will forcibly evacuate all those people. Instead, it is time for Israelis to give citizenship and equal rights to the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As long as Palestinians have no voting rights, due process, trial by jury, representation, legal status, etc in the government that currently controls their lives, peace will be extremely unlikely.
15
@Sagar Maybe Israel cannot or will not uproot these European settlers but another more powerful nation will do it. Just wait and see. Fear not, it will happen.
1
@Sagar
Facts:
#1. You say no representation.
Israelis; Jews, Christians, Druze, Circassian, etc all vote in Israeli elections.
Palestinian Authority Citizens vote in Palestinian Authority Elections.
1 vote for each citizen where they live.
#2. You claim a lack of trial by jury as prejudice.
There are no jury trials in Israel, none. It is not a part of the Israeli legal system. The Israeli's cannot give something they don't have, that would include jury trials.
2
@Sagar
two words: land swaps
As we are now more than a DECADE into Palestinians refusing to negotiate with Israel, how seriously can anybody take this piece?
59
A decade. How about a century
16
Unconditional surrender was the best thing that ever happened to Germany and Japan. They're doing great now.
36
Great is an understatement.
Japan and Germany today are number three and four of the top world economic powers!
My father-in-law lost his home too, which his father had built in the ethnically German Sudetenland of the Czech-Slovak State. They were Germans, so they had to leave after the war. That’s life.
There was no Palestinian State back then; there was the Ottoman Empire and it lost big after WW1...which Germany—it’s ally—lost for them...the second the United States entered the war.
1
Nowhere does Erekat mention the dirty word, NEGOTIATING. The reference to the Arab Peace Initiative, BTW, includes the wrongly termed "right of return", which is both a non-starter and would destroy Israel. Israel turned down that initiative years before because the Saudis refused to take out that demand.
Erekat complains of winning land by force, though the 67 war wasn't a war of aggression. It was fought in self defense, and G-d was on Israel's side. Friedman isn't the only orthodox Jew to be grateful for that. Furthermore, the PLO, never mind Hamas, still wishes to "redeem" all of "historic Palestine" in blood, Jewish blood, that is. Another reason why negotiations are a non-starter. They want to make Israel suffer while obtaining their state. Ridiculous. Get real, Erekat.
Int'l law can't make the EU accomplish what can only be accomplished by difficult negotiations, realistic compromises, AND...an end to all further claims, all aggression, and ALL anti-Semitic incitement in Palestinian areas. Maybe point 3 is the hardest for them to accept.
34
Who should the UN hold “accountable” for the 600 rockets fired at civilians last weekend?
44
This commentary should really be titled "Palestinians Don't Want Peace. They want Israeli Surrender."
There would quickly be peace if the Palestinians wanted peace and acted that way. Instead, they focus on constant violence and a society not based on life, but on death. A society not based on love, but on hate.
Incredibly poor leadership is to blame. But if anyone ever stood up and called for a civil society, a society based on the pursuit of happiness, free enterprise, and religious tolerance they would not last a minute.
The Israeli's and Palestinians should be partners, not enemies, and until that mindset does a complete 180, there will be more suffering. If the two sides acted as partners, there could be so much prosperity and then the two state solution would easily take care of itself.
We need a Palestinian leader to stand up and speak the truth.
Make peace with Israel, and then enjoy the benefits for generations to come.
74
Palestinians from the time of the Balfour Declaration until now have disastrously followed the same playbook that the author is espousing, namely boycotts and refusing to compromise. The just and fair 1947 UN Partition Plan called for an economic union and cooperation with the Jewish state which would have brought prosperity to all. What do the Palestinians have to show for over 70+ years of boycotts, terrorism and intransigence, absolutely nothing other than a dire, miserable situation that they refuse to fix.
56
The question is what the Palestinians want. Do they want peace?
Imagine if they had accepted a Palestinian state in 1948? They did not. They went to war. They went to war to destroy the State of Israel. They lost. From then it has been a non-stop quest for do-overs.
They have had a dozen opportunities to make peace and receive a state. They have turned down every one. Never enough. Never will be.
So what do they want: Some might accept a bi-national Israel. Some but not all, e.g. Hamas who rule Gaza and are also prominent in the West Bank do not accept 1948 Israel. They also want a state in the West Bank and Gaza. How does that Gaza work? Mr. Erekat and friends cannot deliver or control Gaza. They want a corridor through Israel with open passage between Gaza and the West Bank. But Hamas of course would not recognize Israel of that corridor because it is 1948 Israel. No Jews in the West Bank, but Palestinians in Israel.
And Israel should give in to that why? Does that get Israel peace?
Forgot right of return for some 8 million Palestinians.
So I guess Mr. Trump looked at that and figured out that this approach of the Palestinians will not work and has not worked, so maybe try something else.
Mr. Erekat is stuck in old modes of thought. It is all or nothing. He has turned down Mr. Trump even before the plan is officially announced.
Sorry, but "all" is not on the table in any plan, so figure out what is left?
The solution is not in op-eds, Mr. Erekat.
51
@Joshua Schwartz It is called history. You think religion.
You have not acquired mentally the difference between historical causality and religion.
The Palestinians have rejected every peace plan proposed by Presidents of both parties. So Mr. Erekat needs to look in a mirror to find out why there is no peace.
43
It is the Palestinians that do not want peace!. They want the right to return, which is the same as destruction of Israel.
It is the Palestinians who refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist. It is the Palestinians who elected Hamas!
It is the Palestinians who have failed to create an economy or an educational system.
If you want peace,then recognize Israel's right to exist. If you want peace,stop launching rockets at civilians.
If the Palestinians want peace, the stop organizing demonstrations that have innocents running at the Israeli border.
57
The two countries with the most power are displaying the least courage.
What will it cost you to act with integrity and the values you espouse?
How would you ask to be treated if you were the ones being occupied and oppressed?
Please step down if you are too afraid or unwilling to lead us towards a more just world.
8
President Donald J. Trump doesn’t want to negotiate peace in the Middle East, he wants to buy it, with other people’s money. Sound familiar? It is his failed MO.
7
Erekat and his boss, Mahmoud Abbas, made a big mistake in September 2008 when they neither accepted the peace offer of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert NOR MADE A COUNTER PROPOSAL. Possibly, Erekat and Abbas expected that Barak Obama would get them a better deal after he became President of the U.S.; possibly, Erekat and Abbas were afraid that a withdrawal of the Israeli army from the West Bank would allow Hamas to take over from their Fatah group as ruler of the West Bank. Regardless of Erekat's and Abbas's motives, their stonewalling in response to a significant Israeli peace offer convinced Israelis that the Palestinians were unwilling to make a peace deal that ended the conflict; and Israeli voters then rejected Olmert's Kadima party in favor of Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud party in the February 2009 Israeli election. Erekat's and Abbas's intransigence in fall 2008 thus had similar effects to Yassir Arafat's and Mahmoud Abbas's intransigence in the summer and fall of 2000 (in response to the peace offer by Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak), which led to the Likud victory in the February 2001 Israeli election. History might have been different--and better--had Erekat and Abbas made a counter-offer in September or October 2008 stating the terms on which they would be willing to end the conflict with Israel.
42
@Greg. Assad and Erekat rejected - as usual with no counter-offer, the peace proposal advanced by Secretary of State Kerry. That act speaks volume so of their sincerity. Of course, with peace, their gravy train of embezzlement risks coming to an end and, worse, accountability for the billions in aid that wound up in Swiss bank accounts and real estate around the world. No wonder peace remains a distant prospect, it doesn’t pay these leaders as does "steadfastness."
3
Thank you to the NYT to let this just expression be published.
It is sad. sad.
Hope that one day the dignity of these people will be restored and that they will be able to start healing and rebuild their country of Palestine.
And that the crimes of illegal occupation and abuse will be punished.
14
@JPH
You call for the rebuilding of the country of Palestine.
Please enlighten the rest of us.
When did the country of Palestine exist?
And certainly not an Arab or Muslim Palestine country. The term Palestinian meant Jew up until the 1960's,when the term was co-opted by the PLO.
5
@JPH
You call for the rebuilding of the 'country of Palestine'.
Please enlighten the rest of us.
When did the country of Palestine exist?
And certainly not an Arab or Muslim Palestine country. The term Palestinian meant Jew up until the 1960's,when the term was co-opted by the PLO.
2
@JPH
Does Israel not have a right to live in peace? They have been trying to since 1948, and instead have been repeatedly invaded by countries promising to kill every Israeli. Saeb Erekat continues to support Arab terrorism. Israel has been in a perpetual fight for its survival for 71 years and counting. If terrorists were shooting rockets off at your house every day, and sending off their children as suicide bombers in pizza shops and on public transportation, you might want to do something about it as well.
4
This column could have been written 20, 30 years ago. Progress is an illusion when it comes to the Israel Palestinian conflict. Consider what the Germans did when they got kicked out of East Prussia by the Russians after WWII. They moved, they accepted the fact that losing a war has consequences, and they turned modern Germany into a leading European state.
20
@joe Germany had a core of tens of millions of people that those from the east could join. This is nowhere near the situation of the Palestinians. They may be Arabs but they were not of the tribes living in Jordan or Syria. German society was not tribal based.
9
@D Marcot
Actually, more than 60% of the citizens, including the Queen, of Jordan consider themselves native to Palestine. The King is from Arabia, but that's another fact that gets ignored.
3
@D Marcot, Actually, the majority of the population of Jordan is made up of Palestinian Arabs.
3
Trump's policies are ill conceived as always. The settlements are a problem. But whenever the Palestinians were offered their own state in exchange for peace with Israel they turned it down because no Palestinian leader wanted to be the one to admit that Israel should be allowed to exist. When Israel pulled out of Gaza and the Hamas thugs took over we see what happened. The Hamas situation has only pushed Israeli government further to the right and made an equitable peace less likely.
17
The Ross plan left Palestinians with no contiguous state. Why that seems like the Apogee of acceptance by the Israelis I don’t know
5
Jordan is a contiguous state.
6
Who at this point can with a clear conscience say that the world is clamoring for a 20th Arab dictatorship? There are far more deserving people for a country such as the Kurds. The 2 Palestinian regimes should be absorbed by Jordan and Egypt respectively as they were prior to the 1967 war.
27
@Perspective What they were between 1948 and 1967 is irrelevant. It was a stop-gap measure intended to be temporary. For more than two thousand years prior to 1948, Palestine was Palestine, nothing to do with Jordan or Egypt. Their ancestors were there for as long as the Hebrews’ were. Palestine is their home.
9
Yes and let them do the job they were supposed to do in 1948
4
@KRockwell
For more than 2000 years prior? Nice new fake history.
Thousands of years ago there were all sorts of peoples in the area - Jews and others. The area has been conquered and changed hands dozens of times. There have been multiple population exchanges into the area and ethnic cleansings from the area. None of those ancient peoples have existed as a national entity for thousands of years.
Among the many conquests: the Arab Conquest of the 7th Century AD. Why do you think it's called the "Arab Conquest" if the Arabs were already there and in control?
Only one national group from the area has kept it's national identity over all this time: the Jews.
The author, Saeb Erakat, comes from a Saudi Arabian tribe and his family moved first to Jordan and then entered Palestine around the time of WWI.
This was proudly acknowledged on the family website, until they realized it revealed a truth they wanted to hide and they took it down.
In spite of this, he likes to talk about how his ancestors have been in Jericho for 10000 years. It's a bald faced lie and he knows it.
That tells you what you need to know.
5
Trump doesn't want anything. His advisors, Bolton, and especially special intererst assets and presidential advisors Miller and Kushner do however.
5
I do not understand why anyone thinks this administration and their insulting envoy to the Middle East, Mr. Kushner, ever had a peace plan in mind.
Kushner had almost bankrupted his family before Trump took office. Suddenly, money from Japan, Israel and Qatar bailed him out. He is presently hard selling the Saudis for development projects, without regard for the fact his greed and ignorance might start a war with Iran.
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is also the only way Evangelicals think they can enter Heaven. Pompeo, Huckabee and, his daughter, Sanders are all Evangelicals. So is a large part of Trump’s base. This ads up to votes.
Netanyahu has been charged with graft, their champion.
I spent time with the Palestinian community in Jordan recently. What do we have yet to understand that has not already been shown to us; that depriving a people of a homeland is immoral?
13
Who deprived them of a homeland? There have been more people in Israel supporting a Palestinian state in peace with Israel than in the entire Middle East. They all want no Israel. Is that moral?
17
It is Hamas that holds the Palestinians hostage, shorting them of their basic human needs, rights and freedom.
Instead of focusing on Israel, the only democracy in the region for thousands of miles, trying to keep all the people safe in both Israel and Palestine and the surrounding countries from terrorists; let’s all focus on ridding this area from these horrible terrorists that are holding us hostage. It is Hamas and the other related terror parties, funded by Iran, that is holding us back from peace.
If Gaza sends thousands of rockets into Israel, do we not expect Israel to respond? Would we expect anything less from America or any other western country? And when israel does respond, and go into Gaza, they give 24 hours warning to all civilians to leave a premises that they are going to destroy because of the terror taking place in that particular spot. Who else in the world does this?
Israel knows how to make peace, as they’ve done it with Egypt and Jordan. It is indeed the terrorists that are running Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, etc that are fueling the fire to keep war, poverty and terror to continue.
Let’s focus on the real issue at hand so that we can focus on building a real future. The citizens of Israel would like nothing more than a peaceful neighbor that is prosperous and productive like Israel has been able to accomplish in the 70 years since it’s statehood.
30
People like Trump and Kushner would gladly sell themselves out, and they have neither the intellect nor the compassion to understand that others have more self-respect than to throw themselves at dangling dollar bills. A thorough political solution, wherein all parties are treated as equals and the US brokers honestly, is the best hope for Middle East peace. Thank you for sticking up for what is right and showing the world your pride.
10
Saeb Erekat has laid out the situation currently faced by the Palestinians: an Israeli government that has no interest in any solution that would relinquish an inch of the territory it occupies, and a U.S. administration in full support of the most right-wing positions in Israel today.
Those whose emotions are tied firmly to Israel will not hear him. They won’t understand a people whose lives and livelihoods are at the mercy of a powerful state that has complete control over them, a control used to produce humiliation and submission. They will not see how being stripped of their own ancient land and denied their history and their own right to exist creates anger, or how their lack of hope spawns violence. They won’t look at the majority of Palestinians who would live in peace with Israel in return for the right to live in peace and dignity themselves.
Israel’s unquestioning supporters will restate the old beliefs that it’s the fault of the victims, who should not protest or expect their needs to be met, nor resent their conquerors.
Once again, the terms of an inadequate peace offer will be blindly called «everything they asked for. » And the cry for help will have, as always, been in vain.
18
You, as most who accept this type of article fail to suggest a practical solution that truly reflects Palestinians willing to live in peace with a Jewish homeland. Any real ideas? This could have been written 30 years ago as nothing else has happened. This is the kind of thing that someone who is awkwardly hiding their motives.
8
An international coalition gave Gaza hundreds of millions of dollars to build an international airport and other infrastructure when Israel withdrew it's forces in 2005. Hamas used the airport to fire rockets into Israel and used the money to build rockets and tunnels into Israel to stage attacks and kidnappings. Now they talk about giving Palestinians more money. Do they think the result will be different this time? Enough is enough.
The two state solution is no solution.
36
Saeb Erakat, the author of this piece, is part of the PLO, not Hamas. Get your facts straight. Also, the Israeli government deliberately undermines the PLO in favor of Hamas so that it doesn't have to make peace and give up its settlements in the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria as the Israelis call it). So your point is completely irrelevant.
8
@Sagar.
True things are often irrelevant to people who want to live with hopes for utopia.
3
Erekat is right. It is a different type of peace that is being proposed. The "land for peace" deals didn't work or couldn't be agreed to, so now they're proposing "the money for peace" deal.
14
Mr. Erekat is quite right. A two-state solution is vital to the interests of Palestinians and Israel. Israelis and Palestinians need to get behind this fact, and find the courage to face down the extremists on both sides, who thrive on the status quo. To be a true supporter of Israel, one must support a viable, independent, economically strong Palestinian state in the West Bank.
21
@Edmund Mander
"Extremists on both sides" is a total canard. The Gazans were handed Gaza as a gesture of peace, and immediately elected Hamas, a terrorist group sworn to the destruction of Israel. Israel has favored peace since the day it was founded, but has been relentlessly attacked by enemies sworn to her destruction. On those rare occasions when Israel found a peace partner, they made huge concessions: Look at the Sinai accords, when Israel gave massive land to Egypt so they could secure peace. Should any more enemies, such as the Palestinian Authority, actually want peace, Israel will be happy to play ball. Until then, they will rightfully try to defend themselves from their terroristic enemies.
2
The way things are now a two-state solution appears to be the only solution, at least for a few decades. It seems to me in a democratic single state both sides would have as many children as possible so their side could have the majority and it is hard to imagine how such a state could be governed without a civil war breaking out as both sides have many people who claim all of the land belongs to their side. I think we are a long way from such a state being possible. The best course for now is to continue to support the two-state solution which at least keeps hopes alive for a peaceful solution.
8
I used to support the two state solution. Unfortunately after having visited Israel and Palestine several times I have concluded a two state solution is now impossible. In order for a two state solution to work Israel will need to evacuate and relocate the 600,000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. There is absolutely no political will for this. Better to give the 3 million Christian and Muslim Palestinians living under military rule in the West Bank and East Jerusalem the right to vote and citizenship just like their Jewish neighbors. Keeping 3 million people under harsh military rule is unsustainable.
9
Everything Trump and Kushner have done so far has been to grant the fondest wishes of Netanyahu.
That is what this is. Gift giving to Bibi. Trump's most loyal and useful ally is being paid back.
Trump knows nothing about "peace." Nobody else has either. Trump knows about dirty deals and payback. So has everyone else, but Trump is over the top into those things.
The US is just more of the same for Israel, much more, everything possible, every last dream.
Peace Process? Laugh when you mention that.
40
Yes, Mr. Erekat, surrender is what is appropriate to facilitate a peace agreement after you've lost a war.
That also means working with other Arab leaders in places like Jordan and Egypt to facilitate peace, and not looking the other way when Arabs who are opposed to peace try to murder leaders who wish to make peace (like the PLO tried to do in Jordan) or actually do murder those leaders, as they did to Sadat in Egypt.
71
@Middleman MD -- If you throw aside the rules limiting how far a war can be pushed, they you are back to the old ways.
Don't expect sympathy when finally one day Israel loses one. Nobody wins them all, forever. Payback will be coming.
12
@Mark Thomason I don't think Israel is under the illusion that it will be treated with grace should it ever lose a war. That's why it wins them by maintaining a top class military and refusing to indulge naiveté the way Chamberlain did.
And your other argument will begin to make sense the first time a nuclear power is defeated in a conventional war - something which hasn't happened so far and which I do not see happening anytime soon.
7
@Middleman MD -- It is not the responsibility of the leaders of other Arab states to take in refugees from Palestine. This presumption that all Arabs are the same, when in fact Egyptians, Turks, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Syrians, Saudi Arabians, and Iranians are all different groups, is essentially a racist attitude that all those Arabs are the "other" and can be treated as a single bloc.
Even if that were true, there are vastly more Muslims in their bloc than their are Jews in their bloc. Islam and Christianity are the two great Abrahamic religions. Judaism, while older than both, is a fringe group with far fewer members than the two majors.
4
Wars, just like elections, have consequences. Germany does not commemorate May 8 as its Nakba and make demands on those who successfully fought off its attacks, including the return of all the territory it lost and the “right” of ethnic Germans to return to the Eastern European countries where they had long lived. No, the Germans accepted reality, looked deeply within themselves, forswore aggression and rejoined the world community as peaceful and productive participants.
Peace will only come after the Palestinian Arabs leaders accept the reality that their several attempts (with others) to destroy Israel have failed and that their rejectionism has accomplished nothing beyond sacrificing generations of Palestinian Arab youth and enriching their leaders - including Mr. Erekat.
That we are once again exposed to the bad faith nonsense Mr. Erekat continues to spout shows that the Palestinian leadership prefers the status quo and their immiseration of their own people. Where is the dignity in that?
It is time for the Palestinian people to express themselves in a free and fair election. It just may be that Erekat, Abbas, the PA and Hamas don’t actually speak for them. But they probably all know that, which is why such elections, like peace, are a distant prospect.
129
The Germans initiate combat in order to gain territory outside its borders.
The Palestinians are trying to regain their own land, and get Israel back inside its borders.
It sounds like your approach is also that the Palestinians should just surrender. Would you honestly do that if you were in their situatino?
14
@Charlie in NY
Sorry, but you obviously know next to nothing about the Palestinian refugee problem. The best place to start is to pick up an Israeli university handbook about these years or read any historical monograph based on Israeli archives that opened up 50 years after the 1948 war, authored by the professors of the Israeli's best universities.
Your use of the word "Arab" is very dubious.
What has king Faroukh or Hussein, that decides to invade the Palestine mandate to do with an Arabic peasant in a poor village close to Jerusalem?
Faroukh and Hussein did not succeed in their war effort so now it's OK to chase away all villagers and bulldoze all houses, mosques and graveyards, just to make sure there is nothing to return to ?
The systematic destruction or "evacuation" according to Israeli documents was carried out for several years after 1948 in to some extent after 1967, thousands of Israeli participated, hundreds of thousands were witnesses of it and it was and still is a common Israeli knowledge.
No peace with Palestinians is possible without recognition of the reality of the Makba and compensation for it (see Taba agreements).
But peace with Palestinians is not anybodies objective, they will have to live by other countries decisions.
The peace plan is about recognition of Israel by Arab countries. Palestinians lost the colonial war and the colonial power takes their land, this is a classic one.
2
@John Pace
Israel took over the West Bank after being attacked by the Jordanian army all along the West Bank armistice line and in Jerusalem.
As a consequence the military occupation is 100% legal under international law. (this of course, doesn't apply to the setttlements).
2
The vulnerable have now become the powerful and those who wish to solve this dilemma on homeland must go deeper than
politics. A land must be shared but what relinquishes hold
unless a trust with good eyes and heart ensures safety and security. Fear dominates the decisions and expectations are placed on both Israeli's and Palestinians to have unity among
them. That is not feasible. Corruption plagues both entities
and I do not see a top-down approach working. The US is so
compromised by ignorance of historical realities that efforts
on a plan will be seen as contrived. We need grassroots people
with courage and passion for justice to come forward in brave steps that represent their true religious roots with kindred relationship. Political and emotional leverage needs be relinquished by both sides. Even the mediation of law will not
suffice when mercy and justice need prevail. Occupation must end.
6
You say you want “the people” to decide, then say “Occupation must end”.
Whose occupation of what?
Don’t propose a solution for nations where you don’t live.
That’s for peace-loving (or at least recognizing as better than continued killing) Palestinians and Israelis to do, not those if us half a world away.
Offering help is one thing.
Trying to tell them “come the Revolution, you will have peaches in cream and You WILL Like It” is something else - even if you belong to one of the majority faiths in the involved region.
If you want to work for regional peace, move there.
Don’t push boycotts - mostly aimed at Jews, not Israelis, or immigration bans aimed at Muslims, not “terrorists” or “Palestinians”.
Those are Trump games.
NOTE: For ne, anyway, the same goes for anybody who offers a different imposed solution too.
One State, Two States, a Judaic Israel/Judea/Samaria, No Israel is Good Israel, the whole lot if you.
The Trump administration has no interest in promoting a two-state solution. It also seems prepared for an alternative that does not include equal rights for Palestinians. To be fair, it's not just the Trump administration. No U.S. administration has been brave enough to do what is right: demand that that occupation end and recognize a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Doing so would not be an injustice to Israel. On the contrary, it would ensure its existence as a Jewish majority state and reinforce the idea that Jewish Israelis deserve more territory than Palestinians do. I am not a Zionist. I don't support a two-state solution. I don't believe Jewish Israelis have more rights to the territory than Palestinians. But what options exist? A two-state solution is a victory for Israel. And, to some extent, it is justice for Palestinians. It is a sliver of sovereignty versus nothing.
I have no confidence Israeli citizens will stop their government. I have no illusions ours will either. The future is grim, as Erekat knows and underscores in this article. One thing, however, is clear. The Trump administration and the Netanyahu coalition will ensure that two states never exist. And in so doing, they will leave it to the Palestinians to demand the only thing they will be able to demand: equal rights in a single country. That is not Zionist. And, to me, that is justice.
52
@Michael
Gaza hasn't been occupied since 2005. Then they democratically elected Hamas and continue to launch terrorist rocket attacks/bombings at Israeli citizens.
Fool me once...
(And Palestinians turn down any two-state solution proposal that doesn't include giving the old city to them, which is a nonstarter because they would only allow Muslim visitors.)
@Michael Equal rights would mean that the Jewish minority would lose elections. Will not be allowed.
Israel must keep the Palestinians in ghettos, and allow no right to vote in Israeli elections and no freedom of travel. Block any economic development. Don't like the word ghetto? What else would you call such areas?
Kinda like East LA, but with less hope, and without passports.
What else could happen?
Mr. Erekat is correct that Israel did not formally respond to the Arab 2002 proposal. Israel, however, did make a proposal in 2008 under Olmert that was directionally similar to prior offers and to the Arab 2002 proposal. The Palestinians responded. The answer, as with other offers of peace from Israel, was NO.
As long as the Palestinians refuse to meet or stonewall, it doesn't matter which US administration is in power. There will not be peace.
98
@Jonathan Bein -- Mr. Bein, you are not entirely accurate factually. The 2008 Olmert proposal was not rejected by the Palestinians. Abbas at the time merely insisted on being able to study the maps put together by Olmert before agreeing to it; the maps were not handed over and a few months later the plan was not viable (on the Israeli side) because of Olmert's legal woes. In hindsight perhaps it was a historic mistake but can you blame a leader for needing to know the details before committing himself and his people to an agreement? Last month when speaking to the UN Security Council, Israeli Permanent Representative Danny Danon gave the laundry list of Palestinian missed opportunities-- when he mentioned the Olmert plan he said (accurately) "we're still waiting for an answer on that." (It's at the 15 minute mark if you care to watch the UN video).
Perhaps now would be the time to dust off the Olmert plan and offer it to the Palestinians. But let them see the maps first. And let's try to take care when discussing the facts of this delicate issue.
8
If Israel is serious about peace why do they continue to build settlements on land that is supposed to go to Palestinians according to the two state solution? It's as if we were arguing about how to divide a pizza and I kept eating your side of the pizza while we were still debating. If I then came back and offered you what you had asked for it would obviously be nonsensical since I had already eaten the part of the pizza you originally wanted. It's the same with the settlements. I have spent a lot of time in various West Bank settlements discussing the issue with Israeli settlers. They are by and large extremely wedded to the land and their homes. The idea that the Israeli government will be able to force 600,000 Israelis currently living over the green line in East Jerusalem and the West Bank to leave their homes is ludicrous.
8
You make a good point but the issue of settlements should have prompted a more aggressive push for a state by Palestinians. The fact that they didn’t and don’t makes it questionable whether they want a state without the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state
7
Palestinians need to accept Israel is not going away. It has been clear for decades that Palestinians must choose to resolve this with Israel, recognizing that Israelis can never accept the concept that they have no right to exist. Until that happens, the downward trajectory of Palestine will continue while Israel prospers and expands.
138
@BB
Erekat makes clear, as everyone who understands the situation knows, Palestinians accepted Israel's existence on more than half of their (Palestinians') former homeland. So here's the question: when will Israel accept Palestine's right to exist? Everything Israel does (settlements, in particular) demonstrate that the age old Zionist maxim dictates its policies: Maximum Arabs on Minimum Land. That is a horrible policy and yet it is exactly what Israel has been and will continue to pursue. So BB, the question is not as you asked. It is as Erekat and other Palestinians have routinely put it: When will Israel recognize Palestinian rights to their own land?
36
@BB
"Our recognition of Israel on the 1967 border, equivalent to 78 percent of historic Palestine, was a painful compromise. Our support for the two-state solution was reaffirmed by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which offered full normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world. Israel never formally responded to it."
This is verbatim from this article, written by the chief Palestinian negotiation for the PLO. What more do you want?
17
@Chris. Beware the formulation of “historic Palestine” as it, not surprisingly, is limited to the Mandate for Palestine of 1923 rather than the 1922 version. The difference was that the UK closed off Jewish settlement in the 78% of the originally demarcated territory which is today Jordan.
Relatedly, what legitimate national liberation movement does not have a native name for their claimed homeland but appropriates a foreign designation? I know of none. And that observation alone should give some pause to thoughtful observers who wonder about what is really going on.
8
Thank you Mr. Erekat for your just words. Millions of Americans wish for a two state solution, but until control of the executive branch of our government is under the direction of a Democratic President, I see little progress, just status quo.
Please have hope, the majority here are with your fellow Palestinians, as we are with Israel.
Good luck, and again thank you for your insight.
116
Erekat’s statements are not fair in that they are not balanced with truths which offset the truths which he does present.
Can he or anyone say that the PLO has negotiated with the USA or with Israel’s in good faith,or at all in recent years- or have they merely refused to talk? To then claim that they were not consulted after refusing to meet or talk is absurd, disingenuous, misleading and dismisses Erekat’s more legitimate concerns. He will win over no one unless he addresses the concerns of those who oppose Palestinian Statehood. Concerns such as rewarding those who perpetrate terror, teaching hatred in schools, intransigence on the need to meet and sit and negotiate, and many more issues which cause the world to treat the Palestinians as they are being treated. Erekat and his comrades should take much more responsibilities for their situation and say how they will rectify their shortcomings if they hope to justify their demands of others.
110
@Jesse I believe I read some time ago somewhere that all the Arab nations in all the middle east were willing to recognize Israel and establishes diplomatic relations with Israel if Israel returns to the 1967 borders before the war. Will be great if that was true and even more great if this happens.
11
@samuel a alvarez
Might be 'nitpicking' but, 1967 were not "borders".
They were armistice delineation lines.
When the 'armistice' is disrupted by an aggressor - in this case the Arabs, then the 'Armistice lines' cease to exist and, the winner in that defensive war Israel - has its hands free to ascertain its security as it sees fit, including a 'new delineations' of armistice lines until a final peace is achieved.
29