Blind Hatred

Blind Hatred

Real Apartheid-like hatred - for Jews - is what exists at the heart of the Palestinian Arab mindset with respect to Israel and the Jewish people. It's not the "occupation".

From Yonatan Silverman

Hate against the Jewish people is a phenomenon that has existed for centuries and there is no need to enumerate its numerous ugly examples and repercussions. But the fact is, hate for the Jewish people is also alive and kicking today in the Muslim mind, and that includes the minds of the Palestinian Arabs.

"Don't order us to recognize a Jewish state," PA President Abbas said at the end of August. "We won't accept it."

The most rudimentary analysis of the above Palestinian Authority position leads to only one conclusion – the most influential element in the Palestinian Authority attitude toward Israel and to the Jewish people is hate. Blind hate. Muslim hate.  Hate mobilizes them to close the door to peace and coexistence with Israel with no room for discussion. To some believers, it seemed to change under the 1993 Oslo Accords,  as if they came about in response to mutual understanding of political realities and political aspirations, and put hate aside. But the Palestinian Arabs soon put the lie to that.

Not recognizing Israel as the Jewish state is furthermore only the place where the problem and its manifestations begin. PA media is flooded with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement.

Just last month the Palestinian Grand Mufti, a PA appointee, declared on Palestinian TV that Islam’s goal is to kill Jews. Israel’s State Prosecutor is investigating him now for incitement.

The PA also routinely names public squares and other streets after killed terrorists, which is nothing but a brazen affront to the Israelis these criminals killed and their families. But for the Palestinians the dead terrorists are heroes, martyrs. This only emanates from hate.

PA hate for Jews also takes the form of naked racism. Mahmoud Abbas has stated that no Israelis will be permitted to live in an independent Palestinian state. And yet, Israel’s harshest critics call Israel an Apartheid state.  But Apartheid-like hatred for Jews is what exists at the heart of the Palestinian Arab mindset with respect to Israel and the Jewish people.

The Palestinian Arabs also adamantly refuse to climb down from the demand for the return of the descendants of the 1948 "refugees". There are millions of them today living in refugee camps throughout the Arab world. Their return to homes in Israel that no longer exist would undermine Israeli society in the most devastating way. But hate for Israel motivates this desire too.

The latest and most vicious manifestation of Palestinian Arab hate for Israel was their effort to achieve statehood status in the UN. They had no chance of becoming a UN Member State. They also surely knew this before they started their farcical efforts in the UN. But they doggedly pursued the matter because it stabbed Israel in the back diplomatically. The only state they can get is a state of mind. The only state they can build exists inside the walls of the UN. Antagonizing Israel however is what they have chosen to do because they hate Israel and want to eliminate it.

Unfortunately, neither the world at large, or the UN, or Obama's US condemns PA hate for Israel and Jews. Instead, everyone focuses on condemning Israeli "occupation" of Judea and Samaria as the source of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But the "occupation" isn’t the source of the problem. Even if Israel withdrew from 100 percent of the area tomorrow it would not begin to solve the conflict because hate for Israel and Jews stands in the way. The hate the Arabs feel for Jews and Israel is the rod in the spokes of negotiable co-existence and peace. But the world at large ignores this and turns a blind eye.

The 1993 Oslo Accords had Israel withdraw from Jericho and Gaza.  The Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (also called Oslo 2), signed on 28 September 1995 gave Palestinians self-rule in Bethlehem,Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Tulkarm, and some 450 villages.

The Oslo War, often called the Second Intifada, a Palestinian Arab explosion of anti-Jewish hate and murder between 2000-2006, blasted a big hole in the Oslo Accords. The terrorists and suicide bombers ran riot. Then in Operation Defensive Shield, in 2002, the IDF re-entered all the PA controlled cities of Judea and Samaria for the purpose of capturing and killing terrorists. This should have killed the withdrawals in the Oslo Accords but it didn’t. The Palestinian Authority remained intact.

All of Israel’s prime ministers since then have held negotiations with the Palestinian Authority – Sharon, Olmert, also Netanyahu.

In his speech at Bar Ilan University in June 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed for the first time in his political career to the establishment of a Palestinian state. He made two conditions: that the Palestinian state be demilitarized and the Palestinian state formally recognize that Israel is the state of the Jewish People.

But no sooner had he made this controversial and about-face historic offer, the Palestinians pulled their Helen Keller routine and were deaf dumb and blind to the whole idea.

"Netanyahu's speech closed the door to permanent status negotiations," senior Palestinian Authority official Saeb Erekat said. "We ask the world not to be fooled by his use of the term Palestinian state because he qualified it. He declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, said refugees would not be negotiated and that settlements would remain.”

The Palestinian Authority then went the extra mile and terminated negotiations altogether.

Toward the end of 2009 the Palestinian Authority announced:

“A plan to seek unilateral statehood through a UN Security Council vote. Palestinian leaders say the US and Israel leave them with no other option”.

Hamas-Fatah unity is the latest development illustrating that the Palestinian  Arabs place their priority on hate over ending the so-called occupation. Abbas and Meshal negotiated a reconciliation agreement in Doha and Abbas insists there is no contradiction between this agreement and the peace process, but this also is brazen malicious deceit. The Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement not only contradicts  any hope of peace, it stabs it in the back. Prime Minister Netanyahu has already stated that a Fatah/Hamas unity agreement means the diplomatic process is dead. Abbas can make peace with Israel or with Hamas but not both.

No democratic country has ever conceded anything to anyone when faced with a campaign of hate. There is no comparison between hate and "occupation" in the Arab/Israeli conflict. In the Palestinian Arab camp hate takes priority at every turn and totally undermines any chance for bilateral negotiations.

"Occupation", on the other hand, is a bag of wind. The overinflated problem that "occupation" represents can be solved if there is good will on both sides.

But there isn’t one drop of good will on the Palestinian Authority side.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11316#.T0xf_nJSR0U