Will nothing stop mainstream media in its headlong drive to help create a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria? The latest flimsy straw being grasped is the idea of having 300,000 Jews, or possibly half that number, live under Palestinian control in a future peace arrangement.

Amy Tiebel of the Associated Press writes on Friday, “Perhaps there’s another option… Perhaps some Jews can live in a future Palestine, even if only in small numbers, the way Arabs live in Israel.”

Acknowledging in an aside that this idea is “hardly mainstream thinking,” she writes that “voices on both sides are quietly contemplating” this possibility. Very quietly, it would seem.

An Uncomfortable Charge
Among the advantages of this idea, Tiebel notes that it would “absolve the Palestinians of an uncomfortable charge sometimes leveled at them using a Nazi term — that they want a state that is ‘judenrein,’ or ‘free of Jews.’" 

There is of course an easier way of absolving the Palestinians of that charge, and that is for them to announce that they do not insist on a Judenrein state. But the point is that they do insist on a Judenrein state, and therefore there is no way to absolve them of this “uncomfortable” charge.

Just three months ago, in fact, Mahmoud Abbas – the man whose term as PA chairman expired nearly a year ago but refuses to hold new elections – declared at an Arab League meeting, “I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land.” He even said he would not allow Jewish soldiers to be part of an international force stationed in PA-controlled territory either.

Tiebel was unable to find any mainstream politicians on either side of the conflict to support the idea of retaining the Jews of Yesha under PA control – though she quoted an “independent Palestinian analyst” named Akram Baker as blaming the “settlers” for its failure. Baker speaks of “those Israelis who always claim to love the land more than the state.” The next paragraph states, “The problem, of course, is that most settlers have no desire to live under Palestinian rule [emphasis added] — and in fact moved to the West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. Others are radicals who could well prove problem citizens.”

Thus, in three consecutive paragraphs setting the stage for the article, we read that keeping the Jews under PA control would absolve the Palestinians of an uncomfortable, Nazi-like charge, and that the problem, "of course," is the Israeli settlers. No mention of the Abbas bark that “No Jews Allowed."

Tiebel does acknowledge that the Jews are “widely hated” among the Palestinians, and that it is even “easily conceivable that they might suffer discrimination and even vigilante violence without protection of the Israeli military.”

Even Arabs Don't Want PA Rule
Ironically, even Arabs themselves are not particularly willing to give up Israeli rule and become citizens of the Palestinian Authority. Back in January 2005, when the Palestinian Authority held elections, a significant percentage of Arab Jerusalemites stayed away from the polls – for fear that their status as residents of Israel might be jeopardized. The Associated Press quoted a taxi driver at the time who said  that he would not vote: "Are you kidding? To bring a corrupt [Palestinian] Authority here. This is just what we are missing."

In fact, when Palestinian rule seemed a realistic possibility in 2000, Israel’s Interior Ministry reported a significant increase in citizenship applications from Jerusalem Arabs.

It is true that from a Halakhic [Jewish legal] standpoint, living in the Land of Israel, no matter who rules the territory, represents at least a partial fulfillment of a Biblical commandment. The absolute majority of Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, however, feel that the ideal of living in the State of Israel with the People of Israel in the Land of Israel – and, most would say, according to the Torah of Israel – not to mention the physical security inherent in doing so, and the mortal danger of living under an anti-Jewish PA that could also be taken over by Hamas as was Gaza, heavily outweighs any entertainment of the possibility that they would agree to have the country leave them behind.