Arutz Sheva and the Maariv Hebrew daily reported a senior political source as saying that the Prime Minister told the PA he was willing to give up lands if the PA would accept five points, including recognizing Israel as the Jewish Homeland and settling the refugees outside Israel's borders.
That reminds me of how I felt when I first heard that the Palestinian Authority was going to seek statehood membership in the UN. I confess that I panicked.
There were numerous doomsday scenarios about the bad fate that awaited Israel when the Palestinians achieved their nefarious goal including international boycotts and sanctions, including exploitation of UNGA resolution 377 for example. This resolution technically gives the UN General Assembly power to impose sanctions and even dispatch troops if an issue of world peace isn’t resolved by the UNSC.
Over 100 UN Member states have recognized the Palestinian state now and the organization was even admitted to UNESCO as a full member state. Thailand became the 131st or 133rd country to recognize the unilaterally declared Palestinian state.
So what? Yasser Arafat declared a Palestinian state at the PNC Conference in Algiers in November 1988 and what happened? Apparently fifty five countries including the USSR, China and India recognized the declared state.
But then what? No Palestinian state was ever created on the ground. Arafat’s declaration was a pipe dream despite the recognition of 55 countries. The Palestinian Authority is pursuing the same statehood pipe dream in the UN now but the only state they will achieve is a state of mind just like in Algiers in 1988. The only state they can build is inside the walls of the UN. They surely know this, but they doggedly pursue UN recognition as a way to stab Israel in the back diplomatically.
By now I know better than to panic, because the killing point is that the Arab side will not accept or recognize Israel as the Jewish state. PM Netanyahu made this observation in Holland recently. IThe PA will continue to stonewall and make impossible demands and the situation is more than likely going to deteriorate into violence too because the PA is working overtime to get into bed with Hamas. They say Hamas is even going to win the PA elections again.
There isn’t going to be peace with the PA Arabs.
"Don't order us to recognize a Jewish state," PA President Abbas said at the end of August. "We won't accept it."
Senior PA negotiator Nabil Shaath elaborated on this position in mid September: “"The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state ... Such a declaration would directly threaten the Muslims and Christians in Israel and prevent Palestinian refugees, who left their homes and villages a number of decades ago, from being granted the right to return to them."
But this is nothing but malicious claptrap. A complete evasion of reality. And it gets worse.
Arutz 7 reported two weeks ago that a leading PA religious figure is calling for the genocide of the Jews.
“The principal Palestinian Authority’s religious leader, the Mufti Muhammad Hussein, presented last week the killing of Jews by Muslims as a religious Islamic goal.
Hussein made the comments at an event celebrating the 47th anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement, which is headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. He cited the Hadith (Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad) saying that “the Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: ‘Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”
“Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews) is a war of religion and faith,” the moderator said.
So there is nothing political or even rational in the PA resolve not to recognize Israel as the Jewish state – it emanates from its not-so-clandestine jihad.
Hamas exercises overt jihad and in every way shape and form aims to eliminate Israel and replace it with Islamic Palestine. The PA on the other hand is not overt about this. It practices an international political program to legitimize itself in the eyes of the world. But its rejection of Israel as the Jewish state deligitimizes it. It proves its modus operandi isn’t transparent but based on brazen malicious deceit.
Denying Israel as the Jewish state is no different than denying that India is Hindu. Many Muslims live in India along with people of other faiths too. But essentially India is a Hindu country and speaks the Hindu language and no one in his right mind would deny that India is Hindu. Denying that Israel is the Jewish state is malicious claptrap.
This brings up the reverse side of the coin too. PA Pres. Abbas has declared repeatedly that no Israelis will be allowed to live in an independent Palestinian state. This is racism, or even what is called ethnic cleansing. Why Abbas should insist on this draconian condition no one knows.
Zionism was a creation of the late 19th century, but Jews have lived in Israel without interruption for thousands of years. The aim of Zionism was to revive Jewish life in what was then called Palestine for reasons unconnected with Arab residents, in full flower, aiming ultimately to the creation of the state of Israel.
Israel is the Jewish state just like India is the Hindu state. Denying one is just as preposterous as denying the other. But in the hands of the PA the denial isn’t just absurd, it is malicious claptrap and emanates from their clandestine jihad against Israel.
So there are no takers, no matter what those "sources" say that Binyamin Netanyahu offered.