- Haviv Rettig Gur
The latest wave of Palestinian terrorism has broad support neither among the people nor among the elites. One of the most remarkable facts about the stabbings and protests that dominate the headlines is how few Palestinians are actually participating in them: a few hundred, and, at moments of dramatic mobilization, perhaps a few thousand.
The simple arithmetic is undeniable: the Palestinian people are not lashing out at the Israelis. They are staying home.
The attackers of Israelis, who are often dying almost instantly in the attempt, are battling, too, the growing Palestinian realization that their national movement has no answers, no narrative or political vision that offers a way forward to better days. Few Palestinians now expect or even seriously fantasize that any sort of victory might flow from these new suicides.
Israelis who ultimately brushed off the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada by continuing with their daily lives will not be cowed by stabbings in the street. The quick deaths the attackers meet time and again only bring the collapse of Palestinian solutions and self-respect - and Israeli unflappability - into sharper relief.
If the Jews can't be made to leave, then what is the value of Palestinian sacrifices made on the altar of this misbegotten strategy?
(Times of Israel)
Ending a Century of Palestinian Rejectionism - Dr. Daniel Pipes
Every year or two a campaign of violence is spurred by Palestinian political and religious leaders spreading wild-eyed conspiracy theories (the favorite: al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is under threat). Each round ends with the Palestinians in a worse place in terms of dead and wounded, buildings destroyed and an economy in tatters.
Further, their immoral and barbaric actions harden Israeli opinion, making the prospect of concessions and compromise that much less likely. Only when Palestinians realize they will not be rewarded for homicidal conduct will they stop their campaign of violence and start to come to terms with the Jewish state.
The writer is president of the Middle East Forum.
(Washington Times)
Palestinians Refuse to Recognize the Jews' Right to a State
- Zalman Shoval
The goal of the terror war being waged across the country is the same goal held by Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, his student Yasser Arafat, and Abbas as well (and of course Hamas and other Islamist groups): the removal of the Jews from their country.
Even within U.S. administration circles, some are beginning to understand that neither the settlements, nor Al-Aqsa, are the reason for the failure to secure peace or calm; rather the Palestinian refusal to come to terms with the permanent existence of the State of Israel.
The writer is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
(Israel Hayom)
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UPDATE:
Abbas Admits He Turned Down Israeli Peace Offer in 2008
PA President Mahmoud Abbas has publicly confirmed for the first time that he turned down a peace offer by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008 that would have provided for an independent Palestinian state containing all of the Gaza Strip, much of the West Bank (with land swaps), and a tunnel connecting the two areas.
In an interview on Israel Channel 10, reporter Raviv Drucker asked Abbas: "In the map that Olmert presented you, Israel would annex 6.3% [of the West Bank] and compensate the Palestinians with 5.8% [taken from pre-1967 Israel]. What did you propose in return?" "I did not agree," Abbas replied. "I rejected it out of hand."
(The Tower)
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