Gary Rosenblatt writes that, on one hand, “the primary reason there has been no peace with the Palestinians is that the Palestinians refuse to recognize the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own,” yet, on the other, that Israeli leaders must sit down “with Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, soon, while they are still in control, in an effort to avert the UN showdown and keep Hamas out of the process” (“Bad As Israel’s Situation Is, It May Well Get Worse,” June 10).
In other words, Israel is urged to make more one-sided concessions to the PA because, if it doesn’t, Palestinians and their supporters will try and harm Israel in other ways at the UN.
This is panic, not policy. Any approach that fails to take account of the fact that the Palestinians do not accept the idea of a permanent peace with the Jewish state is doomed to failure. Starting negotiations that will inevitably fail, even if it were possible to convene them, will make matters worse for Israel internationally, not better.
Israel has given up Gaza and half of the West Bank to the PA. Why should Israel make concessions because the PA is now openly violating the Oslo process by seeking to bypass negotiations and achieve a unilateral declaration of statehood?
Israel’s priority must be to expose to the world the truth of the PA campaign promoting violence and hatred against Israel and the ultimate destruction of the Jewish state. It must not play along with the charade that the reality is different. Unfortunately, this effort has hardly been started.
National President Zionist Organization of America
