September 20, 2022

Why a Two-State Solution based on land-for-peace is bound to fail

Dear Friend of FLAME:

Anyone who still supports the idea of a Two-State Solution—like the Biden Administration, which promotes the notion at every mention of “Middle East”—has to answer one very tough question.

Why did the Palestinians reject generous offers of land for peace—including a capital in Jerusalem—when Israel made them in 2000, 2001 and 2008?

Think about it: What was their problem . . . what was their reason?

To get the answer, start with three explicit demands made by the Palestinians during those peace negotiations:

1. No peace without the “Palestinian refugees’ right of return” to Israel. Understand first: There is no international law or precedent for “returning” refugees to their homelands. Refugees are commonly resettled in nations to which they fled.

Understand also: “Refugees” here doesn’t refer to the standard definition—people displaced from their homes during a military conflict. Rather, to Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, “refugees” refers also to all descendants of refugees—children, grandchildren and generations to come.

In 2008, those descendants numbered some four million. Arafat and Abbas knew that if four million Palestinian Arabs were to “return” to Israel—a place where 90% had never set foot—it would create a demographic tsunami, swamping the Jewish population and ending the Jewish state.

It was no surprise that Israel ignored this “right of return” demand—it would have been suicide. But it also should have alerted American and Israeli negotiators that the Palestinians wouldn’t likely buy their offer of land for peace.

2. No acceptance of the Jewish state of Israel. Arafat and Abbas simply could not swallow acquiescing to a Jewish nation in their midst—would not allow themselves to be the first Arabs to openly accept “infidels” on inviolable Muslim land.

It was another deal-killer, another sign the Palestinians wanted more than just a piece of land for a state.

3. No cessation of “complaints” against Israel. In other words, a peace treaty with Israel would not mean peace. The Palestinians would preserve their right to pursue grievances —including Israel’s “original sin” of statehood—in the United Nations and conceivably even via continued armed “resistance.”

Suffice it to say, such a stipulation of the right to continue fighting never appears in international peace treaties—it’s a glaring contradiction. That, however, did not stop the maximalist Palestinians. Why?

Simple: Accepting Israel definitively would compromise Arafat’s “strategy of phases,” in which the Jewish state would be defeated in a stepwise fashion—even after a peace treaty. As columnist Michael Kelly in the Washington Post spelled out, “In that strategy, the point is to ostensibly pursue peace while waging episodic war, using the cover of the former to consolidate the gains of the latter; accepting (or pretending to accept) compromises now as necessary to gain time and ground toward an absolute win.”

Given these three Palestinian Arab demands, in retrospect it’s easy to see why the land-for-peace offers failed. It’s also easy to see why Trump’s “deal of the century” failed—since it offered the Palestinians investments of $80 billion dollars to set up their economy and create the institutions of statehood—which is not what they want.

But the most important factor in killing land-for-peace offers is even more obvious. When you hear it, you will slap your forehead and cry out, “ Duh!”

4. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. In every Palestinian classroom there is a map of the region—including what is now Israel, Gaza and the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). This entire area is filled in solid and labeled “Palestine.”

From the beginning of the Palestinian Arab national struggle, in 1964, the focus has been on the elimination of Israel. Remember that at that time, Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria. There was no call among the Palestinians for Jordan’s removal or for a state in those territories.

There were also no Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. They weren’t an issue then, and they’re not the issue today.

Rather, Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization stood for removal of the Jews and an Arab replacement state where Israel stands. Later, when Israel drove Jordan out of the (West Bank of the Jordan River) territories, the PLO expanded its charter to include all the land—from the river to the sea.

The charter of Hamas in Gaza is even clearer: It states with abundant force that a) the conflict with Israel (and Jewish infidels) is religious and political; b) all Palestine is Muslim, and no Arab can give it up; and (c) jihad (holy war) is the main method for Hamas to restore it and achieve victory.

Taken together, these four demands make crystal clear why land for peace has been a failed formula. Why then were negotiators so surprised when the Palestinians rejected their conscientious, heartfelt and generous offers?

As every salesperson knows, before you can sell something, you have to know what the customer wants to buy. For nearly 60 years the Palestinian Arabs have been telling us what they’re shopping for, but we refuse to believe them.

Apparently, negotiators think they know better what the Palestinians want than the Palestinians themselves. Apparently, the good-hearted peacemakers have been wrong all this time.

Land for peace doesn’t motivate the Palestinians, because it’s not what they want. They want Palestine to be free, from the river to the sea. “Duh!”

Please point out to friends, family, elected representatives—and in letters to the editor—that any two-state solution that relies on land for peace is bound to fail until the Palestinians renounce their four deal-breaking demands.

Until both Palestinian dictatorships abandon the so-called right of return, accept the Jewish state, agree to stop fighting Israel once peace is negotiated—and above all, relinquish their obsession to destroy Israel—no peace solution is possible.

Emphasize, too, that so-called settlements in Judea and Samaria are beside the point. There were no Jewish communities in these territories before 1967, and the Palestinians had the same overarching goal of eliminating the Jewish state.

Pressure on Israel to stop expanding communities in Judea and Samaria misses the main point. Palestinians don‘t like Jewish communities in the territories for the same reason they don’t like them in Tel Aviv—they are Jewish.

I hope you'll also take a minute, while you have this material front and center, to forward this message to friends, visit FLAME's lively Facebook page and review the P.S. immediately below. It describes FLAME's new hasbarah campaign—"The Palestinian Catastrophe”—which exposes the false narrative of “Nakba Day,” commemorating Palestinians’ missed opportunity for independence.

Best regards,

James Sinkinson, President
Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)