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| Hatem Abudayyeh addressing the media yesterday in Chicago (JTA) |
That’s because Palestinian protestors are not only saying that. Although that is what they tell the media when they are interviewed. What they really want is what the signs and posters they carry say. The most ubiquitous of which are the ones that say, ‘Free Palestine! Some add ’from the river to the sea!’ Other signs and posters say ‘End the occupation’. They don’t mean ending it on the West Bank. They mean ending it in all of Palestine. I have heard countless Palestinians in Gaza refer to the entirety of Israel as occupied territory. This is the Palestinian protesters in the US want. There can be no doubt about that.
Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesman for the Coalition and U.S. Palestinian Community Network, that will be hosting what will likely be the largest Palestinian demonstration during the DNC convention - keeps talking about their demands of a cease fire. But he recently ‘slipped up’ and talked about ‘occupied Palestine’. Not the occupied West Bank.
Make no mistake. These protests are not about ending the war in Gaza. They are about ending Israel’s existence. They are just clever enough to talk only about a cease fire. And demand that the US end its support for Israel altogether.
As part of their strategy they use the word genocide based on the images of war seen daily in the news media. Images that are easy to blame on Israel whose airstrikes aimed at Hamas terrorists - kill the innocent civilians those terrorists had embedded themselves into.
This has become a very effective tool for the protestors. Day after day the media focuses on images of massive numbers of deaths - citing the exaggerated numbers of the Hamas run heath ministry. Numbers that do not distinguish between terrorists and civilians. Numbers that are accompanied with claims that it was mostly women and children being killed.
What about the hostages kidnapped and treated so brutally by Hamas Palestinians? These protesters don’t give a flying fig about them.
Over the past 10 months I have heard one-sided supposed ‘experts’ of the conflict discuss the war and concede that Hamas did something bad on October 7th. But they will quickly add that what Israel is doing in response is much worse by orders of magnitude.- given the numbers.
Then these so-called experts will say something like the following. In order to solve the conflict we need to deal with the root cause of the problem. By which they of course mean the occupation. As if there was no fault at all on the part of Palestinians who would just love to live in peace and brotherhood next to their Jewish neighbors in their own state.
The occupation isn’t the root cause. The real reason there is an occupation and not 2 states is because Palestinians don’t really want 2 states. They want one state. A Palestinian state with no Jewish state anywhere near it That is what they have always wanted and what they still want. They do not want to live side by side with the Jews. They wan the Jews out of there! Their leaders in the PA put on a good show - claiming 2 states is what they want. But that is all it is. A show. They are all raised with the same Jew hatred. That is an indisputable fact. Hatred that is constantly being reinforced throughout their lives
If Palestinians really wanted to live in peace in their own state side by side with ‘the Jews ’they could have done so. They had been given every opportunity to embrace such a deal - and rejected it every time. When Israel evacuated Gaza giving Palestinians full control over it, they did not decide to show the world what a 2 state solution could look like. Palestinians did not build a community of economic growth or industrial progress. They chose Hamas, a terrorist group to lead them. Hamas built terror tunnels from which to attack Israel - with the goal of freeing all of Palestine from the hated Jews.
When they succeeded in their Holocaust level mission on October 7th, Palestinians felt a sense of victory for their cause. And now, after 10 months of death, disease, and destruction, they still prefer Hamas for their leadership. As though what Hamas did on October 7th had nothing to do with their misery.
We know the root cause. It isn’t the occupation. The ‘occupation’ is just the response to the terrorism that comes out of West Bank Palestinian towns in the cause of freeing all of Palestine from the Jews. The ‘occupation’ is the only way that Israel can protect its people from the hate inspired attacks of Palestinian terrorists. Hate they have imprinted in their brains from the day they are born.
So what is the real solution then?
The truth is that I actually do believe in a 2 state solution in theory. But there is one very important thing that must happen first. Something that will take at least a generation to implement. And I’m not even sure it’s possible.
But on the theory that it is possible what absolutely must happen before a 2 state solution is considered is the complete elimination of Jew hatred from the Arab and Muslim world. Starting with the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
If a new generation will arise that does not see Jews as evil incarnate that must be eliminated by any and all means necessary, then we can talk about 2 states where there would be mutual respect for each other. Where there can be a cross fertilization of ideas between two peoples in all matters. Where there will be actual friendship instead of hate.
That will require a lot of work on the Israeli side as well. The settler movement will have to end its quest to occupy every inch of biblical Israel and wait until the coming of Moshiach. It will be a hard sell and might require some drastic action. But it will be worth it if there is going to be a ‘US-Canada’ type relationship between the two countries. It takes two to tango.
Problem is – as Ross Perot used to say, ‘The devil is in the details’. It’s one thing to suggest a utopian idea like that. It is another to actually implement it. And as I indicated, I don’t know if it’s even possible anymore. If it ever really was.