In "Israel must choose: Withdraw from the occupied territories or grant Palestinians under its control full rights" (1/6/22), Mairav Zonszein, an Israeli-American journalist and analyst for the Crisis Group, attempts to lecture Israel on its obligations to the people who wish to destroy it.

What irony!  Israel is lambasted for considering unilateral steps and, in this article, is lambasted for the opposite!

The Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank are not "occupied."  In the Oslo Accords, the parties agreed to divide control over those territories until they could decide their legal status through further negotiations.  It would therefore be more accurate to say the lands are "disputed."

Further, Zonszein omitted that the Palestinians have been offered states numerous times and have walked away from the negotiation table without making counteroffers.  President Bill Clinton and ambassador and longtime negotiator Dennis Ross confirmed this.

The Palestinians' chief sticking point in negotiations is to flood Israel with enough of its citizens to destroy it.  What part of "wanting their own state" does flooding the neighbor state define?

Zonszein has it backward.  The real choice needs to be made by the Palestinian people.  Their leadership clearly likes the status quo — they have been able to steal billions from the world community and the Palestinian people for whom aid is meant.  Do Palestinians want a state of their own now, or do they want to hold out until they feel they can destroy Israel?  That is up to them to answer, for the conflict to conclude.

Image: Washington Post.