The Biden administration is currently pushing the idea of the Two-State Solution between Israel and the Palestinians, specifically between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), led by the 87-year-old Mahmoud Abbas.  In an ideal world, the Two-State Solution would seem reasonable and fair.  The Palestinian people deserve self-determination as a people with a shared religion, culture, and language.  Notably, the same culture, religion, and language are also substantially shared by 22 other Arab countries, including the Jordanian Arabs just across the Jordan River.

There is, however, a serious disconnect between Biden’s (and the West’s) two-state “solution” for Palestinians and Israelis and the Palestinian vision of what their state must be.  There is simply no widely respected Palestinian leader or group or political entity advocating for two states if one of the states is a permanent Jewish state (Israel).  On this issue, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank strongly agree.  Since 1948, Palestinians openly seek to replace the Jewish state rather than live side by side with it.  For the P.A., a two-state “solution” can at most be only an intermediary stage on the way to the ultimate elimination of Israel.

The Biden administration is not referring to Hamas as a party to the Two-State Solution since Hamas has openly declared its intention to wipe out the Jewish state.  However, the current leadership of the P.A. and its leader differ from Hamas only in verbiage, sounding softer when interacting in English with Westerners.  Both Hamas and the P.A. are wedded to the principle that Israel is illegitimate, and terror and violence against Israelis constitute legitimate resistance.  The P.A.’s educational system, propaganda, media, and mosques encourage religious hate for Israel, and the P.A. rewards violence against Jews by paying lifetime salaries to the families of Muslims who die murdering Jews.

If Italy, for instance, were the party in dispute with Israel, peace would have been found a long time ago.  Shared democratic values with Israel make an enduring peace possible.  Democracies with shared values are able to compromise and work together for the common good.  France and Germany did it after two murderous world wars that killed millions on both sides.  When Germany became a liberal democracy after WWII, a “two-state solution” of living side by side in peace became possible.  They formed a common market that served both peoples well.  This is not the case with the P.A.; it is an authoritarian regime.

Israel is a diverse, multicultural society with a liberal multiparty democracy, a flourishing economy, and a sincere desire for peace.  The U.N. voted for the Two-State Solution with the Partition Plan of 1947, crafting a Jewish state and an Arab state.  The Israelis immediately agreed and accepted a Palestinian state next to Israel.  Israeli culture, literature, and music constantly extol a desire for peace and mutual acceptance.

Most Israelis throughout the nation’s 75 years of independence have prayed for peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors.  Conversely, ever since the Palestinian people recognized themselves politically as Palestinians, they have rejected every offer of compromise with the Jewish community.  It started with the 1937 Peel Commission, continued with a strong and violent rejection of the 1947 U.N. Two-State Solution Partition Plan, and more recently involved P.A. leaders Yasser Arafat in 2000 and Mahmoud Abbas in 2008 saying “no” to a peace settlement with Israel.

Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn, Arafat, the chairman of the P.A.; the Palestinian Liberation Organization; and Fatah admitted that the Oslo Accords were simply a “Trojan Horse,” meant to be a stage in the dissolution of the Jewish state.

At the Camp David Summit in July 2000, hosted by President Bill Clinton, Arafat refused to end the conflict with Israel.  Clinton bemoaned Arafat’s unwillingness to make peace.  Newsweek magazine (June 26, 2001) described Clinton’s reaction to Arafat’s reluctance to make peace with Israel. “He described Arafat as an aging leader who relishes his own sense of victimhood and seems incapable of making a final peace deal.”

In 2008, Arafat’s successor, Abbas (Abu Mazen), repeated Arafat’s refusal to accept a Two-State Solution and end the conflict with Israel.  Abbas understood that his radicalized people did not want a compromise with the Jews, but wanted the “whole pie” — namely, Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Safed...  Nothing has changed about the Palestinian leadership and the people they govern with regard to compromise and peace with Israel.  In fact, a majority of West Bank Palestinians support Hamas’s agenda.

Reuters reported (December 13, 2023) on a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research (PCPSR), which found that “Three out four Palestinians believe the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel was correct.”  It revealed that “seventy-two percent of respondents said they believe the Hamas decision to launch the cross-border rampage in southern Israel was correct.”  The same PCPSR report found that support for Hamas in the West Bank “has more than tripled.”

The Biden administration is dangerously delusional in its denial of two critical realities: (1) with 11% approval from his people, Mahmoud Abbas’s ability to lead a Palestinian state is seriously suspect, and no one in the world has the slightest clue what or who will succeed him, and (2) Palestinians overwhelmingly deny that Israel has a right to exist and at best view the two-state “solution” as temporary, providing the cover of sovereignty to facilitate rearming and finally removing the Jews.

Staying with likely reality over wishful fantasy, a Palestinian state, now or in the near future, is more than likely to be another terrorist state, supported by Iran, where Hamas or a lookalike leads and uses a new base in the West Bank to attack Israel.

Image: scottgunn via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.