As a former radio talk show host on WMCA–New York, I had the opportunity to discuss the Middle East with numerous public figures and, in particular, with members of the U.S. Congress.  The issue most germane to our discussions was Israeli-Palestinian peace. 

I would present the Israeli narrative and point out that Israel had made significant sacrifices for peace.  Citing the Camp David Accords of 1979, I noted that Israel gave up the strategic depth of the Sinai Peninsula, the oil fields of Abu Rudeis, and Yamit — a beautiful community Israel had built in the Sinai that bordered Gaza — in order to reach the agreement with Egypt.

Egypt, for its part, gave Israel a cold peace — the kind of peace that more resembled a cold war without actual military engagements.  This agreement followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt attacked Israel, without any provocation, on the holiest day for the Jewish people. 

Nevertheless, for Israel, the sacrifice was worth it.  The dream of the leaders and people of the Jewish state, since its founding in May 1948, was to make peace with its neighbors, and especially with the Arabs of Palestine.

Since the inception of the Zionist movement, the leading proponents, from Leo Pinsker and Theodore Herzl to Zeev Jabotinsky, sought to effect a compromise with the Arabs in Palestine (later to be known as Palestinians).

The Jews of Palestine, led by Ben-Gurion, accepted the recommendation of the 1937 British Peel Commission, which would have allotted 72% of Palestine to the Arabs.

Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Arabs in Palestine, rejected compromise.  The Arab revolt against the British Mandatory government, and the Jewish community (the Yishuv), ensued. 

Repeated offers to the Palestinians of statehood made in the November 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, the July 2000 Camp David Summit, and the 2008 Mahmoud Abbas–Ehud Olmert Summit were all rejected, despite considerable Israeli concessions.  For the Palestinians, it has always been a zero-sum deal, and no compromise.

I could just as easily present the Palestinian narrative. 

With Jewish sovereignty having ended after the Romans defeated the Jews of Judea led by Bar Kokhba (132-135) and Byzantine oppression further reducing the Jewish majority, the Arab conquest of Palestine (so named by the Romans) followed.

Following the conquest of the Holy Land in 638 by the Muslim caliph Omar, most of the remaining Christians and some of the Jewish population were eventually converted to Islam.  It was a choice between poverty and dhimmitude (oppressed and subjected to a protection tax) and Islam.

The Arabs of Palestine were on the land for hundreds of years and constituted, at one time, the majority.  Islam and Muslims dominated the Middle East until WWI, when the British seized Palestine from the Ottoman Turks. 

Many Arab Palestinians would later become refugees as a result of the 1948 War, which was waged against the Jewish community (previously Jewish Palestinians) when they declared the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel. 

The Zionist leaders, and Herzl in particular, were adamant that the renewed Jewish presence in Palestine be not just historical, but legal as well.  The 1920 San Remo conference gave the Balfour Declaration legal status.  The Jews, moreover, unlike the European pilgrims who settled in America, had an ancient connection to the land of Israel.

Now that I have laid out the historical background, it is time to deal with the here and now.  The Palestinians (Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Palestinian Authority) all use terror and, when pressured with the incentives of Western aid, will occasionally negotiate with Israel while indirectly supporting terror against Israel.  The oft-repeated condition Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) places for a deal with Israel is the return of millions of Palestinian refugees to Israel.  He knows that this will never be accepted — primarily because that will mean the end of the Jewish state — but he thinks he will be seen as negotiating.

Olmert, the Israeli prime minister negotiating with Abu Mazen, offered to allow a few thousand Palestinian refugees to come to Israel as a compromise, but that too was rejected.  The zero-sum mentality of Palestinian leaders, stretching from Hajj Amin al-Husseini through Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, will never bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  Their intransigence has cost the loss of lives and hope.

The Saudi plan for a two-state solution, though acceptable in principle, isn’t practical at this time for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, Hamas is now the dominant force in Palestinian society.  Abbas is unpopular, as is his Fatah party, known for corruption and incompetence.  More important, however, is the fact that the Palestinians have not accepted the existence of a sovereign Jewish state.  Any sign of Israeli military or social weakness would unleash an all-out campaign of terror to liquidate the Jewish state.

The Zionist visionary Zeev Jabotinsky wrote a manifesto called “The Iron Wall.”  In it he expressed respect for the Arab Palestinian commitment to their cause.  He argued, however, that if the Jewish state is to survive, it must erect a strong military wall until such a day when the Palestinians will be ready to compromise. 

The cultural and religious upbringing of young Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is deeply influenced by their educational system, the media, and the mosque.  Compromise with the “Jewish usurpers” is unacceptable, haram.  “Islam is the solution” is now the dominant ideological feature.  And since Islam is taught to be the prevailing power of the future, and since the Crusaders came and were eventually expelled, so they believe that the Jews of Israel will disappear.  Muslim triumphalism dictates that Islam will eventually win; therefore, compromise is not in their vocabulary, and genuine peace can hardly be made without compromise.

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