Is This a Two State Solution — or a “Final Solution?”

Sarah Stern and Kyle Shideler

The Palestinian UN statehood bid — statehood without negotiations — which is now before the Security Council, is just the latest step in a never-ceasing effort by the Palestinian leadership to erase the State of Israel. This is the Two State Solution on the way to Hitler’s “Final Solution” — the destruction of the Jewish people.  The goal of this UN end-run, the establishment of a Palestinian state in the disputed territories, is understood by the Palestinians as only a stepping stone for the eventually destruction of Israel. The Palestinians are not quiet or shy about openly trumpeting their goal. As Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki said on September 23rd:

“The settlement should be based upon the borders of June 4, 1967. When we say that the settlement should be based upon these borders, President [Abbas] understands — we understand — and everybody knows — that the greater goal [the destruction of Israel] cannot be accomplished in one go.  If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end!  If we say that we want to wipe Israel out…It’s not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don’t say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.”

This two-step process to Israel’s destruction was recently given an even more evil and shocking twist by the PA’s ambassador to Lebanon, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah, who told the Lebanon Daily Star, that any future Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza would NOT allow the return of Palestinian refugees from the refugee camps or elsewhere in the world as citizens of the new state.  UN statehood he claimed was not be for the refugees, but only the first step in assuring the refugees’ “right of return” to the State of Israel. “Statehood will never affect the right of return [to Israel] for Palestinian refugees, he said.”

What does it mean when UN recognition of a state is the cause of an even greater and bloodier conflict; when UN recognition enables one party to extend a war of destruction and annihilation.  As Ambassador Abdullah openly declared, “When we [Palestinians] have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

What other nationalist movement cynically seeks a state that will NOT serve as a homeland for its scattered people?  Only the Palestinians! They want the destruction of Israel more then they want a home for Palestinians the world over.  This has been the constant objective of Palestinians demands since 1948. The conditions of a Palestinian state were less important than the annihilation of the Jewish State

While the public language of the Palestinians has stressed land and statehood, this conflict is not about land — but rather the Arabs’ total refusal to recognize the State of Israel. Says Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon:

“The truth is that even though the conflict has a strong territorial component, since two peoples see the same piece of land as their homeland, the heart of the conflict is existential, and centers on the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize the Jews’ right to build their national home in this land, whatever its borders may be. This is why the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.”

That is why the Palestinians continue their denial and incitement going so far as displaying statehood maps at the UN showing a Palestine state that was not next to Israel — but replaced it.  It is why they chose a woman, whose seven children were all Israeli prisoners for terror offenses, including four of them serving time for murder, to lead their Statehood campaign.  And it is why the Palestinians continue to pay the salaries of terrorists in Israeli prisons with funds from generous Western donors.

As the columnist Charles Krauthammer pointed out last week, the difference between the failed “land-for-peace” negotiations of the past and this latest U.N. gambit, is that this new Palestinian move is to have “land without peace,” avoiding even a pretense of recognizing Israel, which Abu Mazen has bluntly refused to do.

Any peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians must start with recognition of a Palestinian State and recognition as Israel as a Jewish State. There cannot be a repeat of the phony Oslo formulation where the Palestinians claim to have recognized Israel, but persist in continuously deny its right to exist as a Jewish homeland. The only way to peace will be after Palestinians’ recognize Israel as it actually is –  the Jewish state — and the declaration that this is the FINAL end of the conflict and that they have absolutely no further claims. The onus is on the Palestinians to demonstrate that their declaration of peace is not simply some tactical stage in a plan to eventually eradicate the Jewish State.  Until the Palestinians are prepared to take this step, all the negotiations in the world, all the land swaps, all the territorial concessions, cannot bring peace.