(Los Angeles Jewish Journal) Rabbi Yitz Greenberg - Hamas' October 7 pogrom severely wounded the shrinking hope for a Palestinian state. Restarting the Israel-Palestinian peace program can't happen until (and unless) we can convince the Palestinians to change their narrative and decide to live with a Jewish state. Zionism's key teaching was that every people is entitled to the dignity of self-government. Therefore, just as the Jews created a Jewish state, I hoped that the Palestinians would fulfill their dreams for self-determination. The Hamas atrocity dramatizes why now, a majority of Israelis believe that the Palestinians are not fit or are too dangerous to have their own state. The main reason that the Palestinians are stateless is that they premised their statehood on destroying the Jewish state. The historical record shows that Palestinian policies are the main obstacle to Palestinian statehood and that the Palestinians are responsible for their own failure to achieve sovereignty. Palestinian nationalism is embedded in a policy of terrorism and a denial of the Jewish state's right to exist. Hamas' charter states that its goal is not only to wipe out Israel but also to kill all Jews. The writer, a leading Jewish thinker, has written extensively on post-Holocaust Jewish religious thought, Jewish-Christian relations, pluralism, and the ethics of Jewish power.
2023-11-17 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive