(Mosaic) Rafi DeMogge - If a Palestinian state were to be established, it would almost certainly find itself in armed conflict with Israel, either as a belligerent party or as a passive victim unable to exert full sovereignty within its borders and restrain terrorist groups like Hamas. Past acts of goodwill on the Israeli side have not been reciprocated, and in fact have often been followed by increased levels of violence. Shortly after the unsuccessful Camp David Summit in 2000, Yasir Arafat launched the second intifada. After Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas overthrew the Palestinian Authority and immediately began launching rockets at Israel. The Oct. 7 massacre came at a period of relative calm in Gaza, during which Qatari cash was allowed to flow in and record numbers of guest workers could commute from Gaza to Israel. A second reason to be pessimistic about territorial concessions to the Palestinians is Palestinian public opinion. The Palestinian education system from a very early age teaches violent antisemitism, encourages terrorism, and glorifies martyrdom. There is ample, immediate evidence of extreme and pro-terror views throughout Palestinian society. Surveys since 2000 published by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research reveal a society where extremists are a firm majority, where the desire to extinguish Israel and all Jewish presence from historical Palestine is ubiquitous, and where the primary driver of these attitudes isn't past wrongs that the Palestinians suffered from Israel, but religious fundamentalism and an eliminationist liberation theology. While Western analysts often emphasize that one must distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian people, at the ideological level the distinction is all but fiction. Hamas's ideology and behavior are an authentic expression of Palestinian nationalism and Palestinian national aspirations today. Because much of the local Palestinian population is aligned with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, or other jihadist organizations, even if Israel withdrew from most of the West Bank, and even if the unpopular Palestinian Authority (or its successor) sincerely tried to retain peaceful relations with Israel, without the IDF's presence, the Palestinian entity's peaceful government would be overthrown or would give way to anarchy from local jihadist militias. Rafi DeMogge is the pseudonym of an Israel-based author and researcher who writes on political demography.
2025-02-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive