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No Palestinian State Can Be Established Except through Israel
(Irish Times) Haviv Rettig Gur - The popular fantasy among too many supporters of a free Palestine that suggests Israelis can be brow-beaten into a prompt withdrawal from the West Bank is rooted in simple ignorance. The Palestinians are too weak, are divided into two territories, and are too entwined with the Israeli economy - even Hamas in Gaza uses Israeli shekels as its currency - to have any hope of a prosperous, free future without first achieving reconciliation with Israel. To this day, the Palestinian Authority refuses to drop its demand for an unlimited number of descendants of Palestinian refugees to be allowed into Israel. But the Jews will not easily give up their national identity or state by accepting a Palestinian right to Israel. Israel is not the fragile political structure that Palestinians or their supporters imagine. It is a nation, a distinct culture and identity, speaking a language spoken nowhere else. It has two million schoolchildren, and it is grimly determined to fight any war it must in their defense.