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Abbas' Successor Won't Make a Difference When It Comes to Peace
(JNS) Harold Rhode - The Israeli and American establishments spend a lot of time over who should replace PA leader Mahmoud Abbas when he's gone. But any Palestinian (Muslim) will end up acting the same towards Israel. Why? Because the root problem is that no Muslim leader can sign a final peace agreement with the non-Muslim State of Israel and remain alive. He would be labeled a traitor because, according to the Shari'a, once a land is conquered by Muslims, it must remain Muslim forever. Muslims conquered all of these lands in 637 CE. All of pre-1967 Israel must, therefore, remain under Islamic rule. The non-Muslim Jewish state of Israel, from their perspective, has no right to exist because it is not Muslim. If a Palestinian leader would sign any such agreement, the people he supposedly would lead would destroy him. The Muslim struggle for the land will continue, no matter who is leading the Palestinian people. Dr. Harold Rhode, a Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, served for 28 years as an advisor on the Islamic world in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense.