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The Palestinians Are at a Dead End

(Israel Hayom) Prof. Eyal Zisser - Hamas is no longer hiding the fact that the demonstrations along the border fence are not intended to be quiet marches but rather attempts to carry out attacks on Israeli forces and civilians. Hamas has nothing to offer the residents of Gaza other than violence and terrorist attacks, while the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has been keeping mum. At the same time, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his friends cannot escape the trap they closed on themselves when they turned up their noses at the American administration's attempts to kick-start the peace process. It would appear that the sources of Palestinian weakness have never changed: the lack of a national identity that supersedes the tribe, the clan, or the village and is anything more than a rejection of Zionism; the lack of any legitimate, effective leadership that lays out a path and convinces the public to take it; a weak economy; religious radicalization; and, above all, depending on others to rescue the Palestinians from their distress. This is a challenging reality for Israel, because it means that the hope that one day Israel would find a Palestinian partner for either a peace deal or in the case of Gaza, a truce, is a false one. It's hard to think that the Palestinians in their current situation are capable of compromising, much less making a compromise acceptable to Israel. The writer, vice rector at Tel Aviv University, is former director of its Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.
2018-05-04 00:00:00
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