Forgive me if I respond to calls for Palestinian statehood with profound skepticism, if not outright disbelief. It’s not just that the Hamas-led terror attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the broad support it received among Palestinians, has deepened Israelis distrust of Palestinians (assuming that was even possible), it is that there is nothing to suggest their leadership is ready to abandon decades of rejectionism, incitement and violence—flowery statements about the need for a “lasting peace” by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas notwithstanding.
The Palestinian leadership didn’t merely walk away from prior peace offers, including in 2000, 2008 and 2014, it has rejected the very notion of a Jewish state on any borders. That’s the clear message behind its glorifying of terrorist murderers, paying stipends to the families of terrorists (known as “pay for slay”), denying the Jewish people’s historic connection to Jerusalem, turning post-2005 Gaza into a terror base, indoctrinating Palestinian children in U.N.-funded schools with genocidal Jew-hatred and more.
There are countless...
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