14 Days to Go – Do the Palestinians Want Two States?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Two weeks to go to the opening of the 66th Regular Session of the UN General Assembly on September 13th and the vote to grant the Palestinians statehood. The real question of course is do the Palestinian Arab leaders really want a state of their own side by side with Israel or, at the end of the day do they see this as simply the next step to eliminating Israel altogether?

While no one can say for sure, although plenty of people here think that they know the answers, let’s take a look at some things that we do know.

Chairman Abbas continues to refuse to recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and says that he will only recognize Israel as the country of Israelis just as Palestine is the country of the Palestinians. The problem with this formulation is that then Abbas goes on to say that the future state of Palestine will not have any Jews living in it. Why? Because it is the national homeland of the Palestinian people, and, as such should not have any Jews living in it. Abbas clearly figures that if he recognizes Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people Israel might very well say, similarly to what he says about Palestine, that the country can only have Jews living in it (even though everyone knows that would not be the position of the government here).

What does that have to say about the Palestinian Arab leadership’s view of a two state solution? Does it support the concept or detract from it? By the way, Abbas then goes on to say that if there are multinational forces stationed in Palestine to keep the peace they cannot contain any Israelis even they are citizens of other countries whose troops are part of the peace keeping contingent. That’s less bothersome than his original formulation a few weeks ago when he said those forces could not contain Jews.

Yesterday Abbas came out with another clarification. As some are now saying that if the UN votes in favor of a Palestinian state, this might abrogate the right of “refugees” to return to their homes in Israel, Abbas now says “Absolutely not.” His position is that even if the state of Palestine is created side by side with Israel, the refugees will still have a right to return to their former homes in Israel and this will be part of further negotiations. Remember that as of the end of 2010 there were 5 million refugees according to UNRWA (who counts as refugees all of the descendants of those who left Israel 63 years ago) of whom 1.5 million were still living in refugee camps. Does this support the concept of two states living side by side in peace and security or detract from it?

Earlier this week Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqi’ was quoted as saying Israel is the “major harvesting and trading center” of body organs in the world. Claiming that Israel was “holding the remains of 338 Arab and Palestinian fighters” in secret cemeteries, he said the “holding of the martyrs’ remains for many years casts doubts and accusations that Israel assassinated them after detention, or harvested their organs.” Does such language contribute to the development of two states living side by side n peace and security or detract from it?

And finally, recently senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar speaking to Al Jazeera, said that Palestinians will not give up their right to Palestine, and will not recognize the rule of Poles and Ethiopians in their land. He clarified by saying “Talks are a means, but recognition is a matter of principle. Palestine is hallowed ground and Hamas will never recognize Israel.” What do you think? Does such language contribute to the development of two states living side by side in peace and security or detract from it?

It would certainly seem that given the fact that the Palestinian Arab leadership had numerous opportunities to gain statehood side by side with Israel in the past and rejected it, the current language certainly does not augur well for progress towards a balanced two state solution. Rather it gives credence to those who take the position that the ultimate goal is to expunge Israel from the region.

So it would seem that the task before Israel’s diplomats is to continue to do all in their power to influence the “important” countries of the world to either vote against the UN resolution for statehood or, if they are not of a mind to do so, at least to work on moderating the language of the resolution so that it becomes less of a dramatic step. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to keep up the pressure with letters, demonstrations and a lot of noise objecting to this march by the Palestinian Arab leadership to what could end up to be theirs and our undoing.