Israel has offered the Palestinians a state, but they have rejected it every time.
JERUSALEM – Following the terrorist organization Hamas’ slaughter of 1,200 people, including over thirty Americans, the Biden administration is coming under increasing pressure to abandon its stance on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
“A two-state solution is not recommended and, even if it were, I do not believe it to be feasible. Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Fox News Digital, “For more than 50 years, hundreds of self-proclaimed ‘peacemakers,’ led by the United States, have attempted to coerce Israel and the Palestinians into a two-state solution.”
Friedman, who was the ambassador to the United States under previous president Trump, stated, “The efforts repeatedly fail regardless of who’s in charge and the reasons are profound and immutable: 1) the Palestinians are not willing to accept a Jewish State; 2) the likelihood of a Palestinian state becoming a terror state is extremely high, presenting an existential threat to Israel; and 3) the West Bank (referred to by Biblical adherents as Judea and Samaria) is biblical Israel and, absent Israeli control, hundreds of Jewish and Christian holy sites will be destroyed.”
In a Washington Post opinion piece published in November 2023, President Biden advocated for Israel and the Palestinians to have two states. “The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own and a future free from Hamas,” wrote Vice President Biden.
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Throughout his week-long tour of the area, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with Israeli and Arab leaders and has emphasized the need for a two-state solution.
“As I told the prime minister, every partner that I met on this trip emphasized that they’re willing to support a durable solution that ends the long-running cycle of bloodshed and protects Israel’s security.
“However, they emphasized that this can only be achieved through a regional approach that includes a path to a Palestinian state,” Blinken said during a press conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. For Israelis, who have lived through many wars and waves of Palestinian terrorism since the Arabs rejected a two-state solution upon the rebirth of the Jewish state in 1947, a peace process with entities that encourage terrorism is less appealing. The British government’s Peel Commission suggested in 1937 that the Holy Land be split between Jews and Arabs, resulting in a two-state solution. The suggested division proposal was rejected by the Arabs.
In 1947, the Arabs, led by the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Husseini, rejected the United Nations partition proposal, which called for two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.
Twenty years after the Arab world rejected the United Nations partition plan for a two-state solution, the Arab League gathered in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1967, and issued its “Three No’s”—no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.
Following the Oslo peace process agreement between Israel and the Palestinians under the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader, Yasser Arafat, in 1994, a setback occurred in 2000.
Arafat firmly refused then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s substantial peace offer to establish a Palestinian state at the turn of the century.
Following Arafat’s rejection of Barak’s offer, the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) launched a second terrorist campaign against Israel, known as the Intifada, killing 1,184 Israelis.
Eight years later, in 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed a broad agreement to recognize a Palestinian state to Arafat’s successor, PLO Chairman and PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas turned down the offer.
The Biden administration sees the Palestinian Authority and its Fatah Party as Israel’s peace partner, with the goal of achieving a unified Palestinian state encompassing the West Bank and Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, and its ruling Fatah Party, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “have yet to condemn Hamas [for the] October 7, 2023 mega-terror attack in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and about 240 were kidnapped.”
MEMRI discovered damaging statements from senior Fatah leaders who sided with Hamas, a terrorist organization banned by the US and the EU.
“Hamas is and will remain part of the [Palestinian] national fabric, part of the [Palestinian] struggle, and part of the Palestinian political fabric,” said Jibril Rajoub, secretary of Fatah’s Central Committee and chairman of the Palestinian Soccer Federation. This campaign [the Gaza war] will serve as a springboard for Palestinian national unity, with one people, one leadership, and one goal in mind: the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with complete sovereignty over all Palestinian areas.”
According to MEMRI, Rajoub said on his Facebook page, “What happened on October 7 was not terror but a natural reaction to the Israeli occupation.”
Veteran Israeli legislator Benny Begin stated to Fox News Digital, “The so-called ‘Two-State Solution’ (TSS) is a political slogan that carries no weight in real life.” Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate chairman, has a tiny key in his jacket lapel that represents the “right” of seven million (his number) descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 conflict that led to the creation of Israel to return to their ancestral homes within Israel. Any kind of Israeli government cannot accept it.”
However, he went on, “The peace accord has to contain the crucial clause that says that it signifies ‘the end of all mutual claims.'” Leaders of the Palestinian Arabs will not be able to sign it unless they fully understand “the right to return” and have hope for survival. Even if they wanted to, which they don’t, they couldn’t handle this.
Begin concluded that, “There are more good arguments that deny the political applicability of the TSS concept, but the foregoing argument should enough. It was the actual reason for the failure of earlier attempts by Israeli leaders to reach a TSS agreement, and pursuing it now is again another costly exercise in futility.”
In the Obama administration, Joel Rubin held the position of deputy assistant secretary of state. He stated to Fox News Digital that “there has never been a clearer need for a peaceful accommodation between Israelis and Palestinians.” Hamas initiated this horrific conflict and is an adversary of peace. However, it won’t end until Hamas’s military capabilities and ability to attack Israeli citizens are eliminated; instead, a political agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that gives the Palestinian people hope will.”
Rubin, who previously served under former President George W. Bush, stated that “It’s this hope that will deter, along with effective security pressure from Israel, a resurgence of Hamas among the Palestinian people after Israel deems its military mission in Gaza complete.”
