Peace with Israel? Ask the ‘Palestinians’

According to news reports, the nations will soon try yet again to bring peace to the Arab-Israel conflict (Tova Lazaroff, Daniel Roth, “French prime minister arrives in Israel to promote peace initiative, economic ties”, jerusalempost, May 22, 2016). This time, it’s the French who will lead the charge (ibid).

Diplomats, world leaders and, much to their shame, many Jews will call for ‘peace’. They will pressure Israel to yield to the demands of Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the ‘Palestinian’ Authority.  But has anyone asked the ‘Palestinians’ themselves how they feel about peace with Israel?

This isn’t a difficult question to answer. Over the last 20 years, ‘Palestinians’ have responded to hundreds of polls about this very question (Daniel Polisar, What do Palestinians want?” mosaic, November 2, 2015). If you want to know how ‘Palestinians’ feel about peace with Israel, read those polls. 

Daniel Polisar has (ibid). He’s examined 330 surveys carried out by major Western pollsters and by major Palestinian research institutes, which he names (ibid). The poll results he has examined are uniformly consistent: ‘Palestinians’ support violence against Israel, not peace.

Polisar argues that these polls are carefully constructed and properly taken. They’re scientifically solid. That’s why, he says, the margin of error is typically 3 to 5 percent, with a confidence level of 95 percent.

The polls show that ‘Palestinians’ harbour no love for Israel. With rare exception, these 330 polls show that ‘Palestinians’ see Israel as “implacably hostile and even demonic” (ibid). Here are just a few findings Polisar discusses:

-In problems that necessarily involved both Israel and the ‘Palestinians’, massive ‘Palestinian’ majorities blamed Israel and denied any responsibility on their side (ibid).

-Respondents see Israel as so diabolical as to act in ways detrimental to the Jewish state’s own interests, so long as those acts cause suffering to ‘Palestinians’ (ibid).

-On over two dozen occasions since 2009, when polls asked respondents what were Israel’s long-term goals, an average of 59% said that Israel seeks to expand Israel, take over all of the Jordan River valley, and expel more than four million Arabs (ibid)—even though in the last 25 years no Israeli Knesset member, respected public figure, or major media personality has advocated such a view (ibid).

-Since 1999, polls show that ‘Palestinians’ perceive Israelis as violent, dishonest, untrustworthy, ‘clever’ and ‘diabolical’ in nature (ibid).

-In a 2011 Pew Research Center poll, 88 percent of ‘Palestinians’ said Judaism was the most violent of religions (the other choices were Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism) (ibid).

-In a 2011 poll by the American political consultant Stanley Greenberg, 72 percent of ‘Palestinian’ respondents declared it morally right to deny that “Jews have a long history in Jerusalem going back thousands of years” (ibid).  90 percent declared that “Denying that Palestinians have a long history in Jerusalem going back thousands of years” to be morally wrong (ibid).

-‘Palestinians’ overwhelmingly reject dividing Jerusalem between Jew and Arab (Jerusalem, they believe, must be 100% Arab).

-Depending on the poll, between 65-80% of ‘Palestinians’ believe that Jews have no right whatsoever to land in Israel; all the land is ‘Palestinian’, not Jewish.

-In 21 polls between December 2001 and September 2006, a two-to-one majority consistently backed the view that violence against Israel helps ‘Palestinians’ get what negotiations could not achieve (ibid).  Polls repeatedly affirm the belief that ‘Palestinian’ violence leads to Israeli concessions (bid).

-Respondent answers repeatedly confirm that ‘Palestinians’ believe that violence against Israel is praiseworthy (ibid).

-In 48 polls between 2000-2015, support for armed attack against Israeli civilians inside Israel outnumbered those opposed by as much as six-to-one margin (ibid).

-Between 2001-2004, 90 percent of respondents supported armed attacks against Israeli soldiers; in December 2014, 78 percent of respondents supported knife- and car-attacks against Jews (ibid).

There’s much more in this essay. All of it validates how unforgivingly hostile ‘Palestinians’ are towards Israel. These 330 polls, taken over more than 20 years, clearly demonstrate that ‘Palestinians’ do not think of peace with Israel. They think of violence against Israel.

They support that violence. They praise it. They state that such violence is moral.

These 330 polls tell us an ugly truth: the hearts of ‘Palestinians’ do not overflow with a desire for peace with Israel. Those hearts overflow with a desire to commit violence against Israel.

‘Palestinians’ don’t want peace with Israel. They want victory over Israel.

Diplomats, politicians and misguided Jews can talk all they want about pressuring Israel for peace. But as these polls suggest, it isn’t Israel that keeps peace away. It’s a decades-long, entrenched anti-Israel ‘Palestinian’ world-view that makes peace impossible.

If that world-view doesn’t change, there will never be peace. There will only be violence against Israel.  

The nations ignore this violence. They ignore ‘Palestinian’ hostility to Israel.

The nations choose instead to blame only Israel for no peace. They do that because…?

You tell me.