RUTHFULLY YOURS

In a speech on March 14, 2024, US Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said:

“The only real and sustainable solution to this decades-old [Arab-Israeli] conflict is a negotiated two-state solution — a demilitarized Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel in equal measures of peace, security, prosperity, dignity and mutual recognition.”

Schumer and his friends in the Biden administration who continue to talk about a two-state solution are either naïve or ignorant of the sentiments among the Palestinians, most of whom support the Iran-backed Hamas terror group, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exit and does seek to replace it with an Islamic state.

One does not have to be an expert on the Middle East to know that a Palestinian state would be used by Iran and its terror proxies as yet another launching pad to destroy not only Israel, but also the oil-rich Gulf states, and to murder Christians, Jews, Americans and anyone else they might consider “unworthy.” This is exactly what happened on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip invaded Israel and murdered 1,200 Israelis – including Muslims. Until that day, the Gaza Strip was an independent state controlled by Hamas and other terror groups, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There were no Israelis — civilians or soldiers — in the Gaza Strip in October: Israel had totally pulled out of the entire coastal enclave in 2005.

Those who are calling for establishing a Palestinian state at Israel’s doorstep a few months after Hamas’s October 7 carnage are telling the terrorists that they can count on the US administration to reward them for the most horrific terrorist attack in memory, the proportional equivalent, in terms of population, of 40,000 American deaths, according to US Army General (ret.) David Petraeus.

Schumer’s assertion that the only “real” solution is a “negotiated two-state solution” disregards the fact that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to resume peace negotiations with Israel on numerous occasions for the past 15 years. Rather than taking tangible steps towards peace, Abbas has done nothing but bypass and evade bilateral negotiations with Israel, while taking extremely tangible steps for terrorism — from rewarding terrorists, or the families of those who murder Jews, with “$345-$1200” a month for life, to repeating that terrorist murderers are “heroes” — all the while admitting that Palestinians are not the indigenous people there.

In 2008, Abbas wasted a spectacular opportunity for peace with Israel. Then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made an offer for peace so generous that then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it “amazing” and warned that “[former Israeli Prime Minister] Yitzhak Rabin had been killed for offering far less.”

“Olmert’s offer called for Israeli withdrawal from approximately 94% of the West Bank, the creation of a passage from the West Bank to Gaza, and the equal ‘swapping’ of land so that Israel could annex its major [West Bank] settlement blocs. Olmert even proposed to divide Jerusalem and absorb a few thousand Palestinian refugees.”

Abbas later claimed that he rejected Olmert’s plan because the Israeli prime minister “didn’t give me a map.”

In 2009, Abbas again refused to negotiate, this time with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and rejected the Israeli leader’s offer to resume peace talks immediately, without preconditions.

In 2010, Abbas made clear that he refused even to sit in the same room with the Israelis, and the Obama administration had to leverage all its political power just to pressure the Palestinians into “proximity talks” with US special envoy George Mitchell. During the same year, Abbas refused to sit with Israeli leaders even after Israel announced a 10-month moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank.

In 2011 and 2012, Abbas refused to discuss tangible peace initiatives with Israel through talks facilitated by Jordan’s King Abdullah and the “Middle East Quartet” (Russia, the EU, the US and the UN). Instead of returning to the negotiating table with Israel, the Palestinian leader sought to achieve unity with Hamas. He also tried to bypass negotiations completely by officially requesting the United Nations to recognize the independence of a unilaterally-declared Palestinian state.

Schumer falsely assumes that if Abbas were to step down, his successors would rush to make peace with Israel:

“For there to be any hope of peace in the future, Abbas must step down and be replaced by a new generation of Palestinian leaders who will work towards attaining peace with a Jewish State.”

Except, who said that Abbas will be replaced by moderate and pragmatic leaders?

A public opinion poll from two months after the October 7 massacre showed that Palestinian support for Hamas actually increased in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Support for Abbas and his Fatah faction, however, plummeted, according to the poll. When Palestinians were asked about their own preferences for the party that should be in control in the Gaza Strip after the war, 60% selected Hamas. If new Palestinian Authority presidential elections were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 78% of the vote, as opposed to 16% for Abbas.

As for Schumer’s “two-state solution,” 64% of Palestinians said they are opposed to the idea. Those polled would like a one-state solution: a Palestinian state with no “Israel” anywhere in sight. More than 60% also expressed support for an “armed struggle” against Israel.

Other polls produced similar results, indicating a sharp rise in Hamas’s popularity. It is unhinged to expect the emergence of moderate leaders at a time when a majority of Palestinians support Hamas and its atrocities against Jews.

It is no wonder that Abbas has repeatedly avoided holding elections. Unlike Schumer, Palestinian Authority leaders read the polls and are aware of the widespread support for Hamas and terrorism among the Palestinians.

Schumer’s attack on the Israeli Prime Minister and his call for holding new elections in Israel is a sumptuous gift to Hamas, as the Israeli army fights to remove the terror group from power and secure the release of more than 130 Israeli hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. Hamas leaders are no doubt delighted to hear US officials such as Schumer attack the Israeli prime minister while Israel is at war with the terror group.

By stating that Netanyahu “has lost his way” and is an obstacle to peace, Schumer is putting the Israeli leader, who was democratically elected in six elections, on an equal footing with Abbas and Hamas and ignoring that the Palestinians have said no to peace and a two-state solution long before Netanyahu came to power. As Netanyahu noted:

“[T]he only thing we should be focused on is changing the regime in Gaza, bringing down the terrorist regime of Hamas, and not the duly elected government of Israel.”

Can Schumer please tell us when was the last time the Palestinians held presidential or parliamentary elections? Can he show us the Palestinian parliament is, and why hasn’t it been functioning since 2007? The last Palestinian presidential election was held in 2005. A year later, when parliamentary elections were held, Hamas won the vote by a landslide. Since Hamas’s terrorist takeover of the Gaza Strip, at times by “throwing their rivals off 15-storey buildings,” the parliament has been inoperative. In 2018, Abbas went as far as dissolving the parliament and has since been ruling by “presidential decrees.”

Schumer needs to be reminded that peace with the Palestinians did not work even when the Labour Party’s Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak were prime minister. The reason was that every time an Israeli leader would offer peace, then PLO leader and Palestinian Authority President leader Yasser Arafat and his successor, Abbas, did not negotiate, they “just kept saying no.” The reason they just keep “saying no” is because they do not want a Palestinian State next to Israel, they want a Palestinian State instead of Israel.

Schumer, by signaling to Hamas and other terrorists that the Americans are on their side against Netanyahu and the Israeli government, has painstakingly emboldened them.

Schumer tries to assure us by saying that a Palestinian state would be “demilitarized.” The Oct. 7 massacre, however, illustrated that the Palestinians do not need fighter jets and tanks to invade Israel. The Palestinians can invade Israel with bulldozers, trucks, hang-gliders and motorcycles, and murder Israelis with rifles, grenades, pistols and knives.

Many Arabs understand — unlike Schumer and many in the Biden administration — that the real problem is the Iranian regime and its terror proxies. US officials might take note of what Syrian journalist Ghassan Ibrahim, founder of Global Arab Network, recently wrote:

“If all the Arab countries had signed peace with Israel in the time of [slain Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat, today we would be busy with economic and technological competition instead of a gang like Hamas or Hezbollah controlling the fate of the region.”

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.