The Importance of Palestinian Protests Against Hamas
Amplifying pragmatic Palestinian voices advances peace
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The Importance of Palestinian Protests Against Hamas
There’s no way around it. Israelis and Palestinians sadly seem further away from peace than at any time in the last almost 50 years.
It’s not only because Israel essentially leveled most of Gaza and killed tens of thousands of Palestinians after Hamas committed horrific murders, kidnappings, rapes and the starvations of Israelis, Americans and others on Oct. 7, 2023.
The reasons peace remains elusive are manyfold.
On the Israeli side, the nation’s right-wing policies have established facts on the ground that make a possible peace deal incredibly difficult.
In the last 50 years, Israel has moved nearly 600,000+ Israelis into the West Bank. Up from 5,000 in 1979.
The West Bank, along with Gaza, of course is where any Palestinian State would have to exist.
As part of that mass migration into the would-be Palestinian State, Israel has gobbled up more and more land. Built checkpoints galore. Created separate roads for Israelis in the West Bank, all while making travel for Palestinians there incredibly burdensome.
Palestinians have limited access to farmland, while Israeli settlers have plenty of land there. Palestinians have to go through many hoops just to export their goods.
And then, to protect those 600,000+ Israelis, Israel has many times used its military to prevent and stop suspected terrorist operations among the Palestinians living there. The people who suffer aren’t just the minority who are terrorists, though. They are business owners. Families. Children.
In recent years, a significant number of those West Bank Israelis have gone on violent raids against Palestinian families, farmers and children. They’ve attacked family homes. Burned olive groves. Beaten up Palestinians. Threatened them with rifles.
This was all made much worse under Netanyahu.
There are of course Palestinians and Israelis who are friends and colleagues in the West Bank. But the violence and intimidation by extremist Israelis is on the rapid rise, all with the tacit approval of Netanyahu’s government.
Israel bears considerable responsibility for the lack of peace and the oppression of Palestinians there. There for sure is no Apartheid within Israel’s borders, where its Arab citizens have equal rights, but the same cannot be said for Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Nobody wants to hear it, but the Palestinians aren’t without their own significant blame.
President Bill Clinton has repeated many times that he was shocked when the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turned down an independent Palestinian State in West Bank and Gaza.
Most college students have no idea that Israel offered the Palestinians a state that would have included 96% of the West Bank and another 4% of Israel proper to make up for the 4%. With East Jerusalem as a shared capital.
The Palestinian leadership said “No.” Unwilling to do any deal that involved a secure and sustained Israel.
That wouldn’t be the last time Israel offered Palestinians their own state.
No fewer than five times has Israel offered Palestinians statehood. And it’s not all ancient history. Current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned down statehood as well.
Each time, Palestinian leadership refused it. It was always an all-or-nothing proposition for the so-called Palestinian leaders who owe their retaining power to sustaining the conflict and making sure Palestinian identity remained focused mostly on Israel.
On top of that, Palestinian leaders (along with many other Arab countries) have not had the courage to stand up to terror groups like Hamas. Instead, they send the signal to the masses that they are an important part of the resistance. Palestinian leadership has even paid the families who lost relatives after they killed themselves while blowing up Israeli children.
Places like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and other countries outlaw Hamas and similar terror groups, but they’re unwilling to include harsh criticism in their press. Save Bahrain, unwilling to publicly condemn them.
Palestinian textbooks glorify terrorism and teach kids that Israel isn’t on the map. They’ve referred to Jews as the descendants of monkeys.
Palestinian news outlets have blamed Israel for everything from 9–11 (though ironically some Palestinians simultaneously celebrated the attack on America) to spreading AIDS. Palestinian commentators even deny the Holocaust. Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” translated into Arabic, was a top seller among Palestinians.
Palestinian leaders have for 50 years falsely claimed that Israel is trying to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. I recall in the 90s and then again in 2007 when Palestinian leadership with the help of the U.N. convinced Palestinians that the Mosque was going to collapse because of Israeli archeological activities. Decades later, we’re all still holding our breath.
When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza nearly 20 years ago (until the current war), and Hamas took over, they didn’t use the billions provided by Israel, America, Qatar, Iran and others to build thriving communities. Hamas didn’t build the Singapore of the Middle East. They used the money to build terror tunnels, buy and launch rockets at Israel and plan attacks.
Israeli leaders will come and go. There will be left-wing ones. And right-wing ones.
But the Palestinians aren’t ever going to have their own homeland by taking the Israel-must-go- and-the-Jews-must-be-deported-from-Israel approach.
Jews and Palestinians aren’t going anywhere, despite ridiculous threats by Trump and Netanyahu to mass deport Palestinians.
That’s why the protests by tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, some of whom were immediately then murdered by Hamas, are so important.
They, unlike suburban college kids demanding an end to Israel and who’ve been silent in the face of Palestinian anti-Hamas protests, are demanding an end to war. An end to taking hostages. They want calm. They want quiet. They want to raise their kids in peace and security. Not in rubble.
They aren’t donning Hamas headbands or waving Hamas flags to demand war with a different winner.
Palestinian and other Arab and Muslim peace activists calling for a two-state solution are on the rise. Calling for peace instead of calling Jews colonizers in Ju-dea.
People like West Bank resident Ali Abu Awwad.
Palestinian Gazan Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib.
Bassem Eid.
Lama Abu Arqoub.
How an Israeli and a Palestinian activist are 'resisting for peace' - Geneva Solutions
Luai Ahmed.
Others, like Marwan Jaber, Raman Osman, Loay Alshareef, Tamer Masudin and Kasim Hafeez.
There are also Arab organizations, such as Alliance for Middle East Peace, where hundreds of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians are working toward peaceful co-existence.
Roots connects Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank to dialogue even while governments and leaders can’t get it right.
I am a firm believer and advocate for Palestinian dignity and freedom. Two things they don’t have right now.
Part of the path to achieving that won’t just be how Israel acts. It also must involve Palestinians adopting a pragmatic stance rather than the forever failing winner-take-all approach.
The only effective protests and advocacy that will ever result in Palestinian freedom, self-determination and statehood will be ones that promote peace between peoples.
Golda Meir summed this up in 1967:
Peace will come when the Palestinians love their children more than they hate us.
Now is the time to seize the moment when more and more Palestinians are demanding an end to endless war.
Sorry, I can't buy into your "Palestinians for Peace" shtick. For eighty years these terrorists, inspired by their manifesto, er, "Bible", have been trying to wipe Jews off the face of the earth. And, it is not just Israeli Jews they are killing, they have exported their barbaric violence throughout the globe. The peaceniks in Gaza elected their Hamas terrorists and support them still to the tune of about 80 percent. Their relatives in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) support Hamas by even larger numbers.
There can never be peace with neighbors who have sworn to kill every last Jew. Offer them their own country and they spit in your eye. I find it disgusting that you criticize Jews, who have wanted piece since the founding of modern Israel, when they play by the other side's rules. You want they should be nice and offer them a bowl of chicken soup? Maybe, boiling hot and thrown in their eyes. After October 7th, when these peaceniks went along for the killing and torture ride, blasting them to pieces is an appropriate reaction.
I don’t believe any longer in a two state solution “that ship has sailed” on 10/7. Non-Jihadist, peace loving Palestinians, I’m sure will be accommodated in a greater Israel where they can be citizens as the 20% of current Arab Israelis are now.