Journalism serves an important function in democracy, allowing citizens to understand the world and developments in politics and diplomacy. An Associated Press article published today by Joseph Krauss is underpinned by an important premise: following the United Arab Emirates’ decision to establish diplomatic relations with Israel without linking that peace to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians feel abandoned and have limited options.
Unfortunately, rather than accurately recording the history and reality of the Palestinian Authority’s dealings with Israel, Krauss neglects to tell the whole story, failing to include some critical facts about the past and present which are necessary to understand the situation in which Israel and the Palestinians find themselves today and where their relationship is heading.
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Rewriting History
For decades, the Palestinian leadership has pursued a policy of rejectionism and terrorism. With incitement to terror rampant in the Palestinian school system and media, the atmosphere cultivated both internally and externally by the PA has been one which makes their position very clear: nothing but a total Israeli capitulation to all Palestinian demands will suffice.
But that’s not how Krauss reports Abbas’ strategy:
President Mahmoud Abbas remains committed to the same strategy he has pursued for decades — seeking international support to pressure Israel to agree to a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war.
Readers are uniformed of Israel’s numerous offers for peace, not told of Abbas’ repeated rejection of all those offers, and left in the dark regarding Abbas’ total lack of vision as evidenced by his failure to produce a single offer of his own.
Misrepresenting “the diplomatic route”
The diplomatic route has thus far been the most likely avenue for success. But Krauss is not optimistic about this approach, declaring that these moves,
have put pressure on Israel, but have not led to any concessions.”
Has Israel really never made any concessions? Did Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak not make any concessions in 2000 at Camp David when he offered Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat 96% of what he asked for including a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital?
Did Israel not make a concession when it unilaterally, forcibly removed 9,000 Israeli citizens and all IDF troops from the Gaza Strip in 2005?
Did Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert not make concessions in 2008 when he offered Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas even more than Barak offered in 2000?
Related Reading: How Generous Was Israel at Camp David in 2000?
The international community has most certainly succeeded in getting Israel to make deep and painful concessions. The problem is that the Palestinian leadership has not accepted any of these generous offers and has not shown any willingness to move forward with the creation of a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state.
Misrepresenting BDS
The second option available to the Palestinians as presented by Krauss is boycotts of Israel – namely BDS:
BDS organizers say they are leading a nonviolent campaign for Palestinian rights modeled on the struggle against apartheid South Africa. Israel accuses them of seeking to delegitimize its existence.”
Krauss correctly acknowledges that this approach “has had no discernible impact on Israel’s economy” and is unlikely to help the Palestinians. But Krauss swallows the BDS claim that it is a peaceful method to help the Palestinians establish their own state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In reality, it is a movement which seeks the destruction of Israel. One has to look no further than the words of Omar Barghouti, founder of the BDS movement, in a 2013 speech in Norway to understand its true intentions:
A Jewish state in Palestine, in any shape or form, cannot but contravene the basic rights of the land’s indigenous Palestinian population and perpetuate a system of racial discrimination that ought to be opposed categorically. Definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian — rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian — will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The BDS rallying cry, heard at demonstrations around the world, declares, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” And when BDS supporters chant “Free Palestine,” they don’t mean free the West Bank and Gaza from Israelis to enable the formation of a Palestinian state there. They mean free the entire Holy Land for a Palestinian state, i.e. the destruction of the Jewish state.
Misrepresenting a “One-State Solution”
Krauss talks of another option — the Palestinians “abandoning the two-state solution in favor of a single binational state for Jews and Palestinians or some kind of Israeli-Palestinian confederation… One-state proponents say Palestinians should instead seek equal rights, including the vote.”
The idea that Israelis and Palestinians share the entire land as one, harmonious society, sounds beautiful in theory. But it is completely misleading. Arabs in the area were attacking the Jewish population way before there was a Jewish state and way before Israel took control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967.
Related Reading: The Hebron Massacre of 1929
The Arab leadership simply doesn’t accept a Jewish presence in the borders of the Holy Land. This is why the United Nations first proposed dividing the region into two states — a Jewish one and an Arab one — in November 1947, a proposal which the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected. This approach also rejects the basic rights of the Jewish people to have one small state of their own – in a region with 27 Muslim countries.
Related Reading: Did Arab Violence Really Start With the ‘Occupation’?
Threat of Palestinian Violence Omitted
All of these omissions of history and context make Krauss’s piece a misleading one which turns Israel into the villain and portrays the Palestinians as the helpless victims who have run out of hope and options. But the article’s greatest omission is the plan of action which the Palestinians themselves have said that they will turn to as a result of the deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates: armed struggle.
Since the announcement of the Israel-UAE agreement, leading Palestinian officials including Jibril Rajoub (Fatah Central Committee Secretary), Muhammad al-Laham (member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council), and Walid Assaf (head of the Committee to Resist Settlements and the Wall) have openly spoken about “a return to armed struggle” and “resistance in all of its forms.”
A poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey in June 2020 showed that half of the Palestinian population believes that they must take up arms against Israel – and that was before the Israel-UAE agreement was announced.
Any truthful reporting of the Palestinian response to the deal cannot ignore these calls to violence from Palestinian leaders and the likelihood that terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens is their most likely plan of action.
Krauss titled his article “Palestinian leaders stay the course as crisis mount.” For Palestinians, “staying the course” in this kind of situation means turning to violence.
Just look at how the Palestinians responded when Israel only offered them 96% of what they wanted in 2000 – they unleashed the Second Intifada with suicide bombings in Israeli pizza parlors and buses – murdering and maiming thousands of Israelis. Just look at how the Palestinians responded to the Israeli pullout from Gaza in 2005, using the area as a platform to launch thousands of missiles into Israeli cities.
A respected news outlet like the Associated Press must provide full historic context and full disclosure when writing about a complex situation like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Failure to do so changes the article from truthful journalism to misleading and biased misinformation.
