Trump Is Mistaken about a Peaceful Palestinian State

On Friday, President Trump’s National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster, announced that Trump will indicate his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his forthcoming trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Sadly, this is another indication to Israeli supporters of Trump that despite Trump’s many campaign promises and words of support, his actions show that he is not firmly on Israel’s side.

Contrary to his campaign promises regarding Israel, he did not move the American embassy to Jerusalem, cut funding to the United Nations after UNESCO issued more anti-Israeli resolutions, or cut U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority for paying off terrorists and its ongoing culture of anti-Israeli hate. Nor did he tear up the horrible nuclear deal with Iran, or confront its regional Jihadist aspirations and he has pressured Israel to slow down the building of Jewish homes, schools, and kindergartens in its ancestral land of Judea and Samaria, to entice back Abbas to the negotiating table. It seems that Trump has made a decision to make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a priority of his foreign policy and to be a neutral broker rather than Israel’s best friend and ally.

In trying to comprehend President Trump’s incomprehensible new obsession of fostering a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians, one must conclude that Trump, like Obama before him, is deluding himself into believing that a peace deal which will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian State would bring true peace, to the Middle East and greatly contribute to the well-being and prosperity of the world and the United States.

However, a reality check reveals that such a belief is wishful thinking and has no basis in fact. There are two ways to predict the future reality of such a Palestinian State.

One way is to look at other Arab and Muslim states as a guide. Accordingly, such a state will likely mirror authoritarian states like Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States or mirror dismembered, disintegrated, failed states like Syria, Libya, and Yemen where there is civil war and atrocities committed against their own citizens. It could also easily become a state like Iran and Lebanon which are influenced or controlled by Moslem extremists wishing to impose Sharia Law.

The second way is to look at the nature of the autonomous Palestinian entity in the West Bank where the Palestinian Authority, since 1993, has been controlling the daily internal affairs of 98% of the Palestinian people in the West Bank. An even better indicator of the character of a future Palestinian State is to look at the independent entity of Gaza which is 100% controlled by Hamas after a complete Israeli withdrawal from the area in 2005.

Based on the current reality and all available evidence, the Palestinian State will have the following characteristics:

Terrorist and militant — After the Israeli army left major Palestinian cities and many villages in the West Bank in 1999 and the PA took civil control of 98% of its people and responsibility for its internal affairs, Arafat and Abbas began their war of terror from 2000 to 2005, by sending suicide bombers inside Israel on an almost daily basis, murdering over 1000 Israeli civilians and injuring more than 5000. Moreover, in 2015-2016 a new wave of Palestinian terror occurred using knives and cars ramming against Israelis after being incited by Abbas who marketed false rumors that the Israeli government is seeking to destroy the Al Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

Furthermore, Since the Israeli army and all Jewish settlers unilaterally left Gaza in September 2005, it has become a haven for Islamic terrorists sponsored by Iran and over 11,000 rockets and mortar shells have been randomly fired toward Israeli cities.

Undemocratic — President Mahmoud Abbas has remained in power for the last nine years without new elections and journalists are regularly jailed for criticizing the regime.

Welfare state – The Palestinian Economy is artificially resuscitated by handouts from foreign donors. Economic studies show that 60 percent of its GNP comes from donations by the U.S., Europe, other nations, and the UN. The Palestinian people receive the largest amount of per capita donations worldwide, which amounts to an average of $560 per family, per month.

Corrupt – Most donations go into the pockets of the ruling party bureaucrats and senior officials in the Palestinian government rather than to build an independent economic infrastructure or help the people. In May 2012, Mohammed Rashid, who served as Arafat’s financial advisor and was given a free hand to handle hundreds of millions of dollars in aid given by the U.S., EU, and Arab donors, revealed on a Saudi Arabia owned TV station that Abbas’s personal fortune of more than 100 million was accumulated by embezzling public funds.

Historical Revisionist — The PA has repeatedly misrepresented history by claiming and acting as if a Palestinian Arab state existed before the establishment of Israel in1948 and that Jerusalem was its capital. They also deny any historical Jewish connection to the land. However, in reality, there was never an Arab or Moslem state called “Palestine” in the area west of the Jordan river and no state ever existed there except a Jewish state and Jerusalem was never the capital of any entity other than a Jewish one.

Indoctrinating and glorifying death and martyrdom — In the West Bank and Gaza, streets, schools, soccer teams, UN sponsored summer camps, and trading cards are named after suicide bombers. TV shows for schoolchildren and school textbooks extol hatred for Jews and praise suicide bombings.

Apartheid and racist — It is Abbas himself who has promoted a Palestinian state that is “Jew free”. On a visit to Cairo in July 2013, Abbas stated that “in the final solution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli- civilian or soldier — on our lands.” It would be the third Arab state to officially prohibit Jews, after Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Gays are being jailed in the West Bank and get the death penalty in Gaza.

Rejectionist — Abbas refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and Hamas does not recognize the existence of Israel at all. Arafat and Abbas both rejected two Israeli government offers in 2000 and 2008, and a framework of peace put forth by Obama in 2014 to end the conflict by establishing a Palestinian state within almost all disputed territories with its capital in Jerusalem.

Divisive – Hamas violently kicked out the PA from Gaza in June 2007 and since then any attempt to reunite has failed while both have been imprisoning and torturing each other supporters.

President Trump, the world, Sunni Arabs countries, and the Palestinian people should be careful of what they wish for since this hope for a Palestinian utopia is certain to crash and burn like the rest of the Middle East. Sadly, such a crash will lead, as it has in the past, to an outburst of Palestinian terrorism and many Israelis and Jews will pay for this false hope with their lives.