‘Anybody talking about a Palestinian state right now is living on another planet’By Alex Traiman
Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the war has been the overbearing calls for a pathway to Palestinian statehood in the aftermath of the worst terror massacre in Israel’s history.
In the 1993, Israel entered into the ill-fated Oslo Accords designed to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a two-state solution. While Israel is a relatively tiny country, without much land to give, the Jewish state was prepared to cede strategic tracts in exchange for quiet coexistence with its Palestinian neighbors. The formula, simple enough for a child to understand, was called “land for peace.”
The accords called for the establishment of a provisional Palestinian Authority, to be led by thrice-exiled arch-terrorist PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
Many argued that the accords were doomed to fail. The PA never prepared its people for coexistence, continuously inciting its public to violence on television and school textbooks, and naming public squares after terrorists.
To this day, the government provides stipends to terrorists sitting in Israeli jails, as well as to families of terrorists killed while in the act of attempting first-degree murder on Israelis. The terror financing scheme is dubbed “pay for slay.”
In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew 8,500 Jewish residents and all military infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
The Strip, the control of which was handed over to the PA, was the pilot project for an independent Palestinian entity. Within two years, control of the Strip was wrestled away by Hamas. Since then, Israel has suffered countless attacks, including the firing of more than 50,000 rockets at Israel, the building of a 500-mile-long underground terror tunnel infrastructure, the kidnapping of Israeli citizens, and the worst massacre in Israel’s history on Oct. 7.
The massacre proved Israeli fears correct—that an independent Palestinian state would be a launchpad for continuous terror and an existential threat to the Jewish state. And yet the international community is now doubling down on calls for Palestinian statehood, regardless of the Palestinians’ inability to deliver Israel peace in exchange for the land it seeks.
In Part II of an exclusive interview with JNS, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs and member of a five-man war cabinet, Ron Dermer discusses plans for “the day after” the war in the Gaza Strip; the need for deradicalization of the Palestinian society; and why Palestinian statehood in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 would be a “historic mistake.”
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