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Arthur M. Horwitz
Publisher / Executive Editor
ahorwitz@renmedia.us

Can Israel Overcome Palestinian Religious Decree?

F. Kevin Browett
Chief Operating Officer
kbrowett@renmedia.us

P

alestinian leaders on both
Hussein, decreed last year in the
sides of Israel are preach-
official P.A. newspaper Al Hayat
ing the same alarming
Al Jadida.
trope, rooted in an Islamic reli-
Bluntly put, he asserted it’s the
gious ruling, that holds all land
duty of the leaders of the Islamic
inside the State of Israel is their
nation and its peoples to destroy
unalienable religious endow-
Israel.
ment — a waqf.
Robert Sklar
PROPULSION OF HATE
Palestinians thus can’t accept
Contributing
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Israel’s existence as the Jewish
Netanyahu repeatedly has
state in any border configuration Editor
invited P.A. leader Mahmoud
because that would violate the
Abbas back to the negotiating table with-
waqf, or trust.
Both Hamas, the terrorist organization out preconditions. Netanyahu only asks
ruling the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian the P.A. to acknowledge Israel’s right to
exist in safe, secure borders just as Israel
Authority (P.A.), whose Fatah party
acknowledges support for seeking a two-
governs a large swath of the West Bank
state solution to the longstanding Israeli-
and harbors its own terrorist wing, are
Palestinian conflict.
teaching such inflammatory thinking,
Instead, the presumably moderate P.A.
according to Palestinian Media Watch.
PMW is a well-regarded Israeli watchdog has cozied up to the ideology of Hamas,
whose charter believes
organization that monitors Palestinian
“the land of Palestine”
print, broadcast and online outlets.
(including Israel) is
That Hamas would espouse such
an Islamic waqf that
drivel is hardly surprising. That the P.A.,
must remain whole.
Israel’s supposed peace partner, shares
Previously, Abbas’ per-
Hamas’ religious war ideology gives rise
sonal adviser on reli-
to wondering how ingrained such rheto-
gious affairs, Mahmoud
ric truly is. Religious edicts carry weight
Al Habbash, proclaimed
and influence within Islam. At one time,
Mahmoud Al
all of “Palestine” in
the P.A. courted Hamas in a unity gov-
Habbash
general and the Temple
ernment.
Mount and the Western
HARD TO ALTER
Wall in particular as an Islamic waqf.
In June, Najeh Bakirat, head of the
The Western Wall is the holiest site in
Al Aqsa Academy of Heritage and
Judaism.
Antiquities, declared on official P.A.
Al Habbash further contends the
TV: “Every grain of soil in Palestine is
Israeli-Palestinian standoff isn’t a con-
ours.” That means the “blessed and holy
flict over territory, but over ideology.
Palestine” he imagines includes Israel
He has described Jewish settlements as
by decree of Islamic law. “Therefore,”
“the criminal occupation” and “a further
he concluded, according to PMW, “it is
manifestation of the historic conflict
forbidden to relinquish a single grain of
between truth and falsehood, between
soil.”
good and evil.” He has called Jews “dev-
Sure, the official P.A. political position ils” and their supporters “evil.”
that denies Israel’s right to exist could
ANOTHER TAKE
change under terms of a bilateral nego-
In a probing analysis, PMW invokes
tiated peace agreement. But as PMW
the idea that international and Israeli
stresses, there’s virtually no room for
leaders have tied the peace process to
compromise when the P.A. teaches that
the false hope that “Palestinian claims
Israel “is on holy waqf land” and that
against Israel are nationalistic territorial
“Islam prohibits recognition of Israel’s
demands that can be satisfied by territo-
right to exist.”
rial compromise related to the pre-1967
Because the Jewish state violates
cease-fire lines.”
Islam, the Islamic nation is religiously
And that’s foolhardy, argues PMW,
obligated to liberate “Palestine” and
because the P.A. clearly has adopted
Jerusalem to avert their “Judaization,”
Hamas’ worldview of the conflict “as an
the P.A. Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and
uncompromising Islamic requirement to
the Palestinian Territories, Muhammad

liberate holy Islamic land from the State
of Israel.”
PMW rightly suggests Israel, based on
the Fatah-Hamas religious ideological
alliance, isn’t wrong in assuming the P.A.
isn’t a legitimate peace partner.
Following an exchange with Professor
Howard Lupovitch, a local authority
on Mideast religious history, I began to
ponder the apparent
discrepancy between
rhetoric and policy
within the Palestinian-
controlled areas of the
West Bank.
Searching for a glint
of hope from the dor-
mant peace process,
Howard
and
as a believer in
Lupovitch
striving for a demilita-
rized Palestinian state
alongside the Jewish state, I was moved
by the professor’s perspicacity.
Lupovitch, associate professor of his-
tory and director of the Cohn-Haddow
Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne State
University in Detroit, told the JN, “There
is no question that there are Palestinian
leaders and rank and file who believe
in no-Israel-for-theological-reasons —
sadly moreso than 10 years ago.
“But I’m not sure if this translates into
a concrete goal of the P.A. or how many
Palestinians see this as a realistically
attainable goal,” Lupovitch added.
“Yes, there is a deep sense of griev-
ance especially among those who feel
displaced since Israeli statehood in 1948.
But a return to the pre-1973 aim of elim-
inating the state? I’m not so sure.”
It’s hard to gauge to what extent P.A.
indoctrinating against Israel, whatever
the motivation, has succeeded at the
grassroots level.
In the corridors of power in Ramallah,
the P.A. capital, Jewish settlements and
Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem may
drive the conversation. But I can’t help
but feel echoes of anti-Zionism also pre-
vail there, having visited that Palestinian
nerve center last year.
Hope aside, I am greatly troubled by
the Palestinian Authority’s penchant for
invoking not only Islamic religious ideol-
ogy to deny Israel’s right to exist, but also
a way of politics, values and learning that
diminishes Jews and Jewish principles
while extolling violence and honoring ter-
rorists.

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Religious edicts carry weight and influence within Islam.

6 August 18 • 2016

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