8 | JUNE 2 • 2022 

opinion

Why There’s No Peace
in the Middle East
R

ecent Congressional 
proposals seek to 
prohibit Israel’s use of 
American funds or military 
equipment to maintain 
control of the West Bank. 
Such 
proposals reflect 
a (by no means 
uncommon)
belief that Israeli 
insensitivity 
to Palestinian 
aspirations 
is the main 
reason peace has never been 
achieved. If only Israel would 
commit to withdraw from 
the West Bank and adopt a 
more conciliatory approach, 
Palestinians would accept a 
two-state solution along the 
1967 lines — and the conflict 
finally would end.
Those assumptions, I fear, 
have little historic justification. 
Since its creation in 1994, the 
Palestinian Authority (PA) has 
faced conflicting imperatives. 
On the one hand, it cannot 
remain in power without 
military support from Israel 
— including regular raids on 
Hamas cells in the West Bank 
— and financial support from 
the U.S., Europe and Arab 
states. The PA cannot ignore 
demands from those parties 
that it remain open to a two-
state solution. 
On the other hand, 
Palestinian popular opinion 
has always been, and is now 
more than ever, opposed 
to the existence of a Jewish 
state. Eliminating Israel, 
polls show, remains the 
cherished objective for 

70%-80% of Palestinians. 
The PA, therefore, cannot 
accept a two-state solution 
without risking a total loss of 
legitimacy or an uprising such 
as allowed Hamas to drive the 
PA from Gaza in 2007. 
What then does the PA 
do? It refuses to say yes to 
any proposal. It refuses to say 
no. Indeed, it refuses to say 
anything, however generous 
the settlement may appear 
to outsiders. That was what 
the PA did in 2000-2001, 
2008 and 2014. On those 
occasions, in return for 
recognition, Israel offered 
to withdraw from territory 
equal to 96-100% of the West 
Bank, to divide Jerusalem, to 
accept a limited refugee return 
and to arrange generous 
compensation for the rest. 
Those offers met almost 
everything the PA President 
Mohammed Abbas says he 
wants. But Palestinian popular 
opinion demanded not only 
that those offers be rejected, 
but also that they be rejected 
with violence: bombs in 
Israeli cities in 1993-1996, 
the second intifada of 2000 to 
2003, Hamas-initiated wars 
in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021; 
all such attacks issued from 
territory Israel had evacuated 
in an effort to reduce tensions. 
True, of course, Israel 
also had and has diehard 
opponents of compromise. 
Nevertheless, three Israeli 
prime ministers — Rabin, 
Barak and Olmert — were 
able to marshal pro-peace 
majorities for which there was 
no Palestinian counterpart.

REFUSAL TO ACCEPT 
A JEWISH STATE
I would emphasize that refusal 
to accept a Jewish state has 
defined Palestinian politics 
for generations. It was the 
bedrock position of Haj Amin 
al-Husayni (the Palestinian 
leader from 1922-1948, who 
allied with Hitler), of the 
PLO’s charter and, today, 
of Hamas and its patrons, 
Iran and Hezbollah. Twenty-
first-century rejection of 
peace offers awarding Arabs 
extensive or total control of 
the West Bank had precedents 
in 1937, 1939, 1947 and 1968. 
Virtually everything of 
which Palestinians complain 
— refugees, West Bank 
annexation, the security 
wall, settlements, the 
Gaza blockade — began 
as a defensive response 
to Palestinian-initiated or 
-supported violence,
If all past efforts at 
reconciliation have failed, by 
what logic are they likely to 
succeed now — when Hamas, 
with Iranian support, is more 
popular than ever? If elections 
were held today, polls agree, 
pro-Hamas candidates would 
trounce Mahmoud Abbas’ PA 
by at least four-to-one. Hamas 
leaders vow they will not only 
destroy Israel but will expel all 
Jews whose families arrived 
after 1914, i.e., 99%. 
Refusal to accept what 
Palestinians see as the 
Jews’ historic theft of their 
land is understandable. In 
effect, Palestinians had to 
pay the price for European 
antisemitism for which 

they bore no responsibility. 
Yet understandable though 
Palestinian grievances may 
be — and I can recite those 
grievances as well as any 
Palestinian — the fact remains 
that the demand for Israel’s 
destruction has been and 
remains incompatible with a 
two-state solution. 
But imagine for a moment 
that Congressional legislation 
effectively prohibited Israeli 
forces from operating in 
the West Bank. The PA 
would then face two grim 
alternatives. Most probably, 
as I just suggested, it would 
lose power to Hamas, either 
through an election or an 
uprising. Hamas, and quite 
possibly Iranian forces, then 
would be on the doorstep 
of major Israeli cities. That 
almost certainly would lead 
Israel to reoccupy the West 
Bank, triggering violence on 
a scale not seen in the last 55 
years. 
Or, to retain power, PA 
authorities, like Bashar 
al-Assad in Syria, would 
mount a savage repression 
of their own people that 
also would make a mockery 
of American dreams of a 
peaceful, prosperous region. 
Either outcome would be far 
worse than a continuation of 
the status quo. 

POTENTIAL OUTCOMES 
Of course, no one can predict 
the future with certainty, but 
such outcomes are far more 
likely than a scenario in which 
one-sided American pressure 
on Israel yields a mutually 

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued on page 11

Victor 
Lieberman