by Bassam Tawil • February 26, 2018
at 5:00 am
- Let us be clear about
this: When Palestinians -- and some of their supporters in the
international community, including Europe -- say that they want
an end to the "occupation," they mean they want to see
an end to Israel's existence, full stop. They do not want to
throw the Jews out of their homes in the settlements; rather,
they want Jews to be expelled from the whole country.
- The conflict, as far
as the Palestinians are concerned, did not begin in 1967, when
east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip came under Israeli
control. In the eyes of the Palestinians, all Jews are "settlers"
and "colonialists." All the land, they argue,
stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, is
Muslim-owned land, and no Muslim is entitled to give up any part
of it to a non-Muslim. For the Palestinians, accepting Israel's
"right to exist" with Jews is seen as an act of
treason.
- What is really
bothering the Palestinians is that Israel, with Jews, exists,
period. The Palestinians want all of Jerusalem. They want all of
"Palestine." They want Israel removed from the planet.
It is time to listen carefully to what the Palestinians are
saying -- in Arabic -- to understand that the conflict is
not about Jerusalem and not about settlements.
![](https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/pics/3164.jpg)
The
Palestinians do not differentiate between a Jew living in a
settlement on the outskirts of Bethlehem, in the West Bank, and a Jew
living in the cities of Haifa, and Tel Aviv and Eilat. All the Jews,
they say, are "occupiers" and "settlers" who need
to "go back to where they came from." Pictured: The skyline
of Tel Aviv. (Image source: Ted Eytan/Flickr)
No doubt Ismail Radwan is a terrorist, but, unlike
other Palestinian leaders and spokesmen, he is at least an honest
one.
At a time when most Palestinian leaders are telling
the world that settlements are the real "obstacle" to
peace, Radwan, a senior Hamas official, last week made it clear that
the conflict with Israel is not about Jews living in a settlement in
the West Bank. The truth is that the Palestinians see Israel as one
big settlement that needs to be uprooted from the Middle East.
The Palestinians do not differentiate between a Jew
living in a settlement on the outskirts of Bethlehem, in the West
Bank, and a Jew living in the cities of Haifa, and Tel Aviv and
Eilat. All the Jews, they say, are "occupiers" and
"settlers" who need to "go back to where they came
from."
For the Palestinians, the real "occupation"
began with the establishment of Israel in 1948.
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