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by Bassam Tawil • June 2, 2017 at
5:00 am
- Here
is what is being said on the Palestinian street: Today Israel
runs away from the West Bank or the Gaza Strip; tomorrow Israel
will run away from Ashkelon, then from Tel Aviv and from there
to the sea, and we have achieved our goal of destroying Israel.
Therefore, we need to continue attacking Israel.
- As
with the Gaza Strip, the withdrawal from Lebanon taught the
Palestinians that terrorism could drive Israelis out of their
country.
- Never
have the Palestinians given Israel credit for its goodwill
steps. On the contrary, they scoff at these moves and describe
them as "cosmetic changes". The Palestinian line is
that Israel's steps are "insufficient" and
"unhelpful." Its concessions are regarded as gestures
of a terrified people and as the rightful reward for terrorism.
Far from satiating the appetite of the terrorists, such steps
prompt them to step up their attacks against Israelis.
Palestinian
terrorists who were released from prison by Israel as a
"goodwill gesture" are honored at Mahmoud Abbas'
presidential compound in Ramallah, on October 30, 2013. According to
statistics, at least half of released Palestinian prisoners have
returned to terrorism. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Getty Images)
The West suffers under a major misconception
concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that "goodwill
gestures" and territorial concessions on the part of Israel
boost the prospects of peace in the Middle East. The facts, suggest
that precisely the opposite is true.
Last week, Israel's Channel 10 television station
reported that the U.S. administration was pushing Israel to transfer
parts of Area C -- areas under full Israeli security and civilian
control in the West Bank -- to the control of Mahmoud Abbas's
Palestinian Authority (PA). According to the report, the U.S.
believes that the transfer of the territory to the PA would be a
"goodwill step" towards the Palestinians, paving the way
for the revival of the stalled peace process with Israel.
This assumption, of course, has already proven wrong.
The experiences of the past few decades have shown clearly that
Israeli concessions have always sent the wrong message to the
Palestinians.
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