The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank working for an effective U.S. defense capability and for informing the defense and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel plays in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, has issued a report arguing that Israel should end negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) until Palestinian terrorist groups have been defeated and disarmed.

JINSA argues that “if you believe there are masses of Palestinians who long for liberation from Hamas; who believe Israel is a legitimate and permanent part of the Middle East; and who want nothing more than to share in the political freedom and economic advancement that association with the region’s only full-fledged democracy and liberal society could bring, we respectfully disagree. It is perfectly possible for Palestinians to want to be left alone to work and raise their children, and at the same time wish for their government to kill Jews. That, in fact, is the message of the Palestinian legislative elections that brought Hamas to power in the first place. Fatah had proven so thoroughly corrupt that, absent Arafat’s mythic presence, people simply couldn’t vote for it … There were Palestinians out there yesterday engaged in celebratory gunfire and passing out sweets; they are out there every day that Israelis die. Yeshiva students, children, fathers, soldiers, it doesn’t matter who they were in life – dead Jews are an occasion for Palestinians to hand out treats to children. There are Palestinian mothers who talk about giving their children to martyrdom as an act of religious faith. There are Palestinian fathers who turn on the TV and let their children watch the Hamas bunny eating Jews. These are not moderate people. These are people sucked into a vortex of ever increasing anarchy, death-worship for themselves and others, poverty, misery and radicalism. ‘Negotiating’ with their ‘representatives’ won’t help them or Israel. If the Palestinian territories have become a disaster for their own people and the source of naked aggression against Israel, the better course of action would be to cancel the ‘peace process’ until the ‘war process’ has been addressed – whether by Israel alone or by the international community” (JINSA Report, #753, ‘Cancel the “peace process“‘, March 7, 2008).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “ZOA applauds JINSA’s frank call for halting the negotiating process in view of the unreformed terror- and hatred-promoting nature of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA). We have argued repeatedly that a peace process cannot be based on pieces of papers signed with terrorists in suits and concessions to them based on such agreements. We have also argued that Palestinian extremism and support for terror is not confined to a fringe of Palestinian society but on the contrary is mainstream and thus that there is no Palestinian constituency for peace or a the possibility of a truly democratic Palestinian leadership that can emerge under present conditions. Successive Palestinian polls show that Palestinian support suicide bombers and oppose Israel’s existence.

“Since the start of Oslo we have argued consistently for Israel, the U.S. and the world to hold the Palestinians to their signed commitments to arrest terrorists and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled, media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds terror. This is the irreducible minimum requirement for a successful peace process and one would have thought that those that claim to be supporters of Oslo based on a deep desire to see peace achieved would join us in urging that this happen. One cannot say one supports Oslo and Roadmap without demanding that Abbas fulfills his obligations under Oslo and the Roadmap. To do otherwise means simply supporting Israeli unilateral concessions while the PA does nothing to promote peace. We support JINSA’s common sense call for the negotiations with Abbas’ PA to be stopped.”