The following is an article by Morton A. Klein – a similar version of which was published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and in Jewish newspapers across the country. This is a hypothetical speech that ZOA wishes President Obama would make.
“More than two years in office has persuaded me that, in our pursuit of an Arab-Israeli peace, we have sometimes neglected key problems.
“It is not possible to achieve peace between Arabs and Jews if Arabs do not accept the right of Jews to their own Jewish state.
“I am calling upon the Palestinian Authority (PA) to publicly accept Israel as a Jewish state.
“The United States cannot continue to expend its energy and credibility and resources in peace-making without this minimal condition being fulfilled.
“Since Oslo began 17 years ago, Israel did more than its part. It ceded all of Gaza and half the West Bank to the PA and offered even more, only to be rejected. Now, 98% of Palestinians live under Palestinian control, yet the PA has not done its part.
“The U.S. can no longer give unconditional aid to the PA of almost $1 billion per year. We will now link U.S. funding to the PA verifiably ending incitement, outlawing terrorist groups and arresting terrorists as they are committed to do under successive signed Oslo agreements.
“We still hear the speeches of hateful clerics appointed by the PA calling for the murder of Jews, as in the sermon broadcast on PA TV from Nablus’s Bourin Mosque on January 29, 2010, in which Jews were declared “the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger … Enemies of humanity in general” and Muslims exhorted to murder them with the words “The Prophet says: ‘You shall fight the Jews and kill them…” We have heard Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris say in a PA TV televised sermon that Jews are a virus resembling AIDS.Muhammad Ahmed Hussein, appointed Mufti of Jerusalem by Mahmoud Abbas, has justified suicide bombing, saying “It is legitimate, of course, as long as it plays a role in the resistance.”
“The problem is larger than merely hate-filled, extremist clerics. We see PA posters that glorify suicide bombers. We see PA/Fatahstatements and programs honoring terrorists, calling them devoted brothers, heroes and martyrs. We have seen the PA president and prime minister visit terrorists and the homes of suicide bombers’ families, mourning and praising them. We see vicious lies in PA TV and newspapers describing Israel as a threat to humanity. We recently saw the Fatah Conference named in honor of Amin Al-Hindi, mastermind of the Munich Olympics terrorist operation.
“We have even seen the PA honor Muhammad Fadlallah, responsible in the Hizballah bombing that claimed the lives of 242 U.S. servicemen in 1983. The United States cannot be expected to continue to support the PA when it glorifies killers of Americans and Israelis. Under my leadership, we will no longer do so.
“We see PA programs and hear PA videos extolling terrorism. We witness scores of schools, streets and sports teams named after terrorists. We have even seen U.S. aid money used to pave a street named after Saddam Hussein. We see PA laws requiring a death sentence for anyone selling land to a Jew. We see a new Fatah emblem that drapes all of Israel in a keffiyah next to a rifle and Yasser Arafat.
“We see that the Fatah Constitution, which calls for Israel’s destruction and the use of terrorism as an essential element in the campaign to achieve this goal, is unchanged.
“Conversely, we have not seen terrorist groups outlawed, as required under the Oslo agreements. We have not seen any PA maps, official stationery or school atlases that even show Israel within any borders. We have not seen the PA acknowledge the Jewish religious and historical claim to the land, to Jerusalem, or even to the Western Wall, the holiest of Judaism’s sites. To the contrary, we have seen these repeatedly denied by high PA officials.
“This terrifying incitement works.
“A 2007 poll shows that 90% of Palestinians under 25 and 75% over 25 don’t accept Israel’s existence. According to a poll conducted by Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in September 2008, only 13% of Palestinians support educating Palestinian children for peace. A November 2010 Arab World & Development poll informs us that 85% of Palestinians don’t want peace if it means compromise on borders or settlements or Jerusalem or the Israel-destroying ‘right of return
“Jewish settlements that encompass only 5% of the West Bank are not the problem. There were no Jewish communities in the West Bank before 1967, yet there was no peace or acceptance of Israel. Why cannot 300,000 Jews live among 1.5 million Arabs, when 1.4 million Arabs live among 6 million Jews in Israel?
“Yet, Mr. Abbas, you and your officials even proclaim that not even one Jew will be permitted to live in a Palestinian state. Your enmity goes beyond Jews. You have also driven out most Christians from Bethlehem by making their lives miserable. Your actions and policies indicate that establishing a Palestinian state at this time would likely create a terrorist state, further destabilizing the Middle East.
“I am also deeply concerned that, just as Gaza fell to the Iranian backed Hamas, so too could a PA state in the West Bank. A situation in which missiles are likely to be fired into the heart of Israel – Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport – is not one we wish to bring about.
“The Arab-Israeli conflict has been the result of one thing – an Arab refusal to accept a Jewish state in its biblical, religious and legal homeland. Peace can only come when there is true acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in peace and security.”
“We need change, in the PA’s actions, policies and culture. We need compliance with its commitments to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups and end the incitement to hatred and murder that feeds it. I expect to see president Abbas and prime minister Fayyad making speeches in Arabic to their people accepting Israel as a Jewish state and condemning suicide bombing against Israelis as an obscenity and scourge that must be eradicated.”