Don’t Withdraw IDF From Judea/Samaria
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has called upon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to unveil any plan involving further one-sided concessions to Mahmoud Abbas’ unreconstructed, terror-sponsoring Palestinian Authority (PA). The ZOA’s call follows numerous reports suggesting that Prime Minister Netanyahu is imminently going to unveil a peace proposal encompassing further, major, one-sided Israeli concessions to Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA). These concessions are rumored to include the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from large parts of Judea and Samaria.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We know from recent, bitter experience that the PA is unlikely to accept even the most generous Israeli peace proposals, even ones that would endanger Israel, such as Ehud Barak’s 2000 peace offer or Ehud Olmert’s 2008 offer. But even if the PA were willing to accept a concessionary Israeli proposal, such a proposal should not be made, because Mahmoud Abbas’ PA has done nothing to justify any Israeli concession.
“Abbas’ PA has refused to negotiate until and unless Israel bars Jews and only Jews from building and living in communities in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. It has not fulfilled its commitments under the Oslo agreements to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that fuels the conflict. It has repeatedly and explicitly refused to accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Under such conditions, there is no point to negotiations and no justification for any sort of concessionary policy by Israel.
“Any concessionary policy now is based on the fallacy that creating a Palestinian state will bring peace. This will remain a delusion until and unless the PA genuinely reforms itself to cleanse itself of terrorism and extremism, fights and jails terrorists and terminates the culture of hatred and rejection that fuels Palestinian violent rejection of the Jewish state of Israel. In particular, any withdrawal of IDF forces from Judea and Samaria would be a strategic and dangerous mistake, one that would endanger Israel’s major population centers.
“It is irrelevant that PA forces are being trained by the U.S. The PA lost Gaza to Hamas in 2007 and may yet lose Judea and Samaria. But even if it doesn’t, the PA itself does not accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and only fights rival terrorist groups that endanger it, not Israel. The prospect of U.S.-trained PA forces occupying strategic positions in Judea and Samaria should fill one with dread, not reassurance. This will remain the case as long as the PA remains what it is – a terror-sponsoring regime that seeks to eventually replace Israel.
“We therefore urge Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government not to accede to whatever pressure might be placed upon them now to produce yet another concession, yet another gesture, yet another retreat which, if they did so, would be but another wasteful, dangerous unilateral, one-sided Israeli concession.
“Instead of seeking to buy time or breathing space with a new concessionary proposal, we urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak the truth loudly and clearly – that Abbas’ PA is an unreconstructed, terror-sponsoring regime that refuses to accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and that it is undeserving of any international support, rewards or concessions until at the very least it fulfills its 17-year old commitments to end terrorism and incitement to hatred and murder.”