The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has greeted the news of the reconciliation agreement initialed between Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria, and Hamas, which controls Gaza, by calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make no concessions whatever to the new unified Palestinian regime.
Fatah calls in its Constitution for the destruction of Israel (Article 12) and the use of terrorism as an indispensible element in the struggle to achieve that goal (Article 19). Fatah terrorists have murdered over 500 Israelis since Yasser Arafat launched his terrorist wave against Israel in September 2000. Hamas calls in it Charter for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7) while Hamas terrorists have also murdered over 500 Israelis since September 2000.
Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and routed Fatah forces and seized Gaza in 2007. Previous efforts to reconcile the two terrorist movements failed. However, in advance of the current push to have the United Nations General Assembly declare a Palestinian state under the PA, the two groups have initialed an agreement which promises elections later in the year. Fatah can say it rules all of the territories and neither needs to make concessions to Israel in return for any UN declaration. As Mideast expert Professor Barry Rubin has written, “Hamas is probably quite happy with the idea that many countries–and perhaps the UN–will recognize an independent Palestinian state unconditionally. In other words, there will be a widely, or internationally, accepted Palestine without the need to make peace with Israel. No concessions need be made. The Palestinians will get everything and give up nothing. They will not be bound in any way by border changes or security guarantees. The struggle to wipe Israel off the map can continue. It’s Hamas’s dream come true” (‘Fatah-Hamas Agreement: Another Nail in the “Peace Process’s” Coffin,’ Pajamas Media, April 27, 2011).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “As we have argued previously, 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. To the contrary, by concluding a reconciliation agreement with a movement intent on a genocide of the Jews, it has shown conclusively that it is not only not a peace partner, but an avowed enemy of Jews and the Jewish state.
“Abbas’ PA 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. Can there be any prospect of these things happening when it allies itself to Hamas?
In particular, any withdrawal of Israel Defense 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, despite any agreement signed between the two now. 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. This would send the world a message of Israeli weakness, a message which says that this is really Arab land to which Jews have no claim. We could end up with an Iranian-armed and supported Hamas-run state in these territories.
“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. By signing an agreement with Hamas, it has done the very opposite. This is time for Israeli firmness and steadfastness, not one-sided concessions.”