Even before the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Jewish community in then-British Mandatory Palestine expressed its desire to live in peace with its Arab neighbors. Since then, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to make bold, painful concessions, such as withdrawing from land and forcibly removing its citizens, in order to achieve peace. While Israel has achieved peace agreements with seven of its neighbors — Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan — and maintains growing informal relations with others, Palestinian leaders refuse to even negotiate with the Jewish state.
A comprehensive peace agreement would benefit Israelis and Palestinians alike.
A permanent peace can best be achieved through direct, bilateral talks. Imposed solutions and going to international bodies like the U.N. or International Criminal Court (ICC) hurt the prospects for peace.
Israel has repeatedly said “yes” to two-state agreements, only to be rebuffed by the Palestinians. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state; Abbas rejected the offer “out of hand,” as he later said in a TV interview. Since then, the leaders of both major Israeli political parties agreed to negotiate on the basis of the Trump peace framework—which envisions a two-state solution—while Palestinians refused.
Rather than seeking to impose one-sided demands on Israel through the U.N. and other fora, the Palestinians should engage in negotiations with Israel and end their boycott of U.S. and Israeli officials.
By paying salaries to terrorists and their families, Palestinian leaders are incentivizing terrorism and making peace harder to achieve.
A strong U.S.-Israel relationship promotes peace by making clear that Israel will not be destroyed and by giving Israel the confidence needed to take risks for peace, as demonstrated with Egypt and Jordan.
