JNS
Palestinian statehood has become almost a religion in which no new developments will ever make those who support it reconsider their unshakeable, almost fanatical faith.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is backing away from his previous support for Palestinian statehood, saying that the Hamas-led assault in his country on Oct. 7, 2023, changed his thinking.
Speaking on Jan. 21 at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Herzog said he still favors “a political move forward on the Palestinian front,” but he pointedly did not repeat his longtime promotion of a Palestinian state. That’s significant.
Instead, he explained to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, a journalist and political commentator of an eponymous weekly Sunday-morning news show, afterwards that he needs to see real evidence that the hearts and minds of Palestinian Arabs have changed.
“The idea of the two-state solution is something which, on record, I supported in the past, many times,” he said. “But I would say that I had a wake-up call following Oct. 7, in the sense that I want to hear my neighbors say how much they object, regret, condemn and do not accept in any way the terrible tragedy of the terror attack of Oct. 7 and the fact that terror cannot be the tool to get there.”
The Palestinian Arabs “deserve to have peace just like us,” Herzog continued. “But it requires them to disseminate and understand that terror is out of the question under any circumstances.”
Clearly, Palestinian Arabs and their supporters do not understand that at all. The Palestinian Authority in mid-January announced a “truce” with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in Jenin. Instead of fighting the terrorists, the P.A. is content to coexist with them. Instead of condemning terrorism, the P.A.’s newspapers and television broadcasts continue to praise the Oct. 7 invasion.
And just look at the remarks by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who took the stage at Davos following Herzog. He could have used the occasion to announce that Qatar regrets serving as Hamas’s top financial supporter all these years. He could have expressed remorse that Qatar bankrolled the massacres, baby-burnings and gang-rapes of Oct. 7. He could have announced that he has ordered the arrest of the Hamas leaders who are being sheltered in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Instead, Al Thani verbally slapped Herzog in the face, declaring that Oct. 7 was “a wake-up call for the region” that has created “a momentum built around the world” to establish a Palestinian state. That’s right, 15 months after the murders and rapes and decapitations—with hostages still being held captive in Gaza—Qatar is demanding that the rapists be given their own sovereign state.
Herzog’s old friends on the Israeli left and the American Jewish left should take his words as a wake-up call of their own. After all, not too long ago, he was their beloved leader.
In 2013, Herzog was elected chairman of Israel’s Labor Party, making him the head of the left-wing opposition. Just 10 days after he won that race, Herzog met with P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and publicly pledged his support for creating a Palestinian state.
Two years later, Herzog ran for prime minister. American Jewish groups such as J Street, Americans for Peace Now, the U.S. Labor Zionists and Partners for Progressive Israel all strongly supported his unsuccessful candidacy.
Those groups must be so disappointed now. Because while Herzog is now demanding that the Palestinian Arabs express “regret” and “condemn” the “terror attacks of Oct. 7,” that’s not what the Jewish left is saying at all. While Herzog insists that the P.A. must declare “that terror cannot be the tool” to achieve their aims, the Jewish left is not issuing any such appeals to the P.A. leadership.
On the contrary, J Street and the others are demanding the creation of a Palestinian state with no preconditions. As if Oct. 7 never happened. They won’t even publicly demand that the P.A. honor the obligations it undertook in the Oslo Accords.
I recently wrote to the leaders of J Street, Partners for Progressive Israel and the recently merged Labor Zionists-Americans for Peace Now. I asked them if they were concerned about the P.A. signing a truce with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Jenin. I asked them to publicly call on the P.A. to use its security forces to arrest, disarm and extradite the Jenin terrorists, as the Oslo agreement requires.
Such action would eliminate the need for Israeli soldiers to endanger their lives in pursuit of terrorists in Jenin. It would also spare the lives of innocent bystanders in Jenin, who are sometimes inadvertently harmed when Israeli security forces are forced to pursue terrorists there.
But these Jewish “peace” groups won’t even take that minimal step. A J Street official replied that she would share my message with her colleagues. The other groups did not respond to my inquiry at all. (So much for their alleged interest in “dialogue” and “civility.”) They are so passionately committed to the Palestinian Arab cause that they won’t even look at new facts that should make them reconsider their old positions, as Herzog has done.
That extremist attitude severely undermines the credibility of the American Jewish left. It suggests that for them, Palestinian statehood has become almost a religion in which no new developments will make them reconsider their unshakeable, almost fanatical faith in the P.A.
Herzog has heeded the “wake-up call” of Oct. 7. But his old friends and partners are still sound asleep.
