Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Palestinians Will Never Accept Israel’s Existence
Week after week, we’ve watched Hamas “negotiating” with Israel for a ceasefire. Recently, participants and observers were celebrating that headway was being made, but as usual, Hamas broke off activities once again. The terrorists remain focused on their major goal: driving Israelis into the sea. Any agreement short of that will be a failure to them.
So why do these negotiations continue? What does either side hope to accomplish? Exploring the issues on both sides has been a passion of mine; I admit that I am a Jew and have visited Israel several times, but not lately. Still, like most Westerners, I want to live to see peace in the Middle East. A book I just read was probably intended to suggest there was a way to peace. After I finished reading it, however, the possibility of reaching a practical and workable agreement seems extremely unlikely.
The book I read, Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict, spends a small amount of the narrative on recent occurrences, such as October 7. I found its focus educational and insightful regarding the long-term relationship between the Jews and the Arabs. I learned the limitations that both sides bring to the conflict, as well as their history.
The story begins by introducing us to a Jewish man, David Shainberg from Memphis, Tennessee, who went to Israel to study at Yeshiva; he chose the Yeshiva in Hebron, Israel (which was called Palestine at the time). After his death, a family member discovered letters that he had sent home from Hebron, and she shared the letters with the author of this book. The letters ignited the curiosity of Yardena Schwartz, and set her on a journey to learn the story of David Shainberg, the events that led to the Hebron pogrom, and to see if she could discern the differences and similarities to what had occurred in Hebron on August 24, 1929, and October 7, 2023.
David Shainberg fell in love with Palestine, the Jewish people, and his study at the Yeshiva. After arriving in Palestine in September 1928, he immersed himself in the experience with deep devotion and learning. He discovered the existence of relative peace between the Arabs and Jews.
The relative harmony between Jews and Arabs in Hebron was rare in a country largely divided along religious lines. In Hebron, Jews and Arabs celebrated weddings and holidays together. They did business together. Jews traveled between Jerusalem and Hebron in Arab buses, taxis, and horse-drawn carts.
But for David Shainberg, this idyllic existence was short-lived.
For weeks, rumors had been circulating, inspired by the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini:
Rumors quickly spread in Muslim circles and the Arabic press: the Jewish youth who marched to the Western Wall on August 15 had attacked Muslim residents, cursed the Prophet Muhammad, and raped Muslim women. None of this was true.
[snip]
Outside the mosque, sheikhs delivered speeches to growing crowds. ‘The Jews have killed a thousand Arabs in Jerusalem,’ declared one of the mosque’s preachers, Mahmud Sultan. ‘The Jews have taken the Wailing Wall and Al-Aqsa, and if you wait longer the Jews will also take the Patriarchs’ Tomb.’ In truth, the Jews had conquered nothing, and no one was being killed by the thousands.
The actual riot/pogrom began on August 24, 1929:
On the morning of August 24, 1929, 3,000 Muslim men armed with swords, axes, and daggers marched through the Jewish Quarter of Hebron. They went from house to house, raping, stabbing, torturing, and in some cases castrating and burning alive their unarmed Jewish victims. Sixty-seven Jewish men, women, and children were murdered, and dozens more wounded.
The riots spread all over the country, and lasted several days, with little effort from the British to protect the Jews.
David Shainberg was killed.
When it was over, the Shaw Commission conducted an investigation. They insisted that the Grand Mufti played no role in instigating the riots. One person, however, felt that the truth needed to be told about the situation:
[Sir Henry] Snell, a socialist politician of the Labour Party who would go on to be party leader, disagreed chiefly with the recommendation to restrict Jewish immigration and land purchases. What is required in Palestine, he concluded, is not a change in policy so much as ‘a change of mind on the part of the Arab population, who have been encouraged to believe that they have suffered a great wrong and that the immigrant Jew constitutes a permanent menace to their livelihood.’ These fears are not only exaggerated, he wrote, but wrong. ‘The Arab people stand to gain rather than to lose from Jewish enterprise.’
Unfortunately, the Grand Mufti and other Arab leaders did not agree. The solution, from their standpoint, was to simply remove all the Jews.
After the October 7 massacre, polls were taken to assess the reactions of the Palestinians to the attacks:
Palestinian polls showed widespread support for Al-Aqsa Flood [a name for the Hamas attack], and a rise in support for Hamas itself. One poll conducted in late November by a Ramallah-based research group found that three-quarters of Palestinians approved of the attack. The same poll found that support for Hamas in the West Bank had tripled since October 7.
* * *
The reason for exploring and comparing these two major events in Palestine/Israel, which occurred many years apart, is to suggest the following: nothing significant has changed. The barbarity and hatred of both incidents were similar. Permission for the Arab population to tell lies and spread rumors about the Jews was pervasive in Hebron, as well as in Gaza. To this day, many people are in denial about the events in Gaza:
For many, recent events are difficult to swallow, contain, or comprehend. How does one react to horrific accounts of mass rape, mutilation, and savage sexual violence? Some would rather not know about it in order to protect themselves, and some prefer to treat it with disbelief.
Still, it happened. It all happened massively on October 7. Those who invest their energy in attempts to blur the incidents should not be referred to as serious journalists.
The implications of these findings are dire. How is it possible to bring peace between the Palestinians and Israelis when there is no way to know who truly wants peace? Ms. Schwartz says moderate Israelis and Palestinians must be found, but how will either side know the true hearts of the others? Even if Hamas is removed from governance, how will they be kept out of Gazan rule? The Palestinians elected Hamas to govern Gaza, even when they knew they were terrorists. Is there any reason to think that the Palestinians have sincerely reformed?
Yes, there were Arabs in 1929 who saved the lives of Jews in Hebron. Yes, there are probably many Palestinians who want nothing to do with Hamas today. If other entities are brought in to govern Gaza (if anyone wants to take on this impossible task), how will they govern fairly and effectively?
A long-term peace is simply not possible.
[originally published in the American Thinker, January 6, 2025]
Published in Culture
There is absolutely NOTHING to negotiate about with a culture of Death like the Palestinians* (sic).
* How the Palestinians (sic) got their name
Tough to recover from one of the most toxic cultures outside of North Korea. Gaza could have been a prosperous, happy place–like Lebanon once was. But a brutal kleptocracy that justifies its rule with hatred for Israel and the myth of a lost Palestinian state has made that impossible.
It really breaks my heart. But I have no reason to think that any Palestinians will be honest about allowing for Israel’s existence, OB.
Assuming that Israel declares the war over, the big question is: NOW WHAT? I can’t imagine it.
I listened to a podcast today, I think it was JP interviewing Rob Schneider.
Anyway, one person recounted a conversation with a friend who is Palestinian, who was angry about the current sitch. He asked her about October 7th, and the murders at the concert specifically; how did she justify that?
She replied that she laughed, that she rejoiced in some payback for all of the atrocities the Jews were responsible for. Something like that.
I was aghast. I suddenly felt like Colonel Kurtz felt. We are two conflicting cultures, with very little common ground. We think we can negotiate, find a way to COEXIST—as the bumper sticker says—but we are from different planets.
What is difficult to understand from here is the low value placed on human life. It’s this aspect of some areas of the world that perpetuates conflict. This is what the leftist sympathizers never get. They, at least, value their own lives. Some value their own above others, and they do not consider the implications of their advocation beyond a superficial level.
How do you end a conflict with a force that doesn’t care if it dies, nor if the civilian population it hides among dies? They are led to believe they are no more than cattle, or, at best chattel. Then they are taught their enemies are even less than they are, and they may enhance their own standing by killing them. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain by fighting and dying. I have no true comprehension of it, I’m just aware it is present.
So, why are all not this way? Because bonds exist between people and when you value those bonds, life has more meaning. It is not possible to eradicate how a parent may feel about children, or a spouse for their partner, or a brother for his siblings, or even a bond among friends. These simple things push against the idea that life is without value. This is foundational to civilization. True evil comes from the forces and ideas that try to make people forsake these bonds.
Very well said, Chris. The contrast with Israelis is huge, since Jews treasure life. I wonder, too, if part of the current situation has to do with how both peoples feel about G-d. Jews believe that G-d wants to have a relationship with them, and that we are to work with him to continue creation. Muslims believe that the most important aspect of their relationship with Allah is to obey. Very far apart.
Somehow made me think of this:
And that the most important obligation of everyone else is to obey the Muslims.
It’s always worth pointing out that Jews and Arabs co-exist in Israel. Maybe not always comfortably, but they get by.
Of course!!
The Arabs who are citizens in Israel are quite happy. There was a riot in Haifa–I can’t remember what the issue was–but it was called a pogrom–Arabs attacking Jews. But on the whole, they do well together.
I dated an Arab Muslim woman for over a year and became acquainted (and immersed) with the Arab community in my area. One of the strongest cultural differences I noticed was an Arab proclivity to lie. It comes so naturally to them that they rarely show any signs of stress. They could pass a lie-detector test with ease. This was also confirmed by historical accounts I’ve read about Arabs (and by Arabs) and about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the book “One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate.”
My experience has been that this is not necessarily true of all Arabs, as I also have both Arab Muslim and Christian friends whom I trust implicitly. Perhaps that is why these people came to America, to get away form that culture.
Along with a disregard for the truth comes an extreme affinity for conspiracy theories, as confirmed by an Iraqi friend of mine who says the Arab world is rife with all sorts of bizarre beliefs about the world and its machinations. It is no surprise that the Gazans and Palestinians believe that the Jews are responsible for all sorts of heinous acts that they did not commit. They will believe anything at all that fits their warped narrative, and then they will exaggerate it way out of proportion. They make our leftists look like rational skeptics by comparison.
Maybe he told them to go “Peacefully Protest?!!”
Key date: June 1967.
I have a possible solution that will take 80-100 years to fully implement.
Israel takes over the Gaza Strip and governs the Palestinians. They govern it like the British did Hong Kong. Unlike Hong Kong, it will take awhile for the Palestinians to settle down. They will engage in acts of terrorism against the occupation IDF, and the first few years will be barely tenable. After say, 10 years, things should start to calm down.
As the economy improves and the Arabs there start living more like the Arabs living in Israel proper, a lot of the radical edge will be worn off of the population. Again this will take generations.
As that radical edge wears off, neighboring Arab countries will also be more willing to accept the Arabs from Gaza. A good economy over generations will also mean that population will become better educated, and those other Arab countries will want immigration from Gaza.
At that point, Israel will probably want to give up the Gaza Strip as the population chafes. They aren’t going to want to make that population Israel citizens or vote in their elections. However, giving it to Egypt would seem like a possibility.
The Palestinians were deliberately isolated by the surrounding Arab countries as well as Iran (they’re Persian, and that makes a difference in the Middle East too; most Westerners don’t realize that) so that they would remain radicalized. It will take generations to undo that.
A part of the Muslim psyche is that they are never defeated. Their ultimate victory is only delayed, perhaps by a generation or two.
Yet, there is mostly peace between the Israelis and the Arabs. The Palestinians are mostly (all?) Arabs.
It’s been the Persians (Iran) that has been leading this latest effort to expel the Israelis.
That is true up to a point. However, they are still human beings and subject to many of the same laws of human nature as the rest of us. The fact that many have left their degenerate culture behind means there is ultimate hope. Some are probably beyond hope.
There is hope for individuals who go AWOL from Islam.
As Westerners who have benefited from generations of capitalism and unprecedented creature comforts, we are the ones who are often ignoring base human nature.
If you want those human beings to act like us, providing them with those creature comforts and the ability to earn them, as opposed to just giving it to them, will probably do it.
We’re the ones ignoring human nature.
“Peace” is an interim status. Like a rest stop on the interstate. Never the destination.
I think it was more that freedom and good governance caused the capitalism and unprecedented creature comforts in the West. Creature comforts alone does not necessarily lead to civility. Just look at the Arab Countries that have benefited from enormous oil wealth, like Saudi Arabia, Libya, Qatar, or United Arab emirates. They are all repressive countries with little regard for human rights.
I would say providing them with good governance and freedom would be much more helpful.
Someone once said or wrote, something like “If you can’t explain something to an Arab in terms of a conspiracy, forget it.”
Dan Senor’s podcast, Call Me Back, has an episode about Jimmy Carter, and what happened with him. After all, it was Carter, when he was still president, who engineered the Camp David accords, a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that still stands today.
The guest on that episode, Ken Stein, is an American Jew who worked for Carter at the Carter Center during his post-presidential years and was involved with Carter’s attempts to engineer a two state solution with the Palestinians and the Israelis.
He starts with the main difference between the Camp David Accords and the two state solution attempts after that.
The Palestinians simply have not wanted a deal. And just because a mediator like Carter wants it, won’t make it so. And Carter was flawed in another way. He had a preference towards the Arabs, and therefore the Palestinians. He would lecture the Israelis as obstructions to peace.
Stein would tell Carter that if he wanted to be the one mediating between the two he had to be seen as evenhanded to the Israelis. But he didn’t want to or couldn’t. Eventually, Carter’s hostility towards the Israelis, that included justifications for Hamas’s violence towards Jews, was too much for Stein and his fellow Jews at the Carter Center and they all resigned.
But Carter’s view about the conflict mirrored the American left’s. And does to this day.
Carter established the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, then complained that it had “too many Jews.”
He was a piece of work.
Piece of something, anyway.
Funny!