A “Provisional” Palestinian
State
(Updated June 2002)
Israel has been seeking an end to the conflict
with the Palestinians for more than half a century and is
now prepared to accept the creation of a Palestinian state
beside Israel as part of a negotiated solution that ends
the conflict. A "provisional" state would not end
the conflict because it would leave Palestinian demands unresolved
and not require the Palestinians to make peace with Israel.
By offering the Palestinians statehood at this time, they
will be rewarded for a two-year reign of terror and be given
reason to believe that they can win greater concessions by
continuing to attack Israeli civilians.
Terrorist
organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have made clear their goal is not the creation of a democratic
Palestinian state, it is the establishment of an Islamic
state and the destruction of the democratic nation of Israel.
A provisional state satisfies neither of their goals.
The Oslo
accord set clear criteria for progress toward Palestinian
independence. The main premise of that agreement, signed
by Yasser Arafat,
was the Palestinian commitment to provide security and prevent
terrorism. Fulfilment of that obligation is a precondition
to any political progress. If the Bush Administration chooses
not to require this fundamental step, it will end up rewarding
the current Palestinian policy of violating all the signed
political agreements in the hope that terror will achieve
the goals they cannot win through negotiations.
If the United States recognizes a provisional Palestinian
state, the Palestinians will see no reason to negotiate with
Israel and will look to the Bush Administration to impose
their demands.
By granting even limited statehood, the U.S. will make it
virtually impossible for Israel to search out bomb factories,
arrest terrorist leaders, and take other vial counterterror
measures needed to protect Israeli civilians.
Rather than spend the last nine years since the Oslo agreements
were signed building the structure of a state, the Palestinians
have created a terror state that is universally regarded
as so corrupt that it must start almost from scratch with
new elections and institutions that are accountable and transparent.
Any movement toward recognition of Palestinian
independence must be accompanied by mechanisms to insure
the security of Israel, to acknowledge the rights of Jews
living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
and to end the outside support by Arab states for terror
organizations in the PA.
The Palestinians themselves are already expressing dissatisfaction
with the idea of a provisional state, showing that they remain
unwilling to accept any compromise and will accept nothing
less than a Palestinian state replacing Israel instead of
the one Israel has offered beside it.
One of the shortfalls of the Oslo process was that it created
timetables that raised Palestinian expectations for progress
toward the establishment of a state without requiring them
to fulfill their obligations first. This mistake would be
repeated if the Palestinians were promised statehood without
being first required to meet the commitments they made at
Oslo nine years ago, including ending terror and incitement,
confiscating illegal weapons, and negotiating all disputes.
The United States has never succeeded by imposing a peace
plan on the parties, agreements are only possible by their
mutual consent.
The United States should consult with its
ally Israel before proposing any change in the status quo,
and resist Arab pressure to present a plan that does not
have Israel's assent.
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