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Israel’s False Partners for Peace
by Laura Turetsky, Queens College
A Palestinian Arab man covers his face with a Hezbollah flag and Hamas headband at an anti-Israel rally.
REUTERS/Abu Haykel
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Since the Palestinian Authority elections last January, it seems Hamas has aroused some serious attention. Although the Palestinian Arabs have long been obligated by agreements with Israel to abolish terrorism and terrorist groups, Hamas, a democratically elected fanatical group, has come to power, and the question that has been on everyone’s mind is: what does this mean for Israel?
When elected, Hamas replaced Fatah, the leading party of the Palestinian Authority, as the majority in the PA’s governing body. Hamas and Fatah are political opponents, one religious and one secular. Members of the two groups hate and often kill each other.
Hamas, an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance” that, prophetically, means “violence” in Hebrew, is a strongly religious Islamist party whose goal is the destruction of Israel, and implementation of an Islamic Arab state in its place. The Hamas charter expresses this by stating, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
Fatah is a secular nationalist party, and the main party of the PLO, formed for the purpose of carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. Yasser Arafat was the leading politician in Fatah, succeeded by Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s long-time ally and right-hand man. Unlike Hamas, Fatah is not a religious party, and stresses the importance of a nationalist Palestinian Arab state rather than a Muslim one.
Fatah revolutionized Arab terrorism when it began hijacking planes in 1968. Fatah members instituted the now infamous terrorist tactic of hijacking passenger planes, a crime never before committed. Thus, Fatah first invented and propagated plane hijackings as a form of terrorism.
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“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.”
—Hamas charter
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Unlike its more candid pronouncements in Arabic, in English, Fatah has feigned a desire to make peace with Israel, and has called for a so-called “two-state” plan, which would actually be a three-state plan, as Jordan, created in 1946 out of 78% of the territory of the Palestine Mandate, is the Arab State in Palestine, and Israel is the Jewish State in Palestine. In Arabic, however, to non-Western ears, Fatah has explained that the so-called two-state plan is merely the first stage in a process of destroying Israel. So, though Fatah seems diplomatic, or at least attempts to, in truth, its ultimate goal matches that of Hamas.
Hamas does not try to hide it, and states clearly in its charter: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
However, in the end, what they say they want makes no difference, because actions speak louder than words, and blatant acts of terrorism prove that there is no chance for peace until Israel has a partner that wants it. Fatah was clearly not that partner; neither is Hamas. How so many Israelis, in order to sustain their hope for peace, continue to trust these terrorists and terrorist-supporters is a heartbreaking mystery.
And so Israel continues the fight for peace, desperately hoping that someday someone else will too. For now, Hamas is what we’re dealing with, and it will not stop until it sees to the end of Israel. Or, more accurately, until Israel sees to the end of it.
Laura Turetsky is a sophmore at Queens College, where she is studying Comparative Literature and Journalism. She is the Vice President of the Chabad executive board and the Chair of the Political Science Club's Middle East Committee.
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