CAMERA Letter in NJ Record: Palestinian Leaders Reject Statehood

By: Sean Durns July 13, 2020

Why ‘Palestine’ is without a state

Regarding “’We need to pursue systematic change’: Palestinian Americans in NJ brace for annexation” (northjersey.com, June 28):

The reason for the lack of a sovereign Palestinian Arab state — something which, contrary to what the report implies, has never existed — is simple: Palestinian rejectionism. Palestinian leaders have rejected numerous U.S. and Israeli offers for a state, most recently in 2008 after the Annapolis Conference, as explained in reports by Palestinian Media Watch, the Times of Israel, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Tower and Newsweek. The memoirs of several U.S. diplomats involved in the peace process, such as Dennis Ross and Aaron David Miller, confirm that then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat rejected the 2000 proposal at Camp David, as well as the 2001 offer at Taba. The 2008 offer would’ve given Palestinians a state comprised of 93.7 percent of the West Bank with a capital in eastern Jerusalem, according to a report by Tablet. 

Palestinian leaders are on record as saying that they consider all of Israel to be “Palestine,” as evidenced in reports by Palestinian Media Watch.

Failure to compromise and negotiate, coupled with a refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist has left Palestinians without a state.

 

Sean Durns, Washington, D.C.

Durns is a senior research analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis

(Note: A slightly different version of the above letter was published in the print edition of the North Jersey Record on July 6, 2020)

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