Islam venerates Judaism. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in peace in Arab and Muslim societies for centuries before the creation of Israel in 1948. Palestinians are bewildered as to why Zionism rewarded them with deportation, dispossession, occupation, and humiliation. They are baffled as to why far right Zionist politicians refuse to share the Holy Land with them.
In their despair, the Arab masses turn to God for deliverance. Belief in predestination, jihad injunctions, and the promise of paradise are a jihadist factory. Humiliation triggers religious fatalism. Israel’s denial of a connection between occupation and jihadism is like Saudi Arabia’s denial of a connection between Wahhabism and 9/11.
The war between the Bible and the Qur’an could burn for a thousand years. For a durable long-term peace in the Holy Land, the Bible and the Qur’an must be de-politicized.
I will start with the peaceful relations Muslims and Arabs had with their Semitic “cousins” for centuries. I will identify the root causes of the conflict with Israel from the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration to Donald Trump’s dictates. I will question whether the Balfour Declaration was possibly a condition for Washington to join the First World War. I will recall the private contacts and official negotiations that culminated in the Oslo Accords, and the failure of Oslo to bring peace to the Holy land. I will end with a crystal ball look into the future.
Islam’s Veneration of Judaism
Islam venerates Judaism. Arabs believe that Jews are their Semitic “cousins”, going back to Ismail (Ishmael), the son of Abraham by the Egyptian slave woman Hagar, and Ishaq (Isaac), the son of Abraham with Sarah.
The Qur’an praises Abraham as the first Muslim and describes Islam as the “religion of Abraham.” For example:
Qur’an 2:130: And who, unless he be weak of mind, would want to abandon Abraham’s creed, seeing that We have indeed raised him high in this world, and that, verily, in the life to come he shall be among the righteous?
Qur’an 3:95: Say God speaks the truth. Follow the Religion of Abraham the upright, who was not of the idolaters.
Qur’an 4:125: Who can be better in religion than the one who submits himself to God, does good, and follows the way of Abraham the true in faith? For God did take Abraham for a friend.
Today, names like Dawoud (David), Ibraheem (Abraham), Ishaq (Isaac), Mousa (Moses), Sara (Sarah), Sulaiman (Solomon), Yacoub (Jacob), Yousef (Joseph), Zakariyya (Zakaria), and Sham’oun (Shimon) are common in Arab societies. Until the Zionist-led Jewish migrations into Palestine started in earnest, Jews in the Arab and the Muslim worlds had centuries of generally peaceful relations. It was rather common for Muslim me to marry Jewish women.
During the Umayyad dynasty (661 – 750), Christians and Jews enjoyed considerable tolerance upon the payment of land and poll taxes. [1] During the Abbasid dynasty (750 – 1258), they filled important financial, clerical, and professional positions. [2] Hitti describes how the Jews fared under Muslim rulers:
In 985, al-Maqdisi found most of the moneychangers and bankers in Syria to be Jews … Under several caliphs, particularly al-Mu’tadid (892-902), we read of more than one Jew in the capital and the provinces assuming responsible state positions. In Baghdad itself, the Jews maintained a good-sized colony, which continued to flourish until the fall of the city [1258]. [Rabbi] Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the colony about 1169, found it in possession of ten rabbinical schools and twenty-three synagogues; the principal one, adorned with variegated marble, was richly ornamented with gold and silver. Benjamin depicts in glowing colors the high esteem in which the head of the Babylonian Jews was held as a descendant of David and head of the community.[3]
It was the Muslim Saladin who encouraged Jews to return to Palestine following his defeat of the Crusades in 1187.[4] In 1492, the Ottoman Sultan, Bayezid-II (1481-1512) allowed Jews driven out from Spain and Portugal to settle in the Ottoman territories, where they were able to rebuild their lives after being expelled from Iberia.[5]
In Mesopotamia, Spain, North Africa, Egypt, and Ottoman Turkey, Jews lived peacefully under the moderate Hanafi rite of the Ottoman Sultans.[6] Had the sultans forced their Christian subjects in the Balkans in the sixteenth century or later to convert to Islam, the sectarian wars that devastated the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s would probably not have happened.
A further quotation from the novel Coningsby written by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Britain’s first and so far, only prime minister of Jewish parentage (1868 and 1874-1880) is relevant. On the golden age of Muslim Spain, Disraeli wrote:
“That fair and unrivalled civilization in which the children of Ishmael rewarded the children of Israel with equal rights and privileges with themselves. During these halcyon centuries, it is difficult to distinguish the followers of Moses from the votary of Mohamet. Both alike built palaces, gardens, and fountains, filled equally the highest offices of the state, competed in an extensive and enlightened commerce, and rivalled each other in renowned universities.” [7]
The fact that around 850,000 Jews migrated from the Arab world around the time of Israel’s creation in 1948 and shortly after suggests that the Jews of the Arab world must have found it agreeable to live among Arabs for centuries.[8] In 1917, around a third of the population of Baghdad, for example, were Jewish.[9] Had the Jews of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen had the inclination to move away from Arab communities, they could have moved within the vast non-Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire.
Genesis of the Arab Israeli Dispute
Two events during the First World War (1914 – 1918) embittered generations of Arabs. The first was the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The second event was the Balfour Declaration.
– The Sykes-Picot Agreement
It was signed on May 16, 1916, three weeks before Sharif Hussein bin Ali declared the Great Arab Revolt against his Sunni Ottoman co-religionists and political masters on June 10, 1916. The Agreement was kept secret until the Bolsheviks exposed it on November 23, 1917. It handed Iraq, Palestine, and Jordan to Britain, and Syria and Lebanon to France. Sharif Hussein’s reward were some vague and inconclusive negotiations for Arab independence and a kingdom for himself, which he hastily accepted. For more on the Revolt, see my article in this Website titled: “The 1916 Revolt of Sharif Hussein bin Ali Against the Ottoman Empire.”
– The Balfour Declaration
It was made in a letter sent on November 2, 1917, by the then Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to the Jewish community leader Lord Rothschild. It offered lands in Palestine Britain never owned to the Zionist Federation. The letter said: [10]
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
“His Majesty’s Government views with favour [sic] the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours [sic] to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
The part of the Declaration: “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” was ignored. According to Jewish sources, around 650,000 Palestinian refugees were created by 1948.[11]
A hundred years after the Balfour Declaration, Lord Roderick Balfour, a great-great-nephew of foreign secretary Balfour, said that Israel, by mistreating Palestinians, is failing to honour the terms of the document. “I have major reservations,” he said in an interview with the London Telegraph newspaper on October 22, 2017. There is this sentence in the Declaration: “Nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. Well, that’s not being adhered to.” “That has somehow got to be rectified.”[12]
Curious Timings
The timing of the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917), and America’s entry into the First World War on the side of Britain and the Allies (April 6, 1917), raises the question: Were the two events connected? Was the Balfour Declaration among the reasons behind Washington’s entry into the War? To shed light on a possible answer, the timing of three other events is noteworthy:
1. The Balfour Declaration (November 2, 2017) was made five weeks before British forces even entered Palestine on December 11, 1917.
2. Theodor Herzl’s Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, which called for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
3. American Christian Zionists’ fantasy to send world Jewry to Palestine to expedite the return of Jesus to the Earth to convert the Jews to Christianity. Such dreams were gaining currency in America since the early 1800s. John Adams, the second President of the United States (1797-1801), expressed his wish in a letter to a Jewish friend, M. M. Noah, dated March 15, 1819, to see “the Jews again in Judea an independent nation” in time to “become liberal Unitarian Christians.”[13]
Further research is needed to establish whether the Balfour Declaration was a factor in Washington’s decision to enter WW1.
The Population Size in Palestine Since 1882
To promote Palestine as a Jewish home, Zionist leaders coined the slogan: A land without people to a people without a land. But Muslims had ruled Palestine for 1280 years before the Balfour Declaration was made: Under Arab rule, from the years 637 and 1517, and Ottoman rule from 1517 to December 11, 1917.
In 1882, seventeen years before the Herzl Congress, Palestine had a population of 300,000, of whom 276,000 were non-Jews and 24,000 Jews.[14]
According to a census of Palestine conducted by the Mandatory government on October 23, 1922, featuring a breakdown by district of residence, religion, language and age, the total population was given as 757,182, of whom 590,890 (78%) were Muslims, 83,794 (11%) Jews, 73,024 (9%) Christians, and 9,474 others.[15]
By 1946, the total population of Palestine reached 1,850,000, of whom 1,242,000 were Arabs and 608,000 were Jews, making the number of Jews who migrated to Palestine, mainly from Europe, between 1922 and 1946, ~584,000 (608,000 in 1946 – ~84,000 in 1922).[16]
The number of Arab Jews who migrated from the Arab world within a relatively short period of time around the Arab Israeli War in 1948, was estimated at 820,000, with 586,000 going to Israel and the rest going to Europe and America.[17]
Meanwhile, according to the United Nations, 700,000 Palestinian refugees were created in 1948.[18] According to Palestinian sources, “over 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from 531 towns and villages, in addition to 130,000 from 662 secondary small villages and hamlets, making a total of 935,000 refugees.”[19] These numbers suggest the possibility of a deliberate plan to exchange Palestinian refugees for Arab Jews.
In October 2024, Israel’s population was estimated at nearly 10 million, 7.7 million Jews and 2.1 million Palestinian Israelis.[20] When Israel was created in 1948, Palestinian Israelis were 156,000.[21]
In 2023, the number of Jews worldwide was estimated at 16.8 million, according to Jewish Virtual Library, of whom 7.4 million live in Israel and 7.4 million live in the United States, with the rest living around the world.[22]
In mid-2024, the Palestinian population worldwide was estimated at 14.8 million, according to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, of whom half is living outside Palestine, mostly in Arab countries (85%).[23]
Politicizing the Bible’s Genesis 15:18
After thirteen centuries of tranquil coexistence, Arab political and religious leaders were faced with a politicized Bible:
Genesis 15:18: The Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, ‘unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
The creation of Israel on a biblical foundation precipitated a vexing religio-political conflict between Palestinians and Muslims on one hand and Jews on the other.
Arab Fears of Genesis 15:18
The return of the Jews to Palestine, based on a 3000-year-old book, 1800 years after the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, [24] banished them from Palestine in the year 135 is a Western colonial outpost dressed up in religious garb, using Ashkenazi European Jews to occupy Palestine. To Arabs, Zionism is a political movement to usurp Palestinian and Arab lands, akin to the European conquests of the 18th and 19th Centuries to “civilize” the world.
Since 1948, four generations of Palestinians have lived in primitive overcrowded refugee camps surviving on handouts from UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip. The affliction of the Palestinian refugees is a warning of the fate that awaits the tens of millions of Arabs who live in the lands “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” Arabs see the two parallel blue lines across Israel’s flag as the Nile and Euphrates Rivers. They fear becoming refugees.
Arab fears are compounded by apocalyptic beliefs of influential American Christian Zionists who daydream of a second coming of Christ to the Earth. They believe that a prerequisite for the second coming is the migration of the Jews to Palestine so that Christ would then convert them to Christianity. [25] Christian Zionists foresee in Genesis 15:18 Israel’s future expansion into neighbouring Arab countries and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, “the site of Christ’s millennial rule.”[26]
Politicizing the Qur’an
Faced by this onslaught, Arab religious and political leaders invoked dormant-for-centuries divine covenants of their own. In mosques, schools, and the media, clerics preach intolerant and jihad Qur’anic Verses, recount tales of the Prophet’s troubles with the Jewish tribes in Medina and draw conclusions from the symbolism of substituting Friday for the Sabbath.
Jerusalem is home to the Dome of the Rock Shrine in al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Arabs as the al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), known to Jews as the Temple Mount. It is Islam’s third holiest sanctuary after the two Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina.
Muslims believe that the Prophet Muhammad put his foot on the Rock inside the Dome of the Rock Shrine in Jerusalem before He ascended to Heaven on His Night Journey (Isra’). Chapter (Sura) 17 of the Qur’an is named The Journey by Night (Surat al-Isra):
Qur’an 17:1: Glory to Him Who transported His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose environs We have blessed. [27]
The Noble Sanctuary was built in 692 by the Umayyad Caliph Abd Al-Malik bin Marwan. It is located where two Jewish temples once stood, the second of which was destroyed by the Roman Emperor Titus in the year 70. Far right Zionist politicians have declared the goal of demolishing the Noble Sanctuary and the building of the Third Temple instead in an exclusive Jewish country, a terrifying plan to Palestinians, Arabs, and to the universal umma (nation) of Islam that will explode the gates of hell if it ever is attempted. Indeed, Palestinians’ resistance to deportation or voluntary departure from Jerusalem, Nablus, or Gaza is due in a great measure to protecting the al-Aqsa Mosque from extreme Zionists’ schemes.
The Qur’an demands that Muslims aid each other as if they were one body:
Qur’an 3:103: And hold fast, all together, unto the bond with God, and do not draw apart from one another.
Qur’an 103:1-3: Enjoin one another to truth and enjoin one another to endurance.
The Prophet reportedly said that Muslims are brothers,[28] that the relation of one believer to another is like a building whose parts support one another, and that the solidarity among Muslims in their mutual love, mercy, and sympathy, is like that of a body; if an organ aches, the whole body sympathizes with it with sleeplessness and fever.[29] For more on the religious motive, see my two articles on this Website: “Arab Peoples’ Devotion to Islam” and “Islamic Beliefs, Laws, and Sects”.
A survey of Arab attitudes in 2019-2020 toward the Palestinian cause (Graph 1), conducted by Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar found that 79% of Arabs agree that the Palestinian cause concerns all Arabs: Algeria (94%), followed by Jordan (93%), Tunisia and Saudi Arabia (89% each), Qatar (88%), and Egypt (74%).[30]
Graph 1
In another 2019-2020 survey in 13 Arab countries by Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar found that 86% of respondents consider themselves as “very religious” and “religious, to some extent.”[31]
Earlier, during the Arab Spring’s elections, Muslim Brotherhood affiliated political parties won the premierships in Tunisia (October 23, 2011) and Morocco (November 25, 2011), and in Egypt, they won the presidency (June 30, 2012). When George W. Bush ventured into democratizing Arab societies in 2005/2006, Islamic parties won the parliamentary elections in Egypt and Iraq. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Hamas won.
By 2025, forty-six years after the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel (March 26, 1979), and thirty-one years after the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel (October 26, 1994), relations between the two countries and Israel remain limited to small diplomatic missions with hardly any participation by the Arab Street. This unimpressive state of affairs is entirely due to the absence of progress on recognizing Palestinian rights by Israel.
A Lesson from History
Arabs take comfort in Saladin’s defeat of the Crusades in 1291, two centuries after they arrived in Jerusalem, ostensibly to free it from Muslim rule and prepare for Christ’s return to the Earth. It is noteworthy that Saladin allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem to settle 1150 years after the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, forced them out of Palestine in 135 AD, during the second Jewish rebellion against the Empire in 60 years.
With the open calls by far-right Israeli leaders to transfer the Palestinian people to neighbouring countries the confrontation has become a full-scale religious crusade. As the pressure persists, the oppressed will turn to God for deliverance. The combination of predestination dogma, Qur’anic jihad injunction against injustice, and the promise of paradise for the martyrs is a jihadist factory. Unless the Bible and the Qur’an are depoliticized, this war could burn for a thousand years.
Donald Trump and the Goliath Versus David Mindset
Trump’s anti Palestinian dictates during his first term in the Oval Office and the early days of the second term are equivalent to the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration in the seriousness of their consequences.
– Changing the Status of Jerusalem
On December 6, 2017, the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.[32] Jerusalem is the third holiest Muslim sanctuary after Mecca and Medina. The change in status is despite United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 446 (1979), 452 (1979), 465 (1980), 476 (1980), 478 (1980), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003), 1850 (2008), and 2334 (2016), which condemn all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.[33] In so doing, America’s role as an honest mediator vanished and the Oslo Accords died.
– Cutting Aid to the Palestinian Authority
On August 24, 2018, more than $200 million in U.S. aid to Palestinian Authority was cut.[34] Created in 1994, following the Oslo Accords, the Authority has become a service provider for the Israeli government in the occupied Palestinian cities, towns, and villages.
– Starving UNRWA of US Funds
On August 31, 2018, the State Department ended all funding for the agency.[35] UNRWA began operations on May 1, 1950.[36] Today, 5.9 million Palestine refugees are eligible for its services. Funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from UN member states, pledges in 2023 were $1.46 billion,[37] with 73% of spending on education and 15% on health care.[38] Undermining UNRWA is sought by Israel to erase the refugee problem altogether through settling the Palestinians in the countries that host the UNRWA camps (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) and in GCC states that employ them.
– Cutting Aid to Palestinian Hospitals
On September 8, 2018, $25 million was eliminated from East Jerusalem hospitals to cover cancer treatments and other critical care for Palestinians.[39]
– Shutting Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Office in Washington D.C.
On September 10, 2018, the PLO office in Washington D.C was closed.[40]
– Recognizing Israeli Sovereignty Over the Occupied Golan Heights
On March 29, 2019, Trump signed an order to recognise the Golan Heights as Israeli. The area was seized from Syria in the 1967 war. Syria said Trump’s decision was “a blatant attack on its sovereignty.”[41]
Two weeks into his second term in the Oval Office, on February 4, 2025, Trump went further. He announced what the United Nations regards to be an illegal act of ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. He Trumpeted a plan to take over the Gaza Strip, send the Palestinians elsewhere, and redevelop the land as the “the Riviera of the Middle East.”[42] He decided that Egypt and Jordan should take the displaced Gazans. The two countries rejected the plan outright. The scheme would make them complicit in crimes against humanity. It would turn their domestic societal peace upside down. Further, transferring the Gazans to Egypt could be a prelude to transferring the Palestinians of the West Bank to Jordan, demolishing the al-Aqsa Mosque to build the Third Temple, and opening the gates of hell in the Middle East (see: Politicizing the Qur’an above).
The Abraham Accords
Brokered by Donald Trump’s Administration, the Accords normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and each of Bahrain and UAE (September 15, 2020), Morocco (December 22, 2024), and Sudan (January 6, 2021). Judging from the absence of popular support for the peace treaties Israel signed with Egypt (March 26, 1979) and Jordan (October 26, 1994), the prospects for support among the masses in other Arab countries is dim.
Expanding the Accords to Saudi Arabia and other Arab states will not change the dislike Saudis in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Mecca harbor towards an exclusive Zionist state any more than the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties have done in Cairo or Amman.
The 2019-2020 Arab Opinion Index, conducted by Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar, asked the question: Would you support or oppose diplomatic recognition of Israel by your country? Graph 2 shows that 88% of Arabs disapprove of recognizing Israel by their home countries, with 99% in Algeria, followed by Lebanon (94%), Jordan and Tunisia (93% each), Qatar and Kuwait and Morocco (88% each), Egypt (85%), while in Saudi Arabia 65% expressed their rejection as contrasted with 6% who agreed to recognition and 29% refusing to express their opinion.[43]
Graph 2
A November 2022 poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel research organization, found that 76% of Saudis had negative views of the Abraham Accords.[44] Another poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (November 14, 2023, to December 6, 2023), found that 96% of Saudis believe that Arab countries should cut all ties with Israel to protest the war in Gaza.[45]
Hailed by America’s Christian Zionists and Israeli zealots, Trump added to the humiliation and despair of Palestinians and Arabs, driving the helpless to take refuge in God and jihadism.
The Oslo Accords
The signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, on the White House Lawn was the culmination of five years of private and official negotiations as well as political developments. The following is a list of the main events.
The Arafat / Hauser Meetings in Stockholm in Early 1988
On December 6, 1988, a meeting in Stockholm was arranged by Swedish Foreign Minister Sten Andersson for a PLO delegation headed by Chairman Yasir Arafat and five prominent American Jews led by Rita Hauser, chairwoman of the International Centre for Peace in the Middle East.[46] Following the two-day meeting, a joint statement on December 8, 1988, said that the Palestinian Parliament in exile had accepted in the previous month ”the existence of Israel as a state in the region” and ”declared its rejection and condemnation of terrorism in all its forms.”[47] At a news conference, Arafat said: ”We accept two states, the Palestine state and the Jewish state of Israel.”[48]
The Yasir Arafat Speech in Geneva on December 13, 1988
On December 13, 1988, Arafat delivered an 80-minute speech before the United Nations General Assembly in Geneva (the US rejected his request for a visa to New York).[49] The State Department called the speech too ambiguous in parts.[50] The next day, December 14, 1988, at a news conference in Geneva, Arafat elaborated upon his previous day’s speech. He outlined Palestinian “rights to freedom and national independence according to Resolution 181, and the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to exist in peace and security … including the State of Palestine and Israel and other neighbours, according to Resolution 242 and 338.”[51] As for terrorism, Arafat declared: “We totally and absolutely renounce all forms of terrorism, including individual, group and state terrorism.”[52] Five years later, on September 13, 1993, what started in Stockholm led to the signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House Lawn.
The Gulf War (1990-1991)
Meanwhile, certain developments helped deliver the Oslo breakthrough. The Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait (August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991) was such development. Since the 1950s, Palestinians were welcomed to work in Kuwait. By the time of the Iraqi invasion, around 400,000 were living there. While nine Arab countries took part in the American coalition against Saddam,[53] Arafat supported Saddam. Within three months after Kuwait was liberated, the great majority of Palestinians in Kuwait, possibly 95%, were expelled.[54] The Gulf War left Arafat and the PLO on their knees; impoverished and isolated. In 1991, Arafat was desperate for a miracle to steady his damaged ship.
The Madrid Peace Conference
On March 6, 1991, President George H. W. Bush told Congress, “The time has come to put an end to the Arab Israeli conflict.” [55] The Madrid Peace Conference was held between October 30, 1991, and November 4, 1991. By early 1993, however, the talks had become deadlocked. They were overtaken by secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Oslo, Norway. These negotiations produced the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles, known as the Oslo Accords.[56]
The Seeds of Peace Camps
In the spirit of Stockholm, peace seeking Americans and Palestinians were building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians. John Wallach, an award-winning author and journalist, inaugurated in the Summer of 1993, the first Seeds of Peace camp in the State of Maine to “inspire and cultivate new generations of global leaders in communities divided by conflict.”[57] The first Camp included 46 Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, and American teenagers.[58] They spent the summer weeks living together and learning from each other.[59] Thirty years later, more than 8,000 youngsters from the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, and the United States benefited from the Seeds of Peace experience.[60]
The Hausman / Masri Connection
During the summer of 1990, a meeting in London was arranged by the author of this article for Leonard J. Hausman, director of the Institute of Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at Harvard University[61] with Munib al-Masri, a Palestinian former cabinet minister in Jordan, a prominent businessman, and a confidant of Yasser Arafat. The aim of the meeting was to bring together Palestinian teenagers to join young Israelis and Americans in the first Seeds of Peace Summer Camp in Maine. So symbolic the Program was that President Clinton invited the 1993 participants in the Program to the signing of the Oslo Accords by the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and PLO Chairman, Yasser Arafat, on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.[62] Beyond the Seeds of Peace, Hausman’s access to American politicians and academics and Masri’s access to Palestinian leaders helped enhance goodwill among Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Oslo. Also, the Hausman Institute helped with the establishment of the Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[63]
Failure of the Oslo Accords
As part of the Oslo Accords, letters were exchanged on September 9, 1993, between the Chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin. In Mr. Arafat’s letter, he accepted Israel’s “right to exist.” In return, Mr. Rabin recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.[64] The Oslo Accords envisioned an interim period of five years of negotiation, starting no later than May 1996, with the aim of agreeing on serious issues including the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, security, and borders. However, none of these issues was resolved.
In November 2007, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert introduced a new condition for any further negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. He demanded that the PA accepts Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.[65] The Palestinian Authority rejected the demand. The Declaration of Principles was silent on such a condition.[66] Similarly, the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt (March 26, 1979) and Israel and Jordan (October 26, 1994) were also silent on this issue.
The new condition is seen by Palestinians as filibustering the peace process. The Palestinians rejected the new condition because it represents an existential risk to the Palestinians in Palestine. A purely “Jewish state” would also jeopardize the rights of the more than 1.5 million Palestinian Israelis. A “Jewish state” is impossible to create unless the Palestinian Israelis vanish. A “Jewish state” would put an end to the right of return of the refugees. The Arab League Summit in Kuwait on March 26, 2014, rejected the notion of Israel as a Jewish state: “We express our absolute and decisive rejection to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”[67]
On the twentieth anniversary of the Oslo Accords, Ron Pundak, one of the two Israelis who conducted the negotiations with PLO representatives in Oslo (the other was Yair Hirschfeld), “blamed Rabin and his foreign minister… Shimon Peres for the fact that the process did not yield a final-status agreement.” In an interview with The Times of Israel on September 15, 2013, Pundak said that he had “no doubt whatsoever” that “Arafat truly sought peace with Israel.”[68]
On July 19, 2018, with 62 in favor, 55 against, and two abstentions, the Israeli parliament adopted a new law defining Israel as the national home of the Jewish people. It downgraded Arabic from an official language to one of “special status.”[69]
In a post on X on January 20, 2024, Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan – and this is contrary to a Palestinian state.”[70]
Today, thirty-two years since September 13, 1993, the Accords are effectively dead.
The Arab Peace Initiative (API)
When the two sides failed to reach agreement on the “serious issues” of the Oslo Accords of 1993 during the five-year interim period, Saudi Arabia promoted The Arab Peace Initiative. The Arab League summit in Beirut on March 28, 2002, proposed to the Israeli Government that in return for:
a) Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967.
b) Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
c) The establishment of a Sovereign Independent Palestinian State on the Palestinian territories occupied since the 4th of June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
The Arab countries affirm the following:
a. Consider the Arab Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.
b. Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.
The Initiative was agreed by the 22 member states of the Arab League. It was re-endorsed at the 2007 Arab League Summit in Saudi Arabia [71] and again at the 2017 Arab League Summit in Jordan.[72] It was endorsed in June 2002 by the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and earned the support of the Quartet mediators’ Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East, composed of the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia.[73] But, successive Israeli governments rejected the Arab Peace Initiative.
Difficulties with the Two-State Solution
The list of thorny issues that stand in the way of the two-state solution is long. It includes Jerusalem, borders, security for Israel and Palestine, water rights, Jewish settlers, the status of the Palestinian Israelis, and the right of return for the refugees. Thirty-two years since the signing of the Oslo Agreement on September 13, 1993, the two-state solution proved to be illusionary. None of the important issues has been resolved. When President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Yasser Arafat attempted to tackle these issues at Camp David in July 2000, the negotiations collapsed, paving the way for the second intifada.
Even if a miracle delivers two states in the Holy Land, the extremists on both sides would wreck the arrangement. Armed with the Bible, emboldened by might of the Israeli army and blind American support, Zionist extremists would want a Jewish state over the entirety of Palestine, even the “land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” In reaction, impoverished Palestinians living in an emasculated state next to the most powerful military and prosperous economy in the Middle East would turn to God for jihad and martyrdom.
A Confederate State
In the long run, that is probably the only viable solution, Professor Omer Bartov believes.[74] He explains: There would be two states—a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. They both would have full sovereignty. They would be along more or less the borders of 1967. They will make a distinction between residency and citizenship. Jews who live in a Palestinian state, could remain Israeli citizens, who have rights of residency in a Palestinian state, but have to adhere to all the laws, rules and regulations of that Palestinian state. And Palestinians who live, say, in Nablus and would like to live in Haifa, like a French man from Paris who would like to live in Berlin, could move to Haifa, and they could have rights of residency, but they’d have to conform to all the rules and regulations of the Israeli state. Jerusalem would be the joint capital of both. There would be institutions that will take care of the mutual affairs of these two states, which are very tightly woven together now by the infrastructure, electricity, water and so forth.
Former President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, meeting with journalists in 2015, advocated a confederated Israeli and Palestinian states as the only solution.[75]
A Single State
A single democratic secular state for Palestinians and Jews would pave the way for recognition by Arab governments. More important than governments would be the acceptance by the masses in the Arab world and Muslims everywhere of the new state. Economic, cultural, educational, and social interaction would follow, and the two sides would quickly learn how much they could benefit from one other.
A single state would eliminate the key obstacles to a two-state arrangement—Jerusalem, security, settlements, refugees, Palestinian-Israelis, water, and borders. A single state would welcome Arabs and Jews to the entirety of Palestine. The Jews would realize their dream of living in all of Palestine, and the Palestinians would feel that they, too, inhabit the entirety of Palestine.
The advantages of a single state are not naïve fantasies. For centuries, Arabs and Jews lived together in peace. They can do so again. Today, nearly half of Israel’s Jewish population descends from the Arab world.[76] Arab Jews could be a positive link with the Arab world. They share cultural traits, customs, habits, food, music, dance, and, for the older generation, the Arabic language.
The road to a democratic single state is short. There already exists in the Holy Land a de-facto single state, albeit an apartheid state.[77]
What if the Stalemate Persists?
As the Palestinian plight festers, the oppressed will increasingly turn to God for deliverance. The combination of predestination dogma, Qur’anic jihad injunction against injustice, and the promise of paradise for the martyrs will increasingly fortify the downtrodden against Israel’s bombs and apartheid practices. Humiliation and Injustice are sharp triggers to weaponize religious fatalism. Seventy-seven years since 1948, despite more than a hundred thousand Palestinians and Arabs killed in indiscriminate bombings of cities and refugee camps and in targeted assassinations of political and religious leaders, Palestinian resistance is more resolute as ever. Beyond the nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, ten devastating wars later against Arabs and Palestinians: 1956, 1967, 1973, and in Lebanon (1982, 2006, 2024), and in Gaza (2008, 2012, 2014, and the Armageddon of 2023/2024) have failed to subdue the resistance to the occupation and Israel’s attempts to transfer the Palestinians from the Holy Land to Jordan and Egypt.
Israel’s hegemonic power should not be used to stonewall the Oslo Accords or the Arab Peace Initiative. It should not dream of ethnically cleanse Palestine of its original inhabitants.
The Palestinian people did not take anything from Israel. It is Israel who should return a part of what it took.
For a durable long-term peace, the Bible must not be at war with the Qur’an. Unless the Bible is depoliticized, the Qur’an will not be depoliticized, and wars between Arabs and Jews could go on for a thousand years.
A Blurred Vision
Creating an exclusive Zionist state instead of a home in the Holy Land for Jews and Palestinians provoked a strong reaction from Arabs and Muslims everywhere. This conflict could have been avoided had Zionist leaders been respectful of the Balfour Declaration’s condition that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
Those who argue that Jews and Palestinians cannot live together in peace ought to recall Benjamin Disraeli’s:
“Fair and unrivalled civilization in which the children of Ishmael rewarded the children of Israel with equal rights and privileges with themselves.”
Also, they ought to remember that the bitter enemies of yesterday are close friends today—the US and Japan, the US and Vietnam, the US and Germany, Israel and Germany, among others.
Muslims and Jews do not have the blood of Jesus between them. By contrast, in Europe, centuries of maltreatment of Jews culminated in the horrors of the Holocaust. Arabs are baffled as to why Zionism refuses to share Palestine with them after centuries of living together in peace.
In provoking the enmity of Arabs and Muslims, Zionism has harmed the long-term interest of the Jewish people. The safety and prosperity of Jews in the Muslim World require living together in peace with Palestinians in the Holy Land and the welcome of Israel by its Arab neighbours. For Israel to be welcomed in the Middle East, it must become a good neighbour.
The Historical Leadership of Jews for Justice
Generations of intellectual Jews have led liberation movements everywhere. The Jewish people, having suffered persecutions and injustices ought to appreciate more than anyone the plight of the Palestinian people. Calls by Israel’s far right politicians for the transfer of the Palestinian population to Egypt and Jordan are stains on the otherwise bright age-old record of the struggle of Jews for human rights and justice.
Avraham Burg, former speaker of Israel’s Knesset (1999-2003) and a former chairman of the Jewish Agency wrote an article in 2003, titled “The End of Zionism“. Here are snippets:[78]
“The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. … It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies.
A state lacking justice cannot survive. … Travelling on the fast highway that skirts barely a half-mile west of the Palestinian roadblocks, it’s hard to comprehend the humiliating experience of the despised Arab who must creep for hours along the pocked, blockaded roads assigned to him. One road for the occupier, one road for the occupied. This cannot work. Even if the Arabs lower their heads and swallow their shame and anger forever, it won’t work. A structure built on human callousness will inevitably collapse in on itself.
Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centres [sic] of Israeli escapism. They consign themselves to Allah in our places of recreation, because their own lives are torture. They spill their own blood in our restaurants in order to ruin our appetites, because they have children and parents at home who are hungry and humiliated. We could kill a thousand ringleaders a day and nothing will be solved, because the leaders come up from below – from the wells of hatred and anger, from the “infrastructures” of injustice and moral corruption.
If all this were inevitable, divinely ordained and immutable, I would be silent. But things could be different, and so crying out is a moral imperative. … We love the entire land of our forefathers and in some other time, we would have wanted to live here alone. But that will not happen. The Arabs, too, have dreams and needs.
Between the Jordan and the Mediterranean there is no longer a clear Jewish majority. And so, fellow citizens, it is not possible to keep the whole thing without paying a price. We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew. We cannot keep the territories and preserve a Jewish majority in the world’s only Jewish state – not by means that are humane and moral and Jewish.
Israel’s friends abroad – Jewish and non-Jewish alike, presidents and prime ministers, rabbis and lay people – should choose as well. They must reach out and help Israel to navigate the road map toward our national destiny as a light unto the nations and a society of peace, justice and equality.”
Footnotes
[1] Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs, 10th ed. (MacMillan Press Ltd London), 1970. P. 233.
[2] Ibid, P. 353.
[3] Ibid, PP. 356-357.
[4] “The Question of Palestine”, United Nations, (1980), https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-206581
[5] Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1987), P. 50.
[6] John Garraty and Peter Gay, editors, The Columbia History of the World, (New York: Harper & Row, 1981, PP. 289-290).
[7] Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, or The New Generation, (Kessinger Publishing, Whitehish, MT, 2004), P. 179, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coningsby-Benjamin-Disraeli-Classics-Psychological/dp/1592244270
[8] In a BBC report on Israeli Jews from Iraq published in May 2007, Yakov Reuveni remembered his youth in the 1940s: “We used to eat with them, sleep with them, go to school with them; the Arabs and the Jews went to the same high school. During the Shi’ite festival of Muharram, we would take part in the procession and along with our Arab friends, beat our chests to remember the epic battle of Karbala . . . After school we would go out to the date palm grove with the freshly caught fish from the river Hidekel, which we would barbeque in the fields over an open fire . . . Jews shared almost all aspects of life with their Arab neighbors”. Another interviewee, Eli Mizrakhi, whose family came from northern Iraq said, “Most of us still feel connected to the country where we or our ancestors came from. Our parents and our grandparents still remember many things from their Iraqi past and they bring them to us, with food, music, language.”
Lipika Pelham, “Israelis from Iraq Remember Babylon”, BBC, (May 7, 2007),
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6611667.stm
[9] Julian Worricker, “BBC WS Claims Israeli ‘Pressure’ and ‘Incentives’ Led Jews to Flee Iraq,” BBC World Service, (November 21, 2017),
https://bbcwatch.org/2017/11/21/bbc-ws-claims-israeli-pressure-and-incentives-led-jews-to-flee-iraq
[10] Jewish Virtual Library, “Balfour Declaration: Text of the Declaration,”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/text-of-the-balfour-declaration
[11] Michael Bard, “The Exodus of 1947-48” Jewish Virtual Library,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/refugees.html
[12] Stuart Winer, “Current Lord Balfour Says Israel Failing to Live up to 1917 Declaration,” The Times of Israel, (October 22, 2017).
[13] John Adams, the second president of the United States (1797 – 1801), wrote to M. M. Noah:
“I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation For as I believe the most enlighten’d men of it have participated in the ameliorations of the philosophy of the age, once restored to an independent government & no longer persecuted they would soon wear away some of the asperities & peculiarities of their character possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jehovah is our Jehovah & your God of Abraham Isaac & Jacob is our God.”
“From John Adams to Mordecai M. Noah, Founders Online”, (March 15, 1819),
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7097
[14] “Jewish & Non-Jewish Population of Israel/Palestine (1517 – Present)”, Jewish Virtual Library,
[15] J.B Barron, “1922 Census of Palestine”, Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF),
https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/1087
[16] “The Question of Palestine”, United Nations, (1980),
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-206581
[17] Jewish Virtual Library, “Fact Sheet: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries”,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries
[18] “UN marks 75 years since displacement of 700,000 Palestinians”, United Nations, (May 15, 2023),
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/05/1136662
[19] Palestine Land Society, “Al-Nakba Anatomy”,
http://www.plands.org/en/books-reports/books/right-of-return-sacred-legal-and-possilble/from-refugees-to-citizens-at-home
[20] Jewish Virtual Library, “Vital Statistics: Latest Population Statistics for Israel,”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/latest-population-statistics-for-israel
[21] “Jewish & Non-Jewish Population of Israel/Palestine (1517 – Present)”, Jewish Virtual Library,
[22] “Vital Statistics: Jewish Population of the World (1882 – Present)”, Jewish Virtual Library,
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world
[23] State of Palestine, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, (Mid 2024),
https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/post.aspx?lang=en&ItemID=5791
[24] “The Question of Palestine: A Brief History”, United Nations, (1980),
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-206581/l
[25] One of the significant precursors to Christian Zionism is a version of restorationist theology known as premillennial dispensationalism. This theology was developed in the early 1800s by the Irish Brethren preacher John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), who drew on restorationist ideas and added his own modifications. According to the most popular prophetic system, wrote Paul S. Boyer, “premillennial dispensationalism, a series of last-day signs, will signal the approaching end. Those will include wars, natural disasters, rampant immorality, the rise of a world political and economic order, and the return of the Jews to the land promised by God to Abraham. The present “dispensation” will end with the Rapture, when all true believers will join Christ in the air. Next comes the Tribulation, when a charismatic but satanic figure, the Antichrist, will arise in Europe, seize world power, and impose his universal tyranny under the dread sign “666,” mentioned in Revelation. After seven years, Christ and the saints will return to vanquish the Antichrist and his armies at Har-Megiddo (the biblical Armageddon), an ancient battle site near Haifa. From a restored Temple in Jerusalem, Christ will inaugurate a thousand-year reign of peace and justice. Dispensationalism foretells the slaughter of Jews by the Antichrist and the conversion of the surviving few to Christianity.”
Paul S. Boyer, “Bible Prophecy Belief in American Culture and Its Political Implications”, PP. 3-4,
https://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/boyer.pdf
[26] Ibid., P. 6.
[27] The “Sacred Mosque” is believed to be at Mecca. The “Farthest Mosque” is believed to be at Jerusalem.
[28] The Six Books, Sahih Muslim, Traditions 6526 to 6540, PP. 1126-1127.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Traditions 481, P. 40 and tradition 6026, P. 510; and Sahih Muslim, tradition 6585, P. 1130.
[29] The Six Books, Sahih Muslim, Traditions 6582 and 6585 to 6589, P. 1130.
[30] “The 2019-2020 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief”, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Arab Center DC, (November 16, 2020),
The Index is based on the findings of face-to-face interviews conducted with 28,288 individual respondents in 13 Arab countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia,
https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-2019-2020-arab-opinion-index-main-results-in-brief
[31] “The 2019-2020 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief”, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Arab Center DC, (November 16, 2020).
The Index is based on the findings of face-to-face interviews conducted with 28,288 individual respondents in 13 Arab countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia,
https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-2019-2020-arab-opinion-index-main-results-in-brief/#menu
[32] Steve Holland and Maayan Lubell, “Trump Recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital, in Reversal of Policy,” Reuters, (December 6, 2017),
[33] 14 delegations (out of 15) voted in favour of Resolution 2334 and one abstention (U.S.). United Nations, Security Council, “Israel’s Settlements Have No Legal Validity, Constitute Flagrant Violation of International Law, Security Council Reaffirms. 14 Delegations in Favour of Resolution 2334 (2016) as United States Abstains”,
(December 23, 2016),
https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm
[34] David Brunnstrom, “Trump cuts more than $200 million in U.S. aid to Palestinians,” Reuters, (August 24, 2018),
[35] “US ends aid to Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa,” BBC (September 1, 2018),
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45377336
[36] United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), “Who We Are?”,
https://www.unrwa.org/who-we-are
[37] United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), “How we are funded?”,
https://www.unrwa.org/how-you-can-help/how-we-are-funded
[38] United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), “How we spend funds?”,
https://www.unrwa.org/how-you-can-help/how-we-spend-funds
[39] “New Cuts In Medical Aid To Palestinians By Trump Administration,” NPR, (September 7, 2018),
[40] “Trump administration announces closure of Washington PLO office,” Al Jazeera, (September 10, 2018),
[41] “Golan Heights: Trump signs order recognising occupied area as Israeli”, BBC, (March 25, 2019),
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-47697717
[42] Rory O’Neill, “Trump’s plan for ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza is illegal, says UN investigator”, Politico, (February 9, 2025),
[43] “The 2019-2020 Arab Opinion Index: Main Results in Brief”, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Arab Center DC, (November 16, 2020),
https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-2019-2020-arab-opinion-index-main-results-in-brief
[44] Michael Crowley, Vivian Nereim, and Patrick Kingsley,
“Saudi Arabia Offers Its Price to Normalize Relations With Israel”, The New York Times, (March 11, 2023),
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/us/politics/saudi-arabia-israel-united-states.html
[45] Vivian Nereim, “Saudis Overwhelmingly Oppose Ties With Israel, Poll Finds”, The New York Times, (December 22, 2023),
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-poll-israel-gaza-war-hamas.html
[46] The other four members were: Menachem Rosensaft, Drora Kass, Stanley Sheinbaum, and Abe Udovich.
“Arafat Meets 5 U.S. Jewish Leaders in Sweden; Israel Irate,” Los Angeles Times, (December 6, 1988).
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-12-06/news/mn-1015_1_american-jewish-leaders
[47] “Arafat says P.L.O. Accepted Israel,” The New York Times, (1988),
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/08/world/arafat-says-plo-accepted-israel.html
[48] Ibid.
[49] Melissa Healy, “U.S. Rejects Arafat Bid to Visit U.N. : Declares He Is Tied to Terrorism in Denying Visa”, Los Angeles Times, (November 27, 1988),
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-27-mn-1063-story.html
[50] Robert Pear, “U.S. Says Arafat’s Speech Fails to Meet 3 Conditions”, The New York Times, (December 14, 1988),
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/14/world/us-says-arafat-s-speech-fails-to-meet-3-conditions.html
[51] “Statement by Arafat On Peace in Mideast” at a news conference, as recorded by Reuters, The New York Times, (December 15, 1988),
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/15/world/statement-by-arafat-on-peace-in-mideast.html
[52] Ibid.
[53] Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE.
[54] Megan O’Toole, “Palestine-Kuwait relations: ‘Ice has started to melt’,” Al Jazeera, (August 6, 2015).
[55] The Madrid Conference, 1991, US Department of State, Office of the Historian.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/madrid-conference
[56] The Madrid Conference, 1991, US Department of State, Office of the Historian.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/madrid-conference
[57] Seeds of Peace. https://www.seedsofpeace.org/
[58] Ibid.
[59] Ibid.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Debra Bradley Ruder, “Planting Seeds of Peace,” The Harvard Gazette, (September 8, 1994). https://www.seedsofpeace.org/planting-seeds-of-peace-the-harvard-gazette/
[62] Ibid.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Jewish Virtual Library, “Israel-Palestinian Peace Process: Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (“Oslo Accords”),” (September 13, 1993).
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/declaration-of-principles
[65] Daniel Pipes, “Accept Israel as the Jewish State”, Middle East Forum, (November 29, 2007), https://www.meforum.org/accept-israel-as-the-jewish-state
[66] “Text: 1993 Declaration of Principles”, BBC, (Last updated: November 29, 2001).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/middle_east/israel_and_the_palestinians/key_documents/1682727.stm
[67] Jack Khoury, “Arab League Rejects Israel as Jewish State,” Haaretz, (March 26, 2015).
https://www.haaretz.com/arab-league-nixes-israel-as-jewish-state-1.5339646
[68] Raphael Ahren, “No Regrets, Many Laments, from the Architect of Oslo,” The Times of Israel, (September 15, 2013).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/no-regrets-many-laments-from-the-architect-of-oslo
[69] “Israel passes Jewish nation law branded ‘racist’ by critics,” The Independent, (July 19, 2018).
[70] Abeer Salman, Mitchell McCluskey, Ibrahim Dahman, Sophie Tanno, Kevin Liptak, and MJ Lee, “Netanyahu again rejects Palestinian sovereignty amid fresh US push for two-state solution”, CNN, (January 21, 2024),
[71] Avi Isaaccharoff, “Arab States Unanimously Approve Saudi Peace Initiative,” Haaretz, (March 28, 2007).
http://www.haaretz.com/news/arab-states-unanimously-approve-saudi-peace-initiative-1.216851
[72] Adam Rasgon, “Arab Leaders at Summit Endorse Two-State Solution”, The Jerusalem Post, (March 29, 2017),
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/arab-leaders-at-summit-endorse-two-state-solution-485572
[73] “The roadmap: Full text,” BBC, (April 30, 2003).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2989783.stm
[74] Interview with Amy Goodman, “From the River to the Sea”: Omer Bartov on Contested Slogan & Why Two-State Solution Is Not Viable” (November 10, 2023),
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/10/bartov_two_state
[75] “Rivlin: Confederation of Two States, Israeli and Palestinian, Is the Only Solution”, Haaretz, (December 3, 20015),
[76] Jewish Virtual Library, “Fact Sheet: Jewish refugees from Arab Countries”,
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries
[77] “Israeli apartheid factsheet”, War on Want, (August 31, 2021),
https://waronwant.org/news-analysis/israeli-apartheid-factsheet
[78] Avraham Burg, “The End of Zionism,” The Guardian, (September 15, 2003).
Reprinted with permission of The Forward, which translated and adapted the essay from an article that originally appeared in Yediot Aharonot. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,1042071,00.ht