No matter how many concessions the Palestinians receive from Israel, they are always received with such bad grace and so much negativity that it’s hard to see why on earth Israel should negotiate with them about anything at all. They seem determined to remove any incentive from Israel to concede one single thing. (The fact that Israel continues to do so speaks volumes about the questionable sanity of Israel’s leaders and the American and other international authorities that pressure Israel, but that is a whole other tale.)
Israelis protest at release of 26 Palestinian prisoners
Exhibit A: The Palestinians demanded a prisoner release before they would even deign to consider sitting down in the same room as the Israelis in order to talk about talking about peace. And the Israelis actually gave in to this outrageous demand and have granted the release of 26 murderous terrorists as a starting offer.
But it isn’t enough. It’s a bribe says a Palestinian official, as if they themselves didn’t demand this exact prisoner release. They decry the fact that there are no pre-Oslo prisoners amongst those terrorists released. They complain that there are no Israeli Arabs amongst them. How can Israel ever expect to satiate this greedy monster? (The question is rhetorical. Please do not supply answers on a postcard).
Exhibit B: Israel withdrew from the Sinai in its entirety in 1979 at the time of the peace treaty with Egypt, including evacuating settlements and handing over a valuable oil field. Israel also withdrew from Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip in its entirety in 2005, including troops and even exhuming dead bodies from the cemetery.
Grads shot at Eilat
But it wasn’t enough. We all know about the constant rocket fire from Gaza towards Sderot and other communities in Israel’s south. Now the rocket fire is emanating from the Sinai, with Grads being shot over the weekend towards Eilat. Yes, that is the very same Sinai that Israel gave up in exchange for peace. The Salafist terrorists operating in the Sinai have asserted that “Eilat will never be safe”
Luckily the rockets were shot down by Iron Dome, and to give credit where credit is due, there are rumours that Egypt cooperated with Israel in eliminating a Jihadist terror cell in the Sinai who were about to launch an attack of their own. At least Egypt has a better idea of how to act in its self-interest than the Palestinians.
A rendering of Rawabi’s city center. (courtesy of Bayti)
Exhibit C: The Palestinians are demanding a boycott of a new settlement. (Via Commentary Magazine whose article is a worthwhile read on its own). OK, technically it is a new Palestinian city, Rawabi, that is being built in the West Bank. One would think that this would be the cause of great joy to the Palestinians. One would be wrong.
The project has also come under attack from the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, which opposes any normal ties with Israel. The committee has accused Mr. Masri of promoting his private interests at the expense of Palestinian rights and of whitewashing the Israeli occupation.
So these Palestinians would rather not have a brand-new city than to have one with the aid of Israel.
As the Commentary article incisively noted:
Much like the efforts to prevent the descendants of the 1948 refugees from being resettled so as to keep them as an issue to hold over Israel, they’d rather keep Palestinians from having a new town so long as it doesn’t mean doing business with Jews.
Exhibit D: In a similar example of self-imposed boycotting, two Israeli Arab businessmen trying to bring some economic benefit to their Palestinian brothers in Ramallah have been forced to abandon their plans to open a Fox fashion store in the city because of Palestinian protests against “normalization” with Israel. This unfortunate state of affairs negatively affects the Palestinians themselves and doesn’t make a dent on Israel:
The new project was supposed to provide jobs for nearly 150 Palestinians, some of whom had already received training to start working in the Ramallah branch.
Although the owners had obtained permission from the PA Ministry of Economy to open the clothing store, Palestinian activists and journalists launched a campaign against the opening of the store in Ramallah.
The activists and journalists said that the opening of an Israeli clothing store in a Palestinian city was a form of “normalization” with Israel.
One of the leaders of the campaign, Fadi Arouri, a photojournalist with China’s Xinhua News Agency, told Wattan TV that the opening of a Fox store in Ramallah was a “stain of disgrace.”
And these are our “partners for peace”. I’d love to know what an enemy of peace looks like.
In truth, the reason for this Palestinian rejectionism is not because they are stupid or blinkered. It is because they don’t want to be given a Palestinian state. They don’t even want to earn a state or deserve a state. They want to conquer a state – Israel – and bring it to its knees in utter and total surrender. And then they plan to build their own state on top of the destroyed Israel. But it would be very unpolitically correct to say as much to the West, hence the ridiculous charades of asking for prisoner releases and then rejecting them, asking for building freezes and then not negotiating while the freeze is in place, and even boycotting their own businessmen and builders for cooperating with Israel – because Israel needs to be destroyed in order for them to feel they have won.
We, Israel, are idiots for complying with the Palestinians outrageous demands and conniving in their mind-games. It is beyond time that we stood up and declared loud and long that we will cooperate no further until the Palestinians give up on their murderous intentions.
It really comes to this – it’s a zero-sum game, winner takes all. Let us hope and pray and fight for us, Israel, to be the overall winner.
Anne's Opinions 
We in the West think in win-win terms. The Arabs think the opposite way in zero-sum terms. They need to see Jews humiliated in order to feel good about themselves. That is if they can’t destroy the Jews!
That is one of the many reasons why in truth peace is impossible with them!
As “politically incorrect” as it may be, there are several studies suggesting that centuries of incestuous inbreeding involving marriages of cousins has deteriorated the genetic gene pool of intelligence of Arabs affected by these aberrant cultural practices. If this were, in fact, true, it would be helpful if all commentaries about the stupidity – yes, stupidity – of a group begin with “Another unfortunate example of intellectual impairment of Palestinians is …” Instead, we have to figure out the politically correct explanation for their failures and/or lack of achievement in literature, science, music, politics, economics, rational thought, long term (or even short term) self interests, child development, moral practices, social, religious and political tolerance, just to name a few of our daily observations that have lasted for centuries. But let’s be clear, a discussion of even the possibility is not what any of us would want to risk our lives and that of our loved ones for.
I don’t even believe they’d want to build a state for themselves. The proof is Gaza -what has been built on the ruins of Gush katif? Hospitals? houses? malls? scchools? parks? No, only tunnels for arms smuggling & bases for rocket launchers. The same would happen G-d forbid here. All they want is to drive Israel into the sea, get more money & finally conquer any other neighbours. The Pals only understand violence & nothing more. The tragedy if it all is that our leaders have never openly stated this & the rest of the world can’t comprehend that a people would actually think like this & so put their way of thinking into the Pals mouths.
Reblogged this on Meir Weiss' Blog and commented:
again and repeatedly……
“…to give credit where credit is due, there are rumours that Egypt cooperated with Israel in eliminating a Jihadist terror cell in the Sinai who were about to launch an attack of their own. At least Egypt has a better idea of how to act in its self-interest than the Palestinians.”
I spotted this one as well, and added, when posting it elsewhere, that the Egyptian military had no wish to take on the IDF for a fourth time (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 – even the supposed “victory” of 1973 almost ended in disaster when Sharon crossed the Suez Canal, but was restrained by the cease-fire). Seems they’ve finally learned their lesson.
It’s not only that they don’t want to take on the IDF. They know that Israel isn’t a threat to them as long as they don’t attack Israel, and meanwhile they have more than enough on their plate fighting the Jihadists in the Sinai as well as Morsi’s supporters in Cairo and elsewhere. There’s an absolute bloodbath going on there right now.