Does the Palestinian leadership still desire to eliminate Israel?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
19 July '10

An Arab reader asks: Does the Palestinian leadership still desire to eliminate Israel?

Answer: If we are talking about Hamas, of course yes, there is no doubt about that and shouldn't be. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is a more complex case. Many PA leaders know that they cannot destroy Israel and that the cost of trying would be very high for them. A number of them, in their private thoughts or personal preferences, would like a lasting two-state solution. Prime Minister Fayyad is one of the few who has apparently abandoned this idea in his behavior as well.

But in another part of their minds many PA leaders think that destroying Israel is the right goal and can be done in the long term. What is especially important is that they still teach their people this idea and do not break publicly with it. How much effort has been done in Arabic by the PA to promote the idea of a permanent solution in which two states live side by side in peace since the 1993 Oslo agreement?

Remarkably little. Media, textbooks, mosque sermons, leaders' speeches rarely speak in these terms when made in Arabic. Thus, the continued domination by this doctrine provokes violence, conflict, radicalism, and legitimacy for Hamas.

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