Arab Palestinians oppose ending the occupation

The Palestinians want to keep the lava of the refugee problem at full boil.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s plan to assist the Gaza Strip in becoming an independent entity has encountered wall-to-wall Arab Palestinian opposition. The dual-headed Arab Palestinian regime in Ramallah (Fatah) and in the Gaza Strip (Hamas) totally rejects Lieberman’s proposal to recruit the European Union to build power stations to supply electricity, desalination stations and a sewage treatment plant. This was to be part of a plan that would totally sever all connections with Israel, which would forgo its naval supervision over merchandise entering the port of Gaza and would totally seal the border with the Gaza Strip.

The arguments against exercising Palestinian independence resemble each other. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency in Ramallah, views Lieberman’s plan as a plot “against the Palestinian people’s aspirations for unity, liberty and independence” and as one that “expresses the aspirations of the Israeli extreme right.”

Ahmed Assaf, spokesman for the Fatah organization that props up the Palestinian Authority, argued that the Gaza Strip is still under “Israeli occupation” and so it will remain, because it constitutes a single geographic unit with the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Sami Abu Zuheiri, a Hamas spokesman, explained that “although Gaza was liberated in practice from the military and settlement presence, it is still from a legal and practical standpoint under occupation” and the Lieberman initiative is “an attempt to elude the responsibility imposed on the occupation.”

Abu Zuheiri argued that Israel, “the occupying country,” must continue to provide for the Gaza Strip’s needs including food, electricity and fuel.

THE HAMAS position exemplifies one of the major absurdities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas, which took pride in liberating the Gaza Strip from the occupation via jihad, is struggling with all its might to preserve the “Israeli occupation” and obligate Israel to continue transferring supplies to an entity that avowedly declares that it will liberate all of Palestine, liquidate the State of Israel and kill and expel its Jewish inhabitants.

This is primarily the guiding logic behind the position of the Palestinian leadership that has not renounced the idea of liberating Palestine in its entirety.
The goal of both the PA and the Hamas government is identical, namely, to keep the lava of the refugee problem at full boil, as this constitutes the key to the ultimate objective of the historic Palestinian odyssey – the liquidation of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. This is the real reason behind the Palestinian love affair with the “Israeli occupation.”

Hamas wants to eat out of Israel’s hand and then proceed to eat the hand itself and the entire body.

Israel’s opposition to placing the noose over its neck with its own hands is depicted by Hamas as a violation of international law.

Making the case for Israel

Why does it seem that the whole world is against us ?







The Strategic Challenge, Potentially even Existential



Hence, there is a mismatch between Israel's foreign policy and security doctrine, on the one hand, and the challenge Israel faces in the diplomatic and political arena, on the other hand.  Israel's diplomacy and foreign policy doctrine requires urgent overhaul.