Mostly, however, the PA encourages its youngsters that Israel’s existence is temporary and can soon be ended, if only they are sufficiently resolute.
Peace can certainly be attained – if only the Arab side abandons these anti-humanistic beliefs. This, in turn, can only happen if the international community ceases its encouragement of these beliefs by pressuring Israel to make “concessions” and thus appear susceptible to a salami-like strategy of destruction.
Regarding Jerusalem, let us quote Prof. Efraim Inbar of the Begin-Sadat Center. “It is time,” he wrote after the breakdown of the Kerry initiative, “that the U.S. and the international community recognize [that] Palestinian demands to divide Jerusalem’s capital are unreasonable… No Israeli government will survive or support any concessions made in Jerusalem… All polls show that over two-thirds of Israelis – and nearly 80 percent of Israelis between the ages of 18 and 24 – feel that Jerusalem should remain the united capital of Israel.”
Strategic considerations also dictate that Israel hold onto greater Jerusalem as a united city, Inbar adds. Jerusalem “controls the only highway from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River Valley, along which military forces can move with little interference from Arab communities. If Israel wants to maintain a defensible border in the east, it needs to secure the east-west axis from the coast to the Jordan Valley, via an undivided Jerusalem.”
And finally, Inbar notes the Arab position: “The Arab minority in the city has clearly shown its preference for living under Israeli rule. Many Arabs have moved to the Israeli side of the security barrier being built around Jerusalem. Polls show that a large majority of Jerusalem’s Arabs oppose being subject to Palestinian rule.”
In short: The settlements are not the issue, and neither is Jerusalem. The main obstacle to peace is rather the Arab refusal to recognize and accept that Israel is here to stay.
To help in disseminating the above, or to take part in fact-finding bus tours of Yerushalayim, please send an e-mail to [email protected], or visit the Keep Jerusalem-Im Eshkachech website at www.keepjerusalem.org.