Latin American terror groups have sometimes fought for human improvement and survival, but then seemed to look ultimately toward some forms of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. Palestinian terrorists, on the other hand, fight only to expunge an entire people, the Jews, from (at a minimum) the face of the Middle East.
Whatever the rhetoric of the moment, Palestinian terrorism is never really a plea to Israel to relieve material needs, but rather a hideous demand to die so that certain Muslims can realize their alleged spiritual wants. Citing to a major hadith (an Arabic term that refers to the oral tradition by means of which sayings or deeds attributed to the prophet Muhammad have been handed down to Muslim believers), King Saud once informed a British visitor to his court: “Verily, the word of God teaches us, and we implicitly believe it, that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew, ensures him an immediate entry into heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty.”
Palestinian terrorism, now based solidly on fanatical religious hatreds and intentionally wanton killings, bears no close resemblance to other forms of contemporary terror violence. Starkly medieval, it seeks the death and dismemberment of individual Jews and, cumulatively, the annihilation of the Jewish state. There can, therefore, be no justification for its manifold crimes and harms. UN-legitimized Palestinian statehood will only hasten genocidal terrorist goals.
For Mahmoud Abbas, as earlier for Yasir Arafat, “Palestine” can never be allowed to coexist with any Jewish state. Rather, religiously and ideologically, it would be raised triumphantly upon the ruins of Israel, an irremediable objective that could imperil not only Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but also New York, Washington and Los Angeles.