Dr Raphael Danziger, AIPAC senior research advisor; Photo by Aaron Bandler American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) senior research adviser Raphael Danziger and an attendee at the AIPAC Policy Conference identifying herself as a Palestinian briefly sparred during a Q&A period in a session about missed Palestinian opportunities to establish a state.
The Palestinian attendee told Danziger, who argued during the March 1 session in Washington, D.C., that the Palestinians have boxed themselves into a weak negotiating stance because of their refusal in prior decades to accept a deal, that his arguments made her “uncomfortable.” She argued that Israel’s continued occupation and building of settlements in the West Bank and siege of the Gaza Strip makes it hard for her to view Israel as a good-faith peace partner.
“I want to make sure my [Palestinian] state has real authority,” she said, arguing that past Israeli offers for a two-state solution came with a catch.
Danziger responded, “It’s a question of leadership, and the Palestinian leadership is failing its own people. Israel was blessed with strong leaders who were able to make compromises … but the Palestinians kept rejecting the compromises.”
The Palestinian attendee said she disagreed, and Danziger said he respected her differing opinion.
Leading up to that point, Danziger told the room of around 50 people that the Palestinians’ best opportunity for their own state came in the 1947 United Nations partition plan creating both a Jewish and an Arab state in what was the British-controlled Mandate Palestine territory. Instead, the Arab world declared war on Israel in 1948, and Israel’s boundaries in the aftermath of the war ended up being bigger than if the Arabs had accepted the partition plan.
“If you lose a war, there are consequences,” Danziger said.
The Palestinians had another opportunity with the 1978 Camp David Accords that established a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, Danziger argued, noting that the agreements also would have established a Palestinian state in the West Bank. But the Palestinians rejected it because they weren’t involved in the talks, according to Danziger.
“The situation got much worse for [the Palestinians],” Danziger said, highlighting the fact that Israeli settlers in the West Bank have vastly increased since 1978.
Danziger also pointed out that the Palestinians could have had full autonomy over the West Bank had they accepted President Bill Clinton’s parameters for a peace plan or Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s similar offer in 2008, but each deal was rebuffed.
Additionally, in 2005 the Israeli government forced Israeli settlers to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and left greenhouses for the Palestinians to use; Israel would have done the same with the West Bank had the Gaza withdrawal ended well, Danziger said.
“As soon as the Israelis left, the Palestinians looted the greenhouses; everything was destroyed. … Two years later, Hamas took over,” Danziger said, later adding: “[The Palestinians] really blew it.”
The reason why the Palestinians keep rejecting offers for a peace agreement is because they will never accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, according to Danziger.
“They want the whole [land],” he said. “From their perspective, the Jews have absolutely no right to have any part of Palestine … therefore, any notion of accepting a Jewish state regardless of the borders is out of the question for them.”
President Donald Trump’s peace plan, which annexes Israeli settlements in the West Bank and keeps Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, is the consequence of the Palestinians consistently saying no to peace offers, Danziger argued.
“It’s very hard to be optimistic that there will be compromise because of that continued rejection,” he said.
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