“Had Palestinian (and the broader Arab and Muslim) leaders ever been willing to live in peaceful coexistence with Jews, there would be nothing to “resist.” Had the Palestinian and Arab leadership accepted the partition resolution in 1947; had they not launched genocidal war in 1948 and again in 1967; if they had accepted the invitation for a Palestinian state in 1967, instead of responding with the famous three no’s; if they had accepted any of the endless opportunities to live in a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state, there would be peace and Palestinian self-determination today.
There isn’t, of course. And that has precious little to do with either Israel’s existence or any imagined intransigence on the part of successive Israeli governments. Labor or Likud, hawk or dove — not one has been able to find a way to negotiate peace and a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That’s not the fault of Israelis. That’s the fault of Palestinians and their allies.
In other words, the Palestinian violence that we saw on October 7, which is a perpetuation of the aggressive antisemitic violence we have seen for decades masquerading as “resistance,” is not a reaction to anything Jews or Israelis have done — indeed, it is the cause of whatever Israelis have done.
The root of this conflict is Palestinian and Arab/Muslim intransigence, the refusal to tolerate so much as the idea of Jewish national self-determination. This is why there is a conflict.”