- Israeli withdrawal from 95% of Judea and Samaria (The West Bank), and 100% of Gaza;

- the creation of a Palestinian state in the areas of Israeli withdrawal;

- the removal of isolated communities and transfer of the land to Palestinian Arab control;

- other Israeli land exchanged for settlements remaining under Israeli control;

- Palestinian Authority control over eastern Jerusalem, including most of the Old City;

- and, "Religious Sovereignty” over the Temple Mount, replacing Israeli sovereignty in effect since 1967.¹

Arafat rejected the offer and proceeded to begin the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War, in which more than 1,000 Israelis were killed in murderous terrorist attacks.

Bill Clinton has repeatedly said Palestinian Authority President, Yasir Arafat, privately promised him he would accept the deal — then walked away without a formal counteroffer.

Clinton later called it a "once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity and noted that young Americans today "can’t believe” Arafat turned it down.²

This wasn’t the only time. Other major offers giving the Palestinians well over 90% of the West Bank plus Gaza, with land swaps and arrangements for parts of East Jerusalem, were also rejected or met with no formal response:

- 2001 Taba Talks: Built on the Clinton Parameters with further improvements.

- 2008 Olmert Offer: ~93-97% of the West Bank + Gaza, land swaps, and shared/sovereignty arrangements in Jerusalem. Mahmoud Abbas did not accept and provided no formal counteroffer.³

Earlier foundational rejections include the 1937 Peel Commission (partition into Jewish and Arab states) and the 1947 UN Partition Plan itself — both rejected by Arab leadership, who opposed any Jewish state in the region.⁴

Most analysts and mediators, including Clinton, conclude that the core, enduring obstacle to peace is the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to genuinely accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in the Middle East — not the precise percentage of land to be given up.

This rejectionism is explicit in the founding charters of Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which call for the destruction of Israel (not just the "occupation” of 1967). ⁵

Hamas’s original 1988 covenant frames the conflict in religious terms as a jihad against the Jewish state, with no room for Jewish sovereignty "from the river to the sea.”⁵

History shows repeated opportunities for a Palestinian state were passed up.

Peace requires two sides willing to compromise and recognize each other’s national rights. The Israelis have agreed to accept multiple compromises in a bid for peace. The Palestinian leadership has never planned to accept peace with Israel.

The Palestinians want all Jews out of The Middle East, or living as Dhimmis,

(Arabic: "protected person").

Dhimmis are non-Muslims living in an Islamic state, historically granted protection, safety, and religious freedom in exchange for loyalty and payment of a poll tax (jizya) and public humiliation.

Dhimmis are considered second-class citizens with restrictions, such as prohibitions on building new places of worship, bearing arms, praying in public or proselytizing.

There will never be a lasting peace between Israel and Palestinians while the latter refuse to accept a Jewish State.

That is why it is crucial for Israel to continue to disarm or eliminate members of Iranian proxy terrorist organisations HAMAS in The West Bank and Gaza, and Hezbollah, embedded in Lebanon and Syria.

Only with them gone, or significantly diminished, peace may have a chance. But it's tough when Palestinian kids are indoctrinated with a hate for Jews.

A 2024 study found that the curriculum used in Palestinian Authority (PA) schools is still filled with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred. How will that affect the chances for Middle East peace?

One of the most significant provisions of the Oslo Accords, which Israel and the PA signed three decades ago, was that the Palestinians would stop teaching hate to their children. ⁶

According to the Oslo II agreement (Article XXII [1]), the PA is obligated to "abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda.”

The most important place to begin implementing that new policy was the PA’s schools.

The only hope for a genuine and durable peace in the region is if Palestinian Arab children are raised to embrace peace and coexistence, and reject hatred and violence.

Yet in the years following the signing of those accords, multiple studies by groups such as Palestinian Media Watch, MEMRI, and Impact-SE found that the PA was continuing to teach children to hate and kill Jews.

The US State Department and J Street kept telling us that the Palestinian Authority was changing, becoming moderate, rejecting violence. Yet the actual school books used in PA schools told a different story.

Now a study from Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) confirmed the worst fears. Its review of PA school curricula has found that the PA continues to "espouse some of the worst views against Jews and Israel in their textbooks.”

Palestinian Arab children are still being taught to "dehumanize Israel and Jews.”

Instead of aspiring to live peacefully next door to Israel, they aspire to "securing Palestinian justice over Israel’s ruins … to adhere to the vision of ending the state of Israel.”

In fact, Israel is not even mentioned on the maps in PA schoolbooks — "instead, the region is referred to as ‘Palestine’ or ‘Occupied Palestine.’”

The PA schoolbooks make a mockery of concepts such as tolerance and pluralism.

According to the report, they present an "antisemitic portrayal of Jews.” Furthermore, "Jews are continuously maligned as the enemies of Islam,” and "Jews are the ‘enemies of Islam in all times and places.’”

To cite just one of innumerable examples, a standard 8th grade Arabic Language textbook used in PA schools "teaches reading comprehension through a violent story that promotes suicide bombings and exalts Palestinian militants in the Battle of Karameh.”

In that narrative, Arab fighters "cut the necks of enemy soldiers” and "wore explosive belts, thus turning their bodies into fire burning the Zionist tank.” They celebrate "leaving behind some of the bodies and body parts, to become food for wild animals on land and birds of prey in the sky.”

Have you ever wondered why countless Palestinian Arab children participate in mobs that try to stone and burn Jews to death? Or why Palestinian Arab college students vote for pro-terrorist, antisemitic parties in their university elections? Or why so many young Palestinian Arabs have enthusiastically engaged in the most heinous acts imaginable, such as killing Jewish babies, gang rape, raping and mutilating corpses and so on?

The INSS study provides the answer: because that’s how they are raised. Every day of their young lives, Palestinian Arab children study from textbooks that glorify anti-Jewish terrorists and teach antisemitic hatred.

All the peace plans that pundits and diplomats promote mean nothing in the face of this tragic reality. All the talk about borders and refugees and settlements is meaningless so long as one side raises its children to wage a never-ending war against Jews.

Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies has done an important public service by examining the Palestinian Authority’s textbooks.

The results may be deeply disturbing, but they help us understand the basic reality of the Middle East today. That reality will never change so long as Palestinian Arab children are taught to hate and kill Jews.

Notes:

1. Clinton Parameters (2000) – 94-96% of the West Bank + land swaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clinton_Parameters

2. Bill Clinton on Arafat rejecting the deal (Times of Israel, Dec 2024): https://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-clinton-young.../

3. Ehud Olmert’s 2008 offer to Mahmoud Abbas: https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-admits-he-rejected.../

4. Arab rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/.../United_Nations_Partition...

5. Hamas 1988 Charter calling for destruction of Israel: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

6. Palestinian Schools Still Teach Their Children to Hate Jews | Algemeiner.com https://share.google/vU39B1eWLhTnhzLOc

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