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Some Basic Facts about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
(Huffington Post) David Harris - There could have been a two-state solution as early as 1947, which is what the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) proposed. The Jewish side accepted the plan, but the Arab world rejected it. When Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, it extended the hand of friendship to its Arab neighbors. Instead, five Arab armies declared war on the Jewish state, seeking its total destruction. Until 1967, the eastern part of Jerusalem and the entire West Bank were in the hands of Jordan, not Israel. Had the Arab world wished, an independent Palestinian state, with its capital in Jerusalem, could have been established at any time. Meanwhile, Gaza was under Egyptian military rule and there was no talk of sovereignty for the Palestinians there, either. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel offered "land for peace" to its Arab neighbors. The Arab League nations, meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, responded: "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel." To this day, the Palestinians have continued to bypass face-to-face talks with Israel - going to international organizations instead; denying the age-old Jewish link to Jerusalem and the region; and providing lifetime financial support for captured terrorists and the families of suicide bombers. The writer is the CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).