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Why Won't Abbas Accept "Two States for Two Peoples"?

(Gatestone Institute) Alan M. Dershowitz - There is a widespread but false belief that Mahmoud Abbas is finally prepared to accept the two-state solution proposed by the UN in November 1947. The Arabs of Palestine rejected the division of mandatory Palestine and declared that they would never accept a state for the Jewish people along with statehood for the Palestinian people. They wanted for there not to be a state for the Jewish people more than for there to be a state for their own people. That is why Abbas refuses to say that he would ever accept the principle of two states for two peoples. I know because I have personally asked him on several occasions. The general idea of a two-state solution - which Abbas has nominally supported - does not specify that one state would be for the Jewish people and the other one for the Arabs. In a 2003 interview he said: "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I will never recognize the Jewishness of the state, or a 'Jewish state.'" Abbas is, of course, committed to Palestine being a Muslim state under Sharia law. It is a tragedy that the international community encourages the Palestinian Authority's rejectionism, rather than pushing it to make the painful compromises that will be needed from both sides in reaching a negotiated two-state outcome. The writer is professor of law, emeritus, at Harvard Law School.
2017-06-14 00:00:00
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