People like to blame Israel, but there is no justifying Palestinian terrorism - opinion

There could be no two documents more different than the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. 

The Israeli Declaration of Independence opens, “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped.” It continues, “We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.”

In contrast, the charter of the PLO includes the following: “The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.” It continues, “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it.”

The Jewish people in contrast

The Jewish people’s commitment to peace in contrast to the Palestinian occupation with violence doesn’t just exist on paper – it can be seen every day in Israel.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning American journalist. His recent book The Message grapples with deep questions about how our stories – our reporting and imaginative narratives and myth-making – expose and distort our realities. One of the sections of the book deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2023 Coates took a ten-day trip to Israel and in that short time was able to understand the conflict and decisively conclude that Israel was an occupying power, practicing an apartheid regime that oppresses the Palestinians.

MANY MEDIA outlets that have a propensity to focus on narratives painting Israel in a villainous light have promoted Coates’s book and allowed him to promote his slanderous demonization of Israel. The one major media figure that asked critical questions of Coates, Tony Dokoupil, was immediately accused of racism and bias for daring to point out that The Message lacks basic balance and nuance and that in any other context besides the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would have it called extremist writing. CBS, which employs Dokoupil, was reportedly forced to hold a newsroom-wide staff meeting to address the controversy.

Since its publication, numerous articles and columns have been published listing the many omissions, inaccuracies, and blatant falsehoods found throughout The Message. Coates has not recanted anything he wrote and has instead doubled down in numerous interviews he’s given since the book’s release.

In one recent interview that has raised the eyebrows of many literary critics, Coates suggested he’s not above taking part in an October 7-style attack. He imagined what he would do if he grew up as a Palestinian in Gaza and the West Bank: “And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and the wall comes down.” Then, with no shame, he wrote: “Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say this is too far? I don’t know that I am.”

With his comment, Coates excused and even justified the murder, kidnapping, and rape of innocent Israelis on October 7. His excuse of the most heinous acts perpetrated against Jews since the Holocaust – and arguably worse – was outrageous. In the four millennia of Jewish suffering, stretching back from the Egyptian enslavement to the Palestinian intifadas, Jews never even considered raping, burning, and beheading the children of their oppressors as Palestinians did during their savage attacks.

Such barbarism is so abhorrent to Jewish values that the mere suggestion would flip the Jewish stomach. Coates showed exactly the kind of degeneracy he values by imagining himself committing the same acts.

Many coates defenders pointed to a quote attributed to former Israeli prime minister and IDF chief of staff Ehud Barak: “If I was [a Palestinian] at the right age, at some stage I would have entered one of the terror organizations and have fought from there.” Coates apologists juxtapose Barak’s statement of acting as a Palestinian terrorist with Coates excusing of Palestinian terrorism of the Simchat Torah attacks to excuse his horrific comment.

While the two quotes can be dishonestly conflated to mirror the same message of justifying terror attacks against innocent Israelis, even a little thought demonstrates the differences between the two statements. Barak was talking about resisting against Israeli soldiers in the beginning of the First Intifada (1987-1993) when Palestinians were generally attacking Israeli soldiers in an attempt to defeat Israel.

This was a decade before bus bombings and suicide bombings that targeted children would become the frequent modus operandi of Palestinian terrorists. Coates was talking about murdering, kidnapping, and raping innocent Israeli civilians.

Ehud Barak was wrong in showing understanding to Palestinian terrorists. At any point from 1948 and on, Palestinians could have opted to recognize the Jewish right to self-determination on their historic homeland, the Land of Israel. Instead, they chose violence and terrorism to destroy the Jewish state.

For decades, they dedicated their efforts and energies to murdering Jews around the world to end the Jewish state. When they realized their tactics failed, they duplicitously told the world they were interested in peace – but over the next three decades demonstrated through their support and incentivizing of terrorism that they were more interested in creating an independent Palestinian state in place of a Jewish state rather than alongside one.

The Palestinian choice was disastrous for peace in the Middle East and for themselves. Choosing violence and terrorism instead of peace is the preference of savages, not civilized people. It was inexcusable for then-prime minister Barak to have made it seem justifiable. It is unconscionable that Ta-Nehisi Coates, an award-winning journalist, would promote his latest book by advocating for terrorism.

Many people blame Israeli colonialism [sic], Israeli settlements, and various Israeli military policies for the lack of peace in the Middle East. These are all misguided attempts to slander the Jewish state. There is no greater hindrance to peace than violence and Palestinian terrorism. Zionism is one of the world’s greatest liberation movements and, had the Palestinians welcomed Zionism and the Jewish people, their lives would be many times better than they are today.

The writer is a Zionist educator at institutions around the world and recently published his book, Zionism Today.