Recognition of the Right of Israel to Exist.

Ever since the Palestinians exercised their right to vote and voted in Hamas there have been demands placed on them in order for the Palestinians to get assistance from the world community. One of the main demands is that “Hamas must recognize the Right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State.” There are a few problems with this demand, which has been made numerous times against numerous Palestinian leaders. These problems are so obvious and elementary that they seem to show us that it is the Israeli Government, not the Palestinians, who never want peace and are willing to sacrifice their citizens for the expansion of their State.

What exactly does “recognize the right to exist” mean? Does the state of Mexico recognize the right of America to exist in parts stolen from them? Should they? To many onlookers the state of Israel exists and it seems very silly to deny its existence. To others it means that Hamas should not call for the destruction of the State of Israel, a country with nuclear weapons being threatened by crude rockets. As usual though these things are not as plain and simple.

What constitutes a state? One of the main parts of any state is their border. If a state has ever-evolving borders then what is to be recognized? Israel has ever changing borders. For instance the borders today are not the same as they were in 2000, 1982, 1966 or 1948. With the addition of the euphemistically called “security fence” more and more land is being confiscated by Israel.

The next question is, “Does Hamas need to recognize the State of Israel even though its borders are always in a state of flux?” By recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a state with ever encroaching borders, will this then recognize the right for Palestinians to be forcibly removed from their land the next time Israel wants some aquifer? It would lead that yes, Hamas agreed to recognize and ever expanding state of Israel and has no right crying when Israel continues to expand.

Most people who even remotely know anything about the conflict are aware of what is called the “two state solution”; the most famously negotiated settlement became the Geneva Accords. Both sides have basically agreed in theory to this plan. If Israel, the most powerful state in the region, agrees that there should be a Palestinian state then why don’t they recognize Palestine’s right to exist as a state? I beg any of you to find any Israeli politician who has ever called for a Palestinian state inside the Internationally recognized borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. It just has never been said.

In March of 2002 the Arab League came up with a detailed peace plan for the region. The participants agreed to full recognition of a secure Israel and diplomatic relations if Israel would do three things. They must pull back to the pre-June ’67 borders, agree to a just solution to the refugee problem and recognize a sovereign Palestine in all the West Bank and Gaza. Israel refused to accept those conditions, all of which are required of Israel under international law, and the conflict rages today.

It is very true that Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and replacing it with an Islamic State but this document is old and so much has changed. Hamas has called for a Hudna, or truce in Arabic, to last for 10 years while issues are negotiated. A Hudna is a Koranic idea and Hamas is strongly religious so it leads that they would follow their religion. Yet Israel refused. The current Prime Minister told Ha’aretz, the most influential paper in Israel, "If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, peace will prevail and we will implement a cease-fire [hudna] for many years." To no avail.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that Israel is making demands of the Palestinians that they refuse to do themselves. On top of that it tells us that Hamas cannot, as the representative of the Palestinians, accept a neighboring state whose borders are always creeping in stealing land for the state you recognized. No country would accept that. Which means in the end that the Israeli Government has no desire for peace with its neighbors and will continue to steal more and more land from the native population with the hopes that things will become so desperate for the Palestinians that they will just leave. It is a sort of “soft” ethnic cleansing.