Historically, dating back to the 1947 UN Partition Plan and before, it is the Palestinians who have categorically rejected opportunities for peace with Israel on the basis of a two-state solution. Since the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s, the Palestinians have rejected outright three peace proposals.[1] In 2000, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinians responded to the Camp David Accords with the terrorist uprising knowns as the Second Intifada in which more than 1,000 Israelis were killed and many more injured. In 2008, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, they refused Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plan which would have given them control of more than 90% of the West Bank.[2]

Now again, in response to the January 2020 U.S. peace plan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared: “After the nonsense that we heard today, we say a thousand no’s to the Deal of The Century.”[3] The Palestinian leadership have refused to even participate in negotiations.

In stark contrast, “Israel is ready for negotiations,” stated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I am ready for negotiations, and believe that many Arab states hope we will enter such negotiations with the Palestinians.”[4]

As a consequence of the normalization agreement signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Israeli proposals to annex parts of the disputed territories—which had been vehemently opposed by the Palestinians—were indefinitely suspended.[5] From a Palestinian perspective, one of the most immediate stumbling blocks to negotiations was therefore removed. Yet in 2020 the Palestinians still refused to return to the table. According to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Saudi ambassador to the US, the Palestinian leaders are “failures” who have consistently missed opportunities for making peace with Israel.[6]

Rather than posing as an obstacle to regional peace, Israel has, in the space of only a few months, reached peace and normalization agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. The United Nations and its member states ought to welcome the Arab-Israeli peace agreements and encourage the Palestinians as well as other Arab states to join the circle of peace.

Furthermore, Israel has demonstrated a willingness to withdraw its citizens from occupied territory for the sake of peace. For example, Israel uprooted some 7,000 Israelis from the Sinai Peninsula in connection with its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.[7] More recently, Israel evacuated some 8,500 Israelis from Gaza when it unilaterally withdrew from the area in 2005.[8] Regrettably, the Gaza withdrawal did not bring peace, but paved the way for Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip.