The U.S. president has correctly diagnosed the fundamental failure of Palestinian leadership to accept the existence of a Jewish state.

By Eric Levine, JNS

Hope or despair? Solutions or causes? History or revisionism?

At its core, these are the questions being debated as U.S. President Donald Trump brings a wrecking ball to the conventional wisdom of the Palestinian question.

The president’s specific policy prescriptions for resettling the residents of Gaza or undertaking an American effort to build condos on the Mediterranean coast are utterly irrelevant. What matters is that he is trying to change the lens through which the world views the Palestinian question and, in so doing, give hope to the dispossessed of Gaza.

In contrast, the knee-jerk critics of the president’s proposals and self-proclaimed advocates for the Palestinians are determined to relegate the residents of Gaza to a destiny of despair. They continue to propose solutions that have failed for the last eight decades. They offer nothing new. Until they do, the best thing they can do is get out of the way and give someone else a turn at salvaging the future of the Palestinian people.

Others, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), oppose the president’s ideas simply because they were made by Trump. There is no thought put into the objection. It is just a reflex. Cynics like Schumer contribute nothing to the debate and should be ignored.

Of course, one cannot solve a problem until one honestly identifies it. Trump has correctly diagnosed the problem as the fundamental failure of Palestinian leadership—from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas to Yahya Sinwar—to accept the existence of a Jewish state within safe and secure borders. There has never been and isn’t now any Palestinian leader or organization that is willing to give up “the struggle” against the Zionist entity. Instead, they are prepared to fight to the death of the last Palestinian to achieve that goal.

Trump is trying to navigate around that reality.

For most of those setting their hair on fire in response to Trump, the “problem” is the mere existence of Israel. To change the paradigm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires Israel’s enemies to admit that the Jewish state has the right to exist and is a fact of life that is not going away. But because these people are wedded to Israel’s destruction, there is nothing Trump can say or do that they will find acceptable.

For them, there is no solution short of the “final solution.” So, they are left with nothing more than a cause. Without the cause, they are irrelevant. Trump is challenging their relevance. Thus, he is viewed as an existential threat.

Like clockwork, these critics default to their usual playbook. They accuse Trump of “ethnic cleansing” and Israel of “genocide.” Exactly how trying to salvage the lives of 2 million people where everyone else has failed, and create a brighter future for generations to come, constitutes “ethnic cleansing” remains unanswered. Similarly, when Israel took control of Gaza in 1967, there were 700,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Today, 2 million people live there. The whole “genocide” blood libel is insane.

Many of the president’s critics like to pretend that the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began the day Israel rolled into Gaza in response to the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. History and context are irrelevant to Israel’s enemies. That is why they find Trump’s truth-telling about the situation in Gaza so vexing. It does not comport with their narrative.

They forget that in 1948, the Jews said “yes” to the U.N. Partition Plan, which called for two states: one Jewish and one Arab. The Arabs said “no” and attacked Israel, hoping to destroy it. That war created the Palestinian refugee problem that persists to this day.

They forget that the United Nations established the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an organization that kept Palestinians in refugee camps with no future, rather than resettling them in one of the surrounding 29 Arab states. That relocation would have given them a shot at a better life for themselves and their children. The people of Gaza have been used as a propaganda weapon against the Jewish state since Israel’s inception. That is their designated role in the war on Israel: to be a prop. Their well-being, and that of future generations, are subordinate to the antizionist cause.

Also forgotten: In 1948, Egypt annexed Gaza, and Jordan annexed the West Bank. There were no calls for a Palestinian state.

Also forgotten: In the 1950s and 1960s, more than 1 million Jews were expelled from the Arab and Muslim worlds for no reason other than the fact that they were Jews. No one said those refugees should be allowed to return to their homes. Israel took them with open arms and gave them a home and a future.

Also forgotten: It was not until 1967, after Israel captured the Gaza Strip, and Judea and Samaria in a war of self-defense, that the world suddenly discovered the Palestinian people and decided they should have a state of their own.

Also forgotten: In 1971, the PLO, led by Arafat, was expelled from Jordan because it attempted to overthrow Jordan’s King Hussein.

Also forgotten: In 1978, then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin offered Egyptian President Anwar Sadat the opportunity to reclaim Gaza as part of the Camp David Accords. Sadat wanted no part of the Palestinians.

Also forgotten: In 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton negotiated a peace agreement between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. That agreement created a Palestinian state. The Jews said “yes.” Arafat said “no.” Clinton could not be more clear that it was Arafat who walked away from a two-state solution because he refused to end the war against Israel.

The list continues.

Forgotten is that in the summer of 2005, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew all Israelis, military and civilian, from the Gaza Strip. Gaza was entirely Judenrein (free of Jews) from 2005 until the Oct. 7 attacks. There was no occupation.

Forgotten is that shortly after the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, Palestinians held elections. Hamas won the elections in Gaza. Rather than making Gaza a home for the Palestinians, Hamas turned it into a terrorist hellhole dedicated to the extermination of their Jewish neighbors.

Forgotten is that in 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush proposed an even more generous peace deal to Palestinian leader Abbas. As before, Israel’s prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, said yes. And again, like his mentor, Arafat before him, Abbas said no.

Forgotten is that the Palestinian Authority has for many years had a “Pay for Slay” policy. It pays the families of Palestinian terrorists as a reward for murdering Jews.

Forgotten is that there was a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas until Oct. 7.

Forgotten, or more likely forgiven or applauded, are the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7. To the extent they are acknowledged, they are conveniently dismissed as scant justification for Israel’s response. How dare the Jews defend themselves. They are supposed to be victims. Only then are they worthy of sympathy and support.

Completely ignored is Egypt’s refusal, in the wake of Oct. 7, to open the Rafah crossing out of Gaza. That would have allowed Palestinian civilians to cross into the Sinai Peninsula and receive humanitarian aid and, perhaps, even resettlement in Egypt or another Arab country.

While Trump has chosen to embrace the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the hysterics, cynics and antisemites try to rewrite or ignore it.

Unless one knows the history of the Middle East, one cannot learn from it and apply its lessons. Most of Trump’s critics still think that the world is flat, the earth is the center of the universe and the bloodletting of Jews is the solution to the world’s problems.

Trump has learned the history. He is trying to apply its lessons to realize a more peaceful and prosperous world. While not perfect, he is making the critically declarative statement that we must think outside the box and try something new. What we have been trying for decades has failed and will continue to fail.

All we are saying is to give Trump a chance.