I Will Not Join An Arab-Jewish Peace Organization (Yet)

I do not see the point of joining any “peace” organization that includes Israelis and “Palestinian” Arabs before we see such a group rise up from within the “Palestinian” Arab population itself and not because some Jews reached out to them and offered them an olive branch on bended knees. Perhaps if I could read and understand Arabic I would find the evidence that so far eludes me regarding independent “Palestinian” Arab pro-peace initiatives that promote accepting us Jews as their neighbours.

I did ask some people I would expect to know about such things and they were not able to name one peace organization initiated by Arabs in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

This does not mean they are not there. It means that they remain largely unknown if they do exist.

Conjoint “Peace” Organizations That Get the Most Air-Time

Here is what I see when I open websites set up by conjoint Israeli-“Palestinian” organizations claiming to be pro-peace:

Combatants for Peace

Notice “Ending the occupation” features on their homepage (highlighted in yellow).

Ta’ayush

Again, “Israeli occupation” (highlighted in yellow) features prominently on this page.

Of course, we should not forget the exposé reported on Israeli television in which hidden cameras showed how Ta’ayush’s Jewish far-left activist entrapped Arabs willing to sell land to Jews and handed over their names to the Palestinian Authority. He knew that they would be tortured and killed by the PA. It is not clear how Ta’ayush justifies such actions as humanitarian and pro-peace.

The Parents’ Circle

At first, the Parents’ Circle seems like the kind of peace organization I could wholeheartedly support.

Unfortunately, when I got deeper into their “narratives” project, I found that they were promoting the idea of Israel as an occupier and encouraging Israeli’s to feel ashamed of being Zionists. So I guess it is not the kind of so-called co-existence, so-called pro-peace organization, that I would want to endorse.

Israeli “Peace” Groups

B’tselem, Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, and Gush Shalom, to name just four well-known Israeli “pro-peace” organizations, demonize Israel to greater or lesser extent. They all insist that Israel is occupying “Palestine”, a nation that never existed, and that can, therefore, never be occupied. They insist that if we just get out of Judea & Samaria (or, as they call it: The West Bank), there will be peace on Earth.

Whether they blame the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli Government, the residents of communities in Judea & Samaria, or all three, they claim to be working for the good of the Jews, the Arabs and the region without requesting an iota of accountability on the part of the Arabs or the PA. In this, they are no different from the organizations in the previous section.

When I Will Join a Conjoint Arab-Israeli Peace Group

If, in the most visible peace organizations, Israelis capitulate to the “Palestinian” narrative and to PA demands, then there is no incentive to Arabs in the PA, leadership or general population, to take any responsibility for making peace. I cannot go along with this.

When I see Arabs organize peace marches in the PA demanding the cessation of terrorist acts against Jews, when I see them coming out publicly and calling for concessions to Israel instead of only demands from her, when I see them pull down their own corrupt leaders and reclaim the stolen billions of dollars and use it to start building the healthy infrastructure that must precede the establishment of a state, when I see them talk about Jewish citizens in the future state they claim to want, or see them suggest and be willing to discuss viable alternatives to a two-state-solution, then I will join a conjoint Jewish-Arab peace group.

In the meantime, I will continue to scour the Internet and my sources for information on true pro-peace initiatives among our Arab neighbours in Judea & Samaria. And you know what? I think I have a new lead or two. I will let you know how these pan out.

This was originally published in Israel Diaries.