Five points stressed in this Spanish-English interview:
1. Hamas’ purposeful mission as stated dozens of times by Hamas leaders in their own words and in its founding 1988 Charter is to destroy Israel, degrade support for Israel among nations of the world, kill Jews and delegitimize the Jewish state. Hamas proudly carries the banner of the militant element within the Palestinian Arab national movement that strenuously opposes Israel, Jews and a Jewish state.
2. Hamas’ genocidal attack against Israelis on October 7, 2023, occurred in the broader context of active antisemitism that has four elements: sustained Aryan racism against Jews reconstituted from the pre-Nazi past; envy for Jewish successes; scapegoatism, blaming Jews for one’s individual and collective shortcomings (personal, economic, etc.); and the upsurge of radical/ideological Islamic antisemitism since the early 2000s. This last element cleaves to the view that Jews are neither a people nor a nation, and they illegitimately created a state occupying all of Muslim land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
3. Though Israel has secured diplomatic recognition from 163 U.N. states, among them six Arab states, Turkey and the PLO’s recognition of Israel in September 1993, Israel, as a predominantly Jewish state, has not gained full acceptance from many states.
4. When comparing the successful negotiations between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the late 1970s with the present, neither Egypt nor Israel questioned the sovereignty of the other then; neither Israel nor the Palestinians accept the full legitimacy of the other to have uncontested sovereignty today, and this time the geographic area in question that might lead to “land for peace” is severely contested. Then, there was considerable trust between Sadat/Egypt and Begin/Israel. After October 7, 2023, a vast majority of Israelis are absolutely not prepared to embrace diplomacy with the Palestinians, regardless of their political leadership, especially with Hamas seeking to remain a key element in the Palestinian political landscape.
5. Hopes and chatter about a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must confront reality. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Samuel W. Lewis said at a conference in Florida in 2011, “The mediator or external parties to the conflict cannot want an agreement more than respective sides do themselves.” And devolving a viable Palestinian entity or state over seven to 10 years will require an estimated $2 billion to $3 billion a year, assuming there will be an effective and noncorrupt administration established to see the necessary state institutions evolve and sustain themselves.
— Ken Stein, February 17, 2024
