[Letters] No state without committing to peace

If anyone is under the illusion that creating Palestine will simply make the problems go away, they are sadly mistaken. If anything, establishing Palestine in the absence of an agreement with Israel is going to make the future far worse for the region - the Palestinians will feel let down that the dream of Palestine will not provide them with the freedom that they presumably imagine, and Israel (and Western countries that have dedicated years to the peace process) will have lost the major bargaining chip in the efforts to convince the Palestinians to agree to a deal where they live alongside Israel in peace.

Far from being indifferent or disinterested, most people should actually be furious that the Palestinians are trying to get a state without committing to peace. I guess most people have no idea that the Palestinians are by far the greatest recipient of donor funds from the taxes paid by millions of ordinary citizens all over the world.

Spending on propping up the fortunes of the leadership, propaganda and programs on state TV which incites the youth to the hatred of Israel is tantamount to seeing the bosses of charities who portray tragic images on your TV screen driving round in chauffeured Mercedes. As a donor, I would feel very angry that my hard-earned cash was wasted. While people are starved of food in Africa, the Palestinians clearly have an excess of your money given the amount of weaponry they can afford to invest in.

The EU has been the largest donor of funds to the Palestinians. I appreciate the goodwill effort in trying to help the Palestinians get into the position where they are capable of managing their own affairs responsibly, but surely some conditions should have been imposed.

The “blame it all on Israel” approach, which has worked so well, has left the Palestinian leadership free of the responsibility of having to work hard to get their affairs into order.

The world has invested huge efforts in trying to create peace in the Middle East - efforts of both time and money. Isn’t it most ungrateful to turn one’s nose up at these efforts and instead decide to try and get your own state without agreeing to peace?

There again the world didn’t object too strongly when the Palestinians previously showed their contempt for peace by voting (democratically) for the Islamic terrorist group Hamas, whose raison d´etre is not finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.

While the Western media brushed it aside, explaining that the Palestinians voted for Hamas because Hamas provides schools and social services, nobody raised the fact that the Western world had just branded the Palestinians as idiots.

This proposal for a Palestinian state couldn’t come at a more challenging time. There is widespread regional instability and uncertainty due to the Arab Spring. Internally, the Palestinian leadership of Hamas and Fatah are at odds and there is clearly a lack of the stability required to run a state.

One only need look at the problems currently emanating in Egypt and Jordan - the two Arab countries that have agreed to peace with Israel - concerning the presence of an Israeli embassy to know that not only is peace hard to achieve, but it is also not easily maintained.

Are the Palestinians prepared for a future filled with peace? The facts on the ground shout an emphatic “no” to that question. If the creation of Palestine is merely a step-up in the ladder for continuing and even escalating the conflict (and that does appear to be the case), then this move should be firmly resisted by anyone with a sincere wish to see the conflict over.

Michelle Moshelian, Givatayim, Israel