Why is there no Palestinian state?

After World War I, the land of Palestine became a British mandate. In November 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine recommended that the area be split into two, an Arab state and a Jewish state. The Jews accepted this plan, but the Palestinians rejected it. The expectation of the Palestinians was that the other Arab states would attack the new state of Israel and destroy it, allowing the Palestinians to include the area given to the Jews in their new state.

The Arab invasion failed, Israel triumphed over overwhelming odds, and the Jewish state was born.

In the 1990s, the Oslo Accords was another attempt at bringing peace to the land culminating in the self-governing of the Palestinian people and an eventual two-state solution.

There was mistrust on both sides with increasing terrorist activities by Hamas. Through corruption and mismanagement, many funds for the building of civilian infrastructure in the Palestinian territories were instead used to strengthen Hamas. These plans for peace and self-determination fell apart.

In 2006, Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip, allowing Hamas to govern the territory. Israel had mandated that all new housing construction in Israel contain bomb shelters. Hamas constructed tunnels to hide munitions and terrorists and lead to Israel for attacks. Israel built schools and hospitals. Hamas used schools and hospitals to house terrorist cells and equipment in the basements.

The express goal of Hamas is to kill every Jew. Unfortunately, the Palestinian people have been used as shields and pawns in this crusade. Hamas attacked Israel to kill Jews, in the most barbaric way, targeting children and families. Their attack had nothing to do with statehood for Palestinians and nothing to do with the real suffering of the Palestinian people, brought about by the total disregard of the population of Gaza by the Hamas regime.

It was evil, pure and simple.

Myrna Frannkel

Schaumburg