Photo by David Leviev at American University’s 50 Years Since the Six Day War Panel Discussion. Sponsored by the Center for Israel Studies

What are the biggest issues with a two-state solution? The answer is not settlements or Jerusalem. It’s Hamas and Fatah!!!

Any two-state solution proposed pretty much ignores Hamas or assumes that if the Palestinian Authority gets their own state, Hamas will be perfectly okay with it. They won’t be. They may hate the Jews and Israel, but they’re not big fans of Fatah/PA either. Both would be vying for power and complete control over all of “Palestine.” No proposals address the basic fact that Hamas is not interested in peace or in putting down arms against the Zionists. If Israel agrees to a deal with the PA, Hamas and Fatah are likely to go at it over power, with Israel stuck in the middle.

Fatah is more subtle with their hatred and pretends to want peace, but given that they’re once again demanding a settlement freeze before even coming to the table, let alone negotiating. It paints a clear picture. All peace efforts are nullified because of demands the Palestinians make, some of which Israel has met in the past to get the PA to the table. But it’s pretty clever. These demands give the Palestinian Authority an excuse not to come to the table and blame the failures of the peace process solely on Israel.  In turn, the international community eats it up.

This also translates into academia, as conservatives well know it is not a place we tend to dwell. It is despicably dominated by left-wing thinkers from different countries and yes, that includes Israel. The result is so-called “historians” and “academics” parading around like they know everything and assume that the entire problem is with Israel because she’s the “Goliath” in the scenario, occupying “Palestine” or the “David” figure. This was the case for most of the scholars at American University Tuesday evening. They all addressed Israel’s “occupation” and how it will turn into a pseudo-democracy because it stopped letting BDS advocates enter the country and how Israel needs to do more for peace. A few criticisms were valid. A lot however was just frustrating.

The problem here should be evident. While Israel has the superior firepower and military advantage it is mostly defensive firstly. Secondly, the concept of David and Goliath is inherently flawed and is just a terrible analogy.

At an event at American University, sponsored by the Center for Israel Studies, the only woman on the panel, a political scientist, said that the problem is in any conflict, both sides think they’re David. That’s not an inaccurate statement. But the thing is that the analogy doesn’t work.

It is doubtful a clear analogy exists regarding this conflict and sidelining the role of the Palestinians in this conflict helps to perpetuate the very serious label of endless victim and perpetrator. Those are not the lines of this conflict. It, therefore, absolves the Palestinians of any wrong-doing and puts Israel into the “Goliath” position. It also ignores the Palestinians role in prolonging this conflict because they are then held to a different standard or seen at a different level than Israel. How do you solve a conflict if you only criticize one side of it? That doesn’t work.

The big mistake that everyone makes when it comes to this conflict is they forget the Palestinians are just as (and I would argue more) to blame for lack of peace than Israel. Israel has agreed to settlement freezes in exchange for peace talks. Israel at one time or another has offered just about everything the Palestinians want and every time, it’s the same problem. The Palestinians walk out or complain they didn’t get Jerusalem or something else and Israel takes the blame for being too evil and too rigid and refusing to agree to one stipulation which would lead to instant peace (it doesn’t work like that).

Where are the academics condemning Hamas for turning children into future terrorists? Where is the international community over the Palestinian authority spending millions of money that were given to them in aid to pay salaries of terrorists in prison? Where was the UN when Abbas has basically declared himself president for life?

Any Palestinian government will not be democratic. Let’s be real on this and no matter which slice of the pie they’re offered they won’t accept it unless it is Israel and the Partition lines (where a Palestinian state never existed) Or the complete removal of all Jews from the entire area. They want the whole pie or no deal.

The question is what has to change within the status quo for Israel to have a partner for peace? The answer is one academics and proponents of a two-state solution never mention. No one takes into account this brainwashing and this sickening mentality of Israel as the “Bad guy” perpetrated by the two “governments” in question.  These academics do not address the cultural aspects and the horrific curriculum in the PA and Hamas areas. Children grow up thinking Israel and the Jews are evil colonialists who have no ties to the land or to the cities that Jews built. Until you can help those children see the reality outside of this bubble and until you address the fundamental brainwashing that occurs, nothing will change.

Things though can change, a video on the checkpoints with Ami Horowitz shows the difference between Palestinians, the rock throwers and the regular person trying to make a decent living (which they can do in Israel).

Teaching children that killing Jews is okay, that Israelis are evil, and that martyrdom is totally natural and glorious will not lead to peace. The Palestinians have to be empowered to think for themselves and that can only happen on a cultural, bottom-up level that most of the so-called Israel-experts on this panel did not seem to be interested in. Perhaps even starting with the Israeli Arabs and making changes there could go a long way in bettering relations between Israel and Arabs in general, without a specific focus on the Palestinians in the PA and Hamas immediately.

Start small and work our way up to keep this conflict from outlasting all of us.