Palestinian Authority Incitement to Kill Israelis and Destroy Israel: A Powerful Subverter of Chances for Peace

Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority (PA) through its schools, media, mosques, and officials' statements daily incites Palestinians to attack and kill Israelis. It also continues to claim Israel is illegitimate and should be wiped out, along with the belief that this will happen in the future. Naturally, this undermines any possibility that peace talks will succeed.

Not only is the PA failing to build a mass base for a compromise two-state solution, it is stoking the fires of intransigence, of mass opposition to any such outcome. Most of the Western media, determined only to present the PA as moderate, never reports on these statements and activities. Fortunately, on the eve of direct talks, Palestinian Media Watch provides a systematic and comprehensive report on this issue which can be read HERE.http://www.palwatch.org/STORAGE/special%20reports/Proximity_Talks_June_2010_Final.pdf

Pointing out these realities doesn't undermine peace. Quite the opposite. Only if these problems are confronted will peace be possible.

* Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East (Routledge), The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).