Nearly 50% of West Bank Palestinians Says Israel Does Not Have A Right To Exist

After the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, thousands of college students marched through the streets chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Most of them likely had no clue which river and sea were at issue. And they probably also gave zero thought to what it would mean for Palestine to be “free.” The college students likely never heard the far more accurate version of the chant in Arabic, which translates to “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab.” In short, the only Jewish state in the world would cease to exist, and all Jews would be expelled.

A recent poll relates sentiments among Palestinians towards a Jewish state:

West Bank Palestinians are split on whether Israel has a right to exist, and whether its existence could be brought to an end at some point, according to a survey conducted by Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.

The poll finds that 41% of respondents say Israel has a right to exist, compared with 46% who say it does not. In a separate question, 42% say they believe it would be possible to bring about the end of Israel’s existence, either in the near or distant future. Conversely, 32% say ending Israel’s existence is impossible. . . .

No proposed political framework for resolving the conflict receives majority support. Twenty-seven percent favor a two-state solution; 22% support a single binational state with full equal rights; 26% favor a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” — encompassing all of what they consider “historic Palestine” — with no permanent Jewish presence; and 17% favor a Palestinian state throughout the entire territory in which Jews would be permitted to live as citizens or residents.

I don’t pretend to know how to resolve the situation, but Americans who seek to opine on the subject should at least know how Palestinians would respond if their land was “free.”

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