Argument · heard from pro-Israel voices

“The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Palestinian leaders rejected every offer of a state — 1937, 1947, 2000, 2008 — so they bear the responsibility for having none; Israel always said yes.

Traps in play:◆ "What about you?"◆ "They all…"

  1. Why people find it convincing

    • The Arab leadership rejected the 1937 Peel partition proposal and the 1947 UN partition plan, both of which offered an Arab state; the Zionist leadership accepted both in principle.
    • At Camp David (2000) and afterwards Yasser Arafat did not accept the offers or the Clinton Parameters without reservations, and the Second Intifada followed.
    • In 2008 Ehud Olmert's offer, reported to include about 94% of the West Bank with swaps and an international regime for the Holy Basin, went unanswered by Mahmoud Abbas.
    • The line comes from Israeli diplomat Abba Eban (1973), and it summarises a real pattern of refusal.

  2. What's true

    Several major offers were rejected or left unanswered by Palestinian leaders.

    1937 and 1947 were rejected by the Arab leadership; at Camp David and after, Arafat did not accept; Olmert's 2008 offer received no formal answer. These are serious facts, and many Palestinians themselves criticise their leadership for them (see 'negotiation-as-weapon').

    primary documentPalestine Royal Commission Report (Peel Report) (1937)

    Includes the population transfer proposal.

    primary documentUN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine (1947)

    Partition plan.

  3. What's left out

    What the offers contained, who else said no, and that the 'offers' were rarely take-it-or-leave-it deals.

    In 1947 the Arab majority (about two-thirds of the population) was offered about 45% of the land; rejecting that was a choice with disastrous results, but not an obviously irrational one from their side at the time. Camp David 2000 produced no written offer; accounts by participants from all sides (including US negotiators such as Robert Malley and Dennis Ross) differ on what was on the table and who bears responsibility. In 2008 Olmert was about to leave office under indictment. On the other side: Israel did not take up the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (full recognition by Arab states for withdrawal to the 1967 lines with agreed adjustments), and settlement construction continued through every negotiation. Refusal has not been one-sided.

    Traps here:◆ "What about you?"◆ "They all…"

    primary documentArab Peace Initiative (Beirut Summit) (2002)
    advocacy / viewRobert Malley & Hussein Agha, 'Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors', New York Review of Books (2001)
    advocacy / viewDennis Ross, The Missing Peace (2004)

    Pair with Malley & Agha.

  4. Where it leads if pressed

    Blame is not a plan.

    If the argument is 'Palestinian leaders made catastrophic choices', it's largely true — and Palestinians paid for them. If it's 'therefore they have no claim to a state now', it doesn't follow; people living today are not bound by 1947. The useful question is what would make the next offer acceptable to both sides — and which leaders on each side want one (see 'coexistence-where-contact').

The usual reply — and its own traps

Arguments travel in pairs. Here is what the other side typically answers. Check whether both lean on the same trick.

heard on both sides“UNRWA keeps millions of Palestinians as refugees forever — a problem kept alive on purpose.” Both lean on: ◆ "What about you?"

Where this argument points

Followed through, this argument is used to support:

Two states

Keep exploring

◆ Negotiation as a weaponPalestine was definitely a thing — there was even a newspaper called Filastin in 1911 — and almost no Jews lived there, so Israel was a hostile takeover.