Palestinians need to take responsibility for their own future if they want a state - opinion

For the past 16 months – one can say for the past 75 years and more – the world has been subjected to the chant, “Free Palestine!” screamed by Palestinians and their advocates worldwide.

Listening to these chants without familiarity with the actual facts about the Middle East could lead one to conclude that there is a group of people – Palestinians – who are being held as slaves somewhere in the world by another nation. Of course, this isn’t true. Palestinians are as free as any other human on the planet.

The chant “Free Palestine!” doesn’t advocate for the freedom of enslaved Palestinians but rather for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on land currently controlled by the Jewish people and the State of Israel. It is the land and the Palestinian people that the protesters claim isn’t free today. Their chants are calls for a reduction in the land the State of Israel controls and the abdication of that land to the Palestinians. 

The Palestinian demand for their own state is understandable. The American Declaration of Independence popularized the idea that a people must establish their own state to secure freedom.

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation,” declared America’s founding fathers.

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility,” Roosevelt said.

When Palestinians and their advocates call for a “Free Palestine,” the world must respond by demanding the Palestinians earn their state by taking responsibility for themselves.

Palestinians and their advocates – though apologists is probably the better word – have long called for Israel to expel Jews from land under the Jewish state’s control. They have demanded that Jerusalem take responsibility but have never demanded the same of Palestinians.

When Israeli extremists chop down Palestinian olive trees, spray-paint Palestinian cars, or attack Palestinians, these apologists, whether they be NGOs, foreign governments, or university students, are quick to call on the IDF and the government to take responsibility for the extremists of Israeli society.

Palestinian extremists

When Israeli drivers have boulders dropped through their windshields from Palestinian Authority-controlled hilltops, it isn’t the responsibility of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian security forces, or the PA to stop it; the unruly Palestinians are responsible.

When Palestinians – not uniformed and armed Hamas gunmen – streamed across the Israel-Gaza border and killed, raped, kidnapped, and looted, the Palestinians said it was “Hamas.” Our eyes didn’t deceive us – they weren’t just Hamas; they were Palestinians.

Palestinians killed Jews in 1920, 1929, 1936, and every year in between. It was Palestinians who went to war with a newly established Israel in 1948 and again in 1967 and 1973. It was Palestinians who chose to perpetrate two intifadas and thousands of terrorist attacks since those wars.

It wasn’t the Palestinian leadership, extremists, or terrorist groups, but the Palestinian people who turned down peace offers for over 75 years. The Palestinian people have refused to take responsibility for their actions since they began calling themselves Palestinians – and even before they retitled themselves.

The Zionist movement has always been, first and foremost, about taking responsibility for the Jewish future. The early Zionists built institutions, invested in infrastructure, and improved the land. They demonstrated diplomacy by reaching out in peace to their Arab neighbors and residents. They granted citizenship to the Arabs of Israel.

By taking responsibility for their destiny and acting responsibly, the Jewish people earned their state. The Jewish people didn’t just demand it as a right.

Palestinians and their apologists are quick to demand that rights be immediately granted to them but never demand that Palestinians take responsibility for their violent and rash behavior.

At the same time, they deny the Jewish people’s rights to their land, safety, and freedom and are quick to demand that Israel take responsibility for any ill-perceived suffering Palestinians experience. It is an absurd hypocrisy that has no place in dialogue.

Palestinians don’t deserve a state until they take responsibility for their own future and create a peaceful, functional, and democratic society that shows it is capable of statehood.

They have not done so yet. Palestinians attempt between three and six terrorist attacks every day. They are incentivized by a culture that admires violence against Jews and a “pay-to-slay” program that pays Palestinians who have killed or attempted to kill Jews in terror attacks.

Polls show that 80% of Palestinian people proudly declared their support of the October 7 massacre. The PA and Mahmoud Abbas have yet to condemn those attacks.

When Palestinians stop showing up for the rallies surrounding the Israeli hostage handovers and instead demand Hamas surrender and return the hostages, the world will know the Palestinians are ready for their own state.

The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, where she lives with her husband and six children.