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here is no doubt, as Daniel Kurtzer writes at length (Israel’s Hawks and Military Doves, Aug. 10), that senior members of Israel’s defense establishment, past and present, believe it is in Israel’s interests to reach a secure and lasting two-state peace with the Palestinians. But so do Prime Minister Netanyahu and most of his government, as Netanyahu has stated on many occasions. So do consistent majorities of the Israeli public, as polls show.

It is also true that, as the defense establishment is reflective of Israeli society on the whole, there are members who believe Israel should be doing more to achieve such a peace, just as there would be others who disagree. However, there would not be too many who would argue that Israel can achieve peace without a serious peace partner on the Palestinian side — and that is the situation in which Israel, sadly, currently finds itself.

In the past year, Netanyahu has offered repeatedly to meet the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas anywhere and any time, without preconditions, to discuss peace, but Abbas has steadfastly refused. In fact, visiting Japan in February this year, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki stated at a press conference, “We will never go back and sit again in a direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.” ‘

 This was in the midst of a wave of violence in which Israeli security forces and civilians were targeted in random murderous attacks in which Palestinians used a variety of means including guns, knives and vehicles, and which have so far killed 35 Israelis and wounded hundreds more. This violence was prompted by incitement by the Palestinian Authority (PA), from leader Mahmoud Abbas down.

Having falsely accused Israel of intending to change the status-quo on the Temple Mount, and claimed the Jews were “defiling” Muslim holy sites with their “filthy feet”, Abbas stated, on Sept. 17 last year, “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every shahid [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God.” The PA has since lauded many of the attackers, and has doubled down on the incitement by claiming Palestinians killed while carrying out these attacks were innocents killed in cold blood by Israelis.

The basic problem appears to be that the Palestinian leadership is not prepared to accept any resolution that would result in a genuine two-state peace. For example, Abbas continues to refuse to accept that a peace will mean the end of all further claims against Israel, including demands for the return of millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees not to the new Palestinian state, but to Israel. This return would mean the end of Israel as a state for the Jews, which is widely acknowledged to by its reason for existing, and is therefore completely at odds with the concept of a two-state peace.

This is likely the reason for a long and tragic history of obstructionism and missed opportunities by Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat. In 2000 and 2001, at peace talks at Camp David and then Taba, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and US President Bill Clinton offered Arafat a Palestinian state with almost everything the Palestinians claimed to want — well over 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, with other land in compensation for the rest, a capital in east Jerusalem, control of Islamic holy sites and a financial resolution of the refugee issue. Arafat turned them down and instead, in a strategy to increase international pressure on Israel, initiated his terrorist intifada in which thousands on both sides were killed, and which was only ended by Israeli security measures including checkpoints and the security barrier.

In 2005, Ariel Sharon withdrew every Israeli from Gaza, hoping it could become an example of Palestinian self-government and Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. Instead it became a terror hub, with well over ten thousand rockets having been fired at Israeli civilians since.

In 2008, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians a state on even more generous terms than Ehud Barak had, including land equivalent to the West Bank and Gaza, a land bridge joining the two Palestinian territories, and a limited return of refugees. As Abbas stated in November last year, he rejected the offer “out of hand”.

Abbas has been similarly recalcitrant since Netanyahu became Prime Minister. At Barack Obama’s urging, Netanyahu initiated an unprecedented ten-month moratorium on building in Israeli settlements, specifically to encourage peace talks. Abbas refused to talk for the first nine months, and then would talk only about extending the moratorium.

In 2013, as another confidence-building measure, Netanyahu agreed to the release of 104 Palestinians jailed for killing Israelis. According to American mediator Martin Indyk, in the peace talks that followed, Netanyahu “moved in to the zone of a possible agreement” and was even “sweating bullets to find a way to reach an agreement”. Meanwhile, Abbas “shut down” and walked away from the talks, instead attempting to reach a unity agreement with the terrorist group Hamas, committed to Israel’s destruction.

Since then, his tactics have been to attempt to increase pressure on Israel through international gambits, such as seeking recognition of a Palestinian state without making any of the compromises necessary for peace, and through violence and incitement.

There is no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians would be far better off if they could live together side by side in peace. But the long and sad history of Palestinian rejectionism demonstrates that it will take a major change of hearts and minds on their side for this to be achieved — something most Israelis, inside and outside the defense establishment, recognize. In the meantime, urging Israel to do more might feel good, but it ignores this sad reality. Moreover, in encouraging the Palestinians to persist with their current destructive course, it is likely to positively harm the prospects for genuine two-state peace.
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The writer is Executive Director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. Previously, he taught Middle East politics at Monash University for many years.