So you say you want to see a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: a Palestinian state alongside Israel? And, like many people, you feel that pressuring Israel is the way to attain it. But have you ever considered whether the Palestinian leadership, and President Abbas in particular, really wants to reach a two-state accord?   Look at the evidence. Abbas turned down a two-state solution offered by Prime Minister Olmert in 2008.   Following Obama’s lead, Abbas insisted that Israel halt settlement construction as a precondition for negotiations, yet when Prime Minister Netanyahu halted construction for 10 months, Abbas failed to come to the negotiating table. He turned down a framework for peace offered by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and then one offered by Secretary Kerry. When the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators Livni and Erekat pursued a separate track of negotiations towards a peace agreement, Abbas put a stop to it.

Consider too the nature of Abbas’ rule over his people. He and his cronies have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from their people. Abbas eventually sacked his Prime Minister Fayyad, who was working doggedly to fight corruption and grow the Palestinian economy on the West Bank. Finally, Abbas has illegally extended the four-year term to which he was elected into its eleventh year. Some have argued that Abbas’ reluctance to negotiate to achieve Palestinian statehood stems from his fear that statehood would jeopardize the flow of booty that he, his family and friends enjoy at the expense of their people. I am not certain I follow that argument, but I do think the nature of his rule betrays a callous lack of concern for the welfare of his people, which makes it appear improbable that he would take any risks for them.

For all of these reasons, I think it unlikely that Abbas will accept any two-state solution that any Israeli leader might realistically be expected to offer. But I can always be wrong. For that reason, among others, I wanted the Labor candidate Herzog, rather than Netanyahu, to win the recent Israeli election. Most liberals feel certain that Netanyahu has no desire to make peace. As with most questions, I have less certainty, but on the chance that they are right and the slight chance that I am wrong about Abbas, in addition to other issues, such as economic ones facing Israel, I felt it was time for a change. Even a small possibility of peace is worth a lot as far as I am concerned.

A second reason for wanting Herzog’s party to win centers on my concerns for what would happen in the probable case where Abbas turned down Herzog’s peace proposals.   Abbas’ refusal would make it more likely that the world would start to see that Abbas stands in the way of peace. But though I say it would be more likely, I hardly think that outcome likely at all.   How many people were ready to believe Arafat’s claims that he turned down Labor PM Barack’s two-state proposal in 2000 because the Palestinian state offered was a “Bantustan,” a set of disconnected pieces of land? Who believes that argument now? (If you do, please refer to the book The Missing Peace, by Dennis Ross, President Clinton’s chief negotiator, among other sources.) But most of us have moved on and forgotten Israel’s proposal was ever made, as we have forgotten about Barack’s 2001 and Olmert’s 2008 peace proposals. Unfortunately, future Palestinian rejectionism is unlikely to have any effect on world opinion either.

I honestly don’t know what could convince the world that Israel wants peace. Not only were the Palestinians offered statehood in 2000, 2001, and 2008, they were offered 85% of all of Palestine back in 1937 by the British Peel Commission. The Jewish Palestinians (Yes, Jewish Palestinians! Palestinian was not yet an ethnic identity, but only a place of residence) accepted this meager offer, while the Arab Palestinian leadership, under Haj Amin al-Husseini rejected it, instead demanding all of the land and expulsion of most Jews. The consequences of their refusal were tragic. As a result of Palestinian terrorism at that time, Britain began to greatly restrict Jewish immigration just at the time when the Nazis were tightening their grip on Europe, and these restrictions remained in place throughout the Holocaust. Had the Jews held even the small piece of land offered by the Peel Commission, a coastal strip in and around Haifa, hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives might have been saved. These include the parents of my father-in-law, Michael Kesler. As he relates in his book, “Shards of War,” his parents applied for the family to immigrate to Palestine before the war, but were turned down as a result of Britain’s new restrictive policy towards Jews, and were subsequently killed by the Nazis. Michael and his sister Luba, both teen-agers, barely escaped, after surviving harrowing dangers.

Of course after the war, the Arabs turned down the United Nation’s two-state proposal, which the Jews accepted. After the 1967 war, when Israel acquired the so-called occupied territories–which had been occupied by Egypt and Jordan, without international protest–Israel immediately proposed exchanging land for peace, but were turned down in the Arab leaders’ famous “3 No’s” declaration in Khartoum. However, in 1979, Israel gave up 90% of the lands captured in the 1967 war to Egypt in exchange for nothing more than Egypt’s agreement to stop trying to annihilate Israel, though that agreement has held fast. In 2000, Israel unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon (and were then attacked from that land) and in 2005, they unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip (and were subsequently attacked from there).

With the long record of Israel–and before its creation, the Palestinian Jews–accepting two state solutions and exchanging land for peace, it is mind-boggling that so many in the world believe that Israel is unwilling to accept such solutions. What part of “yes” don’t they understand? And where do they get the idea that the Palestinian leaders are willing to make peace? So go ahead, and pressure Israel to make peace, but unless you exert equal pressure on the Palestinian leadership as well, they will never be motivated to negotiate with Israel seriously. On the other hand, if the Palestinian leadership could be so changed as to help their people have a state, they might also be ready to give their people a state worth having.