Page 56 - Why Israel?

ISRAEL’S QUEST FOR PEACE
Israeli leaders have repeatedly shown their willingness to make painful concessions for peace, but Palestinian leaders have walked away from every offer.
The tragic results of Arab rejectionism of Israel’s basic right to exist as an independent Jewish nation-state, regardless of its size or borders, has spawned a century of terror. Five times, Israel has offered a state for the Palestinian people alongside the Jewish state, and each time the Palestinians have rejected the offer.
In 1937, the Peel Commission offered the Jews just 10 percent of the original land they had been promised under the Mandate, and the desperate Jewish leaders accepted the offer. The rest of the land would have been given to the Arabs, but Arab leaders said no.
In 1947, the United Nations tried again to partition the land, and offered to give the Jews a state that would be one- eighth of the size originally included in the Mandate. Again, Jewish leaders accepted the plan but Arab leaders said no.
After five Arab armies failed to destroy Israel in 1967, the Israeli government immediately offered to return most of the land it had won in the Six Day War in exchange for peace agree- ments with Egypt and Syria. The Arab leaders said no.
Then in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians almost all the land they claimed to want, but the Palestinians walked away and responded with a wave of suicide bombings that killed over one thousand Israelis.
Finally, in 2008 Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offered Palestinian President Abbas an even more generous deal, and made painful compromises on Jerusalem and Palestinian refu- gees. But Abbas said no.
50 WHY ISRAEL