The Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to boycott the recent conference in Bahrain, where the U.S. and Arab states proposed spending $50 billion to improve his people’s economic conditions, has brought to mind Abba Eban’s famous quip that Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” But, writes Zalman Shoval, this interpretation of Abbas’s decision-making, like Jared Kushner’s recent statement that Palestinian leaders made a “strategic mistake” by refusing to come to Bahrain, rests on false assumptions about his goals.

Palestinian leaders’ true intention [is] to thwart in advance any Israeli or international initiative that would put them on the road to accepting the existence of the state of Israel, which could be interpreted as a final and historic confirmation of the Jewish people’s right to a state in any part of Palestine. . . . Abbas claims that he is opposed to terrorism, and apparently genuinely so—but his basic ideology is no different from that of the terrorist organizations. . . .

Incidentally, the recent meeting in Bahrain had a precedent: the Casablanca Conference following the Oslo Accords. There, too, politicians and businesspeople gathered from all over the world, including a few Arab countries—and there, too, was euphoria. The Israeli delegation, which included ministers and prominent businesspeople, even prepared detailed plans for economic cooperation with all of the parties, the Palestinians first and foremost. But the Palestinian representatives announced right from the start: “No cooperation with Israel.”

Thus, Shimon Peres’s vision of the “New Middle East,” the main project of that conference, died before it was born. As then, so now: the Palestinian leaders care nothing for the logical assertion that economic advantages do not cancel out the option of future political gains—which means that U.S. President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner’s generous and balanced plan is doomed to become another link in the chain of Palestinian rejectionism.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.