Palestinians are on the wrong track and will not get off it until the outside world demands better of them. Every year or two, a campaign of violence is spurred by Palestinian political and religious leaders spreading wild-eyed conspiracy theories. (The favorite: Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is under threat.) A spasm of unprovoked violence against Israelis then follows: rocket attacks from Gaza, car rammings in Israel proper, stone throwings in the West Bank, street stabbings in Jerusalem. Eventually the paroxysm peters out, only to start up again not too much later. True, these bouts of violence bring some gains to the Palestinians: In the United Nations, in faculty lounges, and on the streets of Western cities they win support against Israel. Each round ends, however, with the Palestinians worse off in terms of dead and wounded, buildings destroyed and an economy in tatters. Furthermore, their immoral and barbaric actions harden Israeli opinion, making the prospect of concessions and compromise that much less likely. The cheery Israeli hopes for a "partner for peace" and a "new Middle East" from two decades ago have given way to a despair. As a result, security fences are going up all over the place, even in Jerusalem, to protect Israelis who increasingly believe that separation, not cooperation, is the way forward. It may be exhilarating for Palestinians to watch UNESCO condemn Israel for this and that, as it did last week, but its actions serve more as theater than as practical steps toward conflict resolution. Where does this insistence on self-defeating tactics come from? It dates back nearly a century, to the seminal years 1920-1921. In April 1920, as a gesture to the Zionists, the British government created a region called "Palestine" designed to be the eventual "national home for the Jewish people." Then, in May 1921, it appointed Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974) as mufti of Jerusalem, a dreadful decision whose repercussions still reverberate today. Husseini harbored a monstrous hostility toward Jews. As Klaus Gensicke put it in his important 2007 study, "The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis," Husseini's "hatred of Jews knew no mercy and he always intervened with particular zeal whenever he feared that some of the Jews could escape annihilation." Toward this end, he initiated an uncompromising campaign of rejectionism, using any and all tactics to eliminate every vestige of Jewish presence in Palestine. He can be largely held responsible for the Middle East's endemic anti-Semitism, having spread the anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," blood libel and Holocaust denial throughout the region. His other legacies include making Jerusalem into the flashpoint it remains today, spreading many of the anti-Zionist conspiracy theories that still afflict the Middle East and being one of the first Islamists to call for jihad. He encouraged and organized unprovoked violence against the British and the Jews, including a three-year intifada in 1936-1939. Then he collaborated with the Nazis, living in Germany during the war years 1941-1945, proving so useful that he earned an audience with Hitler. Husseini tutored his then-young relative, future PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, and Arafat faithfully carried out the mufti's program for 35 years. These days it is his apparatchik Mahmoud Abbas keeping the legacy alive. In other words, Husseini's rejectionism still dominates the Palestinian Authority. In addition, he spent the post-war years in Egypt, where he influenced the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Hamas offshoot also bears his hallmark rejectionism. Thus, both principal Palestinian movements pursue the mufti's murderous and self-defeating methods. Only when the Palestinians emerge from the cloud of Husseini's dark legacy can they begin to work with Israel rather than fight it; build their own polity, society, economy, and culture rather than try to destroy Israel's; and become a positive influence rather than the nihilistic force of today. And how will that happen? It will happen if the outside world, as symbolized by UNESCO, stops encouraging the Palestinians' execrable behavior and impeding Israeli defenses against it. Only when Palestinians realize they will not be rewarded for homicidal conduct will they stop their campaign of violence and start to come to terms with the Jewish state.
Daniel Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum.
