Palestinians : The Leaders of Tomorrow

"The 3,481 students who voted in favor of the Hamas-affiliated list want to see the destruction of Israel. Similarly, the 668 students who voted for the PFLP-affiliated list support terrorism and would also like to see the destruction of Israel. These numbers reflect the general sentiments that have long been prevalent among many Palestinians, including students and professors on various campuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."
"The Wafaa list, which belongs to Hamas, won 25 of the student council seats, while Fatah's Martyrs Yasser Arafat list got 21 seats. A list belonging to the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) won five seats."
Both Hamas and the PFLP are strongly opposed to any peace process with Israel. They continue to call for terror attacks against Israelis. The results of the election mean that most of the students at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, not Gaza, support groups that have chosen terrorism over peace.
Bir Zeit University, which has 12,000 students, is located only a few miles from Ramallah, which houses the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leadership. As such, the Hamas victory carries symbolic significance because it shows that even in Abbas's own backyard, the Islamist movement remains as strong and popular as ever."
Kahled Abu Toameh, The Gatestone Institute

Students at Bir Zeit in the West Bank celebrating Hamas victory. (Image source: Al Jazeera)

Fatah, the party of the Palestine Liberation Oganization founded to "liberate" Palestine from Israel, is the party of Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority where elections are years overdue, yet are not scheduled to take place any time soon. The last time an election was held, the terrorist Palestinian group Hamas, made impressive strides. It was not only the Palestinians in Gaza who voted for Hamas but many in the West Bank as well.

Since that time, and long since the shared administration under the PA with both Fatah and Hamas was severed when Hamas occupied Gaza and violently threw out Fatah members from any administrative role in the Strip, the two Palestinian factions, one secular the other orthodox, one shielding its anti-Israel agenda from Western criticism, the other openly stating in its charter its mission to destroy the State of Israel, have had sundered relations. And since that time, Hamas and its agenda has grown in popularity in the West Bank.

It's hardly surprising that violence against Israel is hugely popular with university students attending the Bir Zeit university, since they've grown up with active and pervasive social, cultural and religious accusations against Israel as the brutal oppressive power that diminishes life for Palestinians and denies them their heritage and their freedom. From the time they are impressionable children in grade school, following them to high school, Palestinian children are taught contempt and rage against Jews.

They are familiar with a map of the Middle East that shows only Palestine, a territory that is the birthright of Arabs, not Jews. The map they know is devoid of any image designating an area stamped "Israel"; the Jews are, they are informed, foreign interlopers, having no historical presence in the Middle East, merely an imported and disruptive and demeaning symbol of Western imperialism. And as such, it is the obligation of Palestinians to dedicate themselves to "liberate Palestine".

Toward that end, the honour of martyrdom is a desired objective. So Jews are detested and plots are constantly evolving to violently "resist" the "occupier" whose sole purpose is to destroy the hopes and dreams of Palestinian statehood and liberty. Palestinian human rights are abridged repeatedly by Israel and the Israel Defence Forces, and the only solution is to refuse to negotiate for peace and a state for Palestinians alongside that of Israel.

As much as Palestinians hate Israel, they hate each others' factions. Fatah and Hamas are in constant conflict with one another, beating and shooting one another. Which is fairly typical generally of Arab tribal and sectarian behaviour. And which can be seen just about anywhere one looks in the Arab and Muslim world, from Libya to Egypt, Syria to Iraq, Yemen to Iran. Added to tribal and sectarian  hatreds is the issue of corruption which permeates the Arab and Middle East world.

Although conventionally Islam is considered to be obsessed with righteousness, it is corruption manifested by all its state enterprises and suffused throughout its societies that characterizes its business interests, social interactions, governmental administrations and civil services, ensuring that their citizens' lives are mired in a network of frustrating setbacks to any reasonable advancement of their futures.

President Abbas no longer has the trust of the general population of the West Bank, and much less that of the university students, fed a steady diet of holding Israel to account for all their shortcomings, shielding the Palestinian Authority from any responsibility in its lack of accountability. The vote of the Palestinian students at the Bir Zeit University is as good an indication of their rejection of the general policies of the PA under Abbas, as any. He is considered 'moderate' in his relations with Israel.

And that alone in and of itself is a feature that the students despise. The very administration that ensured they were taught through school curriculum that Israel is the enemy that must be defeated before Palestinian pride and honour can be restored, reject that administration because of what the students perceive as its coordination with Israel. As far as these students are concerned, any consideration of reaching an agreement through the "peace process" is a grave misdemeanor.


The 3,481 students who voted in favor of the Hamas-affiliated list are interested only in the destruction of Israel. And the students who voted for the PFLP-affiliated list did so because they support terrorism and have every intention of investing in the destruction of Israel. These sentiments and the expression of their numbers are a reflection of thoughts that have long been prevalent among Palestinians, including students and professors on various campuses in the West Bank.

So, realistically speaking, what hope is there for peace? And yet the Western world views the issue through the lens of the Palestinian propaganda machine which insists that it is Israel alone which represents the roadblock to peace between the two.