The Wall Street Journal on Monday provoked the Palestinians by saying in a headline that "some" Palestinians are giving up their right to statehood. But anyone who follows the events of the Palestinian cause knows that a number of Palestinians have come to support a solution to the Palestinian issue with one state, Israel, so that they get Israeli citizenship.
But this result has not come from gloomy national aspirations, but from the tedious realism of a people under occupation and facing the best and most powerful army in the Middle East, supported by the most powerful nation in the world.
The American philosopher of German origin, Hannah Arendt, has known that one has no state to represent it, such as one who loses the right to have rights. Faced with the choice of either citizenship rights in any country whatsoever or statelessness, Palestinians prefer the latter option, which anyone else would prefer. But that is different from the acceptance of the state of non-citizenship offered by the son-in-law of US President Garrid Kouchner. The following is a survey of Palestinian views on this issue, in addition to the real views of the Palestinians regarding the Kouchner Plan and American President Donald Trump:
An overwhelming majority of Palestinians (83%) believe that the Trump administration is not really serious in proposing a new peace plan, while 12% believe it is serious. A large majority believe that if the United States actually offers a peace plan, it will not call for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, while 15% believe it will. Similarly, 81% of the Palestinians believe that the plan will not call for making the capital of Palestine in East Jerusalem, while 14% believe it will.
Seventy-eight percent of the Palestinians believe that Trump's plan will not call for a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967 lines, with a simple swap for some land, while 17% believe it will.
An overwhelming majority of 84% of the Palestinians believe that the peace plan will not call for a just solution to the refugee problem, while 10% believe it will. A similar percentage of 84% of Palestinians believe that the peace plan will not call for an end to the Israeli occupation and the withdrawal of the Israeli army from areas occupied by Israel in 1967, while 11% believe it will. 79% of the Palestinians believe that the Palestinian leadership should reject the American peace plan, if presented, while 14% believe it should accept it. But if the Trump plan actually includes all of the above-mentioned items, a majority of 52% would reject it, and 34% would accept it. The percentage of those calling for acceptance is greater in the Gaza Strip, where it reaches 55%, while the percentage of rejectionists is higher in the West Bank, where it reaches 59%.
A majority of Palestinians, 64%, oppose a resumption of negotiations between the Palestinian leadership and the Trump administration.
It is clear from this survey that citizenship and basic civil rights are more important than the state itself, for many people.
Consequently, the findings of this poll do not support Kouchner's plan.