On this blog, I have been consistent about my views on the war in the Middle East. I want peace between Israelis and Arabs. I want an end to the war. I deplored the atrocities of October 7. I understand Israelis’ desire for vengeance but I thought the invasion of Gaza was a horrible idea. It was certain to cause massive death and destruction, and it has. I wrote a post calling Netanyahu a “maniac” for launching a counter-offensive that turns Israel into an international pariah while destroying the lives of thousands of innocent people. I oppose the human and physical devastation that Israel has inflicted on Gaza, and I oppose Hamas’ irredentist fantasy of eliminating Israel.
I long for the day when Palestinian leaders accept the reality of Israel and agree to make peace and share the benefits of peace. I want a two-state solution. But Hamas’ leaders have predicted that the horrors of October 7 will happen again and again. Hamas has never accepted Israel’s right to exist, and that position guarantees perpetual war. This is not the road to negotiations or peace.
Peace is impossible until wiser heads prevail in the Arab and Muslim world and agree that Israel is a reality and will not go away. Never. Once they do that, negotiations are possible. Peace is possible. A shared future of prosperity is possible.
“From the river to the sea” presumes that Israel will disappear. That won’t happen. “From the river to the sea” should imply two states—a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. That’s the only way to break the cycle of unending war. Not by conquest. Not by killing. But by negotiations.
Bill Maher says as much in this monologue.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Unfortunately, your information on this subject is completely inaccurate.
Perpetrating this falsehood contributes to the genocide Israel as the most racist country in the world. I am deeply distressed by your misinformation.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/5/2/hamas-accepts-palestinian-state-with-1967-borders
If you don’t remember the history of Palestine, let me remind you that all Jews currently known as Israelis are European. They have a spiritual tie to Israel, but had largely all emigrated to other countries around the world by 1948. Only 6% of residents of Palestine were Jews at that time. Having long ago given up their land to live mostly in Europe, it is obvious that the majority of residents were native Palestinians. The act of taking over Palestinian state by European leaders in creating a new Israel left Palestinians stateless. This has given rise to a very large resistance movement. You may call them terrorists, but they call Israel terrorists for a reason that can well be understood.
I certainly cannot condone the October 7 tax, but they are minimal compared to the loss of almost 27,000 civilians the desecration of cemeteries the humiliation of men and women violated. These are acts of Israelis. How can Palestinians resist without being called terrorists and what is actually land that they own.
Thank you for your years of service to educators like me. I hope you will widen you knowledge and understanding of this history, as your current statements do not match with your good work for decades.
Emily Brandt Salut!
This statement that “Peace is impossible until wiser heads prevail in the Arab and Muslim world and agree that Israel is a reality and will not go away” is not completely inaccurate. It is completely accurate.
Emily, as I wrote, I deplore Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the death, destruction, and terrible conditions inflicted on Gazans.
Israel is not the most racist country in the world, nor is it all-European. Jews were expelled from every Arab nation, and almost all of them settled in Israel—from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, etc.
20% of the population of Israel is Arab or Christian or Bedouin or Druse or some other ethnicity.
Peace—genuine peace—requires negotiations. I support peace and negotiations.
Before the Israeli invasion of Gaza begain, I wrote here that I was dubious about the wisdom of such an invasion. There has certainly been a large amount of human misery in Gaza recently because of that invasion. But I’m more ambivalent now about the Israeli response to the October 7 massacres. The extent of the tunnel system built by Hamas is far greater than even Israeli intelligence believed. Opinion polls show that the vast majority of Gaza residents support what occurred on October 7. There is no meaningful support in Gaza and the West Bank for a two state solution: Palestinians want Israel destroyed and an Islamic theocracy to take its place.
Should Israel allow the tunnel system in Gaza to remain as a serious threat to Israel’s very existence? Should Israel tolerate frequent missile attacks on its territory, with some missiles managing to evade the Iron Dome system? Hamas has vowed to attack Israel until that country is destroyed. The current catastrophe can’t be ended by an Israeli withdrawal, unless Israel is willing to allow Hamas to remain as an existential threat.
Jack,
You ask good questions. Israel has been blowing up tunnels but has concluded that the tunnel system is so extensive that it can never be obliterated.
No matter the government, Israel cannot permit terrorists on their borders to bombard endlessly. Israel is a highly developed and technologically advanced society. It has much to share with its neighbors if they gave up their ambitions to obliterate Israel.
The best hope for the future, I believe, lies with the Arab states. Egypt, Jordan and Qatar are involved in peace negotiations. Saudi Arabia was on the cusp of extending recognition to Israel and establishing relations at the time of the Oct 7 atrocities. That may have precipitated Hamas’ massacre as a way to prevent the Saudi-Israeli connection.
If the major Arab nations agree to cut off funding to Hamas and direct their aid solely to humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people, then peace has a chance.
thank you very much
Prof. Ravitch, I very much respect your research on education and activism for better public schools. Let me start with that. I have followed and admired your books and blogs for over a decade.
But, as scholar of Middle Eastern/Islamic Studies, I feel the need to write here to tell you that your post above has several issues.
First, amplifying Bill Maher, who is a longtime and well known Islamophobe, is highly problematic. See: https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-bill-maher/
Second, the entire framing of this post, which presents the “Palestinian leaders” and the “Arab and Muslim world” as the obstacles to peace, seriously misunderstands the history of political relations between Israel and Palestine. Despite the dominant media narrative that presents Palestinians and “Arabs” as recalcitrant and unwilling partners, the reality is exactly the opposite. Palestinian leaders have been willing to negotiate many times for a real two-state solution, but Israel has never been willing to offer the Palestinians a genuine state with full territorial sovereignty nor compromise on key issues. This is not even a controversial claim among scholars who study this. (I can give you an extensive reading list on these points, if you would like.) As you know from all your superb work on the problematic claims of the “education reform movement,” the gap between what the dominant narrative says and what scholars actually know to be true can sometimes be huge…often even diametrically opposed.
Third, the dominant current usage of the phrase “From the River to the Sea” does NOT imply Israel will cease to exist as a nation state or the genocide of Israelis. It does demand equal rights for all who live in the territorial area “From the River to the Sea,” which would mean the end of the Israeli occupation and apartheid system. It would mean the end of the current Israeli state as a Jewish supremacist state. Regardless of whether one thinks this the best solution or not, this “one-state” solution has been made all but impossible now by the extensive and expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and many Palestinians know this, which is why the one-state solution is gaining ground as a way forward to peace and equal rights. Also, the phrase “From the River to the Sea” has a long and complex history (including in Likud political documents, which want Israeli domination “From the River to the Sea”). I would suggest starting with this: https://jewishcurrents.org/what-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-really-mean
Lastly, this reading of Hamas is really simplistic. Despite the atrocities they have carried out (on Oct. 7th and before), they are a political actor with a complicated history and they have at different points indicated their willingness to seriously negotiate with Israel on a two-state solution. I would suggest listening to this expert on them to get a bit more historical and textured reading: https://thedigradio.com/podcast/hamas-w-tareq-baconi/ .
Sincerely,
Matthew Miller
University of Maryland
Matthew,
I defer to your expertise.
I do not entirely disagree with your analysis.
For many years, Israeli leaders sought a two-state solution. The Oslo Accords led to Nobel Peace Prizes but not to peace.
No one needs peace more than Israel.
The nonstop terrorism inside Israel—bombs exploding on crowded buses, in markets, in pizza parlors, etc.—created demand for a tough, uncompromising leader, and Netanyahu came to power. He does not believe that peace is possible. He does not seek peace. He will be held accountable for his massive failures as soon as there is another election, and he will be ousted.
My judgment of Hamas is based on their actions and their charter of 2017, which declares Israel to be a usurper of the land from the River to the sea.
“Palestine is a land that was seized by a racist, anti-human and colonial Zionist project that was founded on a false promise (the Balfour Declaration), on recognition of a usurping entity and on imposing a fait accompli by force.
“Palestine symbolises the resistance that shall continue until liberation is accomplished, until the return is fulfilled and until a fully sovereign state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.
“Palestine is the true partnership among Palestinians of all affiliations for the sublime objective of liberation.
“Palestine is the spirit of the Ummah and its central cause; it is the soul of humanity and its living conscience.
“This document is the product of deep deliberations that led us to a strong consensus. As a movement, we agree about both the theory and the practice of the vision that is outlined in the pages that follow. It is a vision that stands on solid grounds and on well-established principles. This document unveils the goals, the milestones and the way in which national unity can be enforced. It also establishes our common understanding of the Palestinian cause, the working principles which we use to further it, and the limits of flexibility used to interpret it.
“The movement
1. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means.
“The Land of Palestine
2. Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras al-Naqurah in the north to Umm al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity.
“3. Palestine is an Arab Islamic land. It is a blessed sacred land that has a special place in the heart of every Arab and every Muslim.”
The Hamas charter preceding 2017 made it crystal clear that the goal of Hamas was the elimination of Israel.
Unless I misunderstand, the Hamas charter aims to assert control of everything that is now Israel. That’s not going to happen.
I strongly oppose the settlements in the West Bank and hope they will be dismantled in a peace agreement.
I certainly oppose the rightwingers in Israel who want to seize territory and claim possession of more land.
As I have said many times in this space, peace will happen only through negotiations and a renunciation of violence. By both sides.
As I’m sure you will agree, the actions by Hamas on Oct 7 were meant to promote war, not peace.
A senior Hamas official declared a few weeks after the Oct 7 attack that Hamas would do it again and again until Israel is eliminated.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-01/ty-article/hamas-official-we-will-repeat-october-7-attacks-until-israel-is-annihilated/0000018b-8b9d-db7e-af9b-ebdfbee90000?utm_source=App_Share&utm_medium=iOS_Native
Threats of violence do not produce prace. Violence does not produce peace.
Peace will come about if and when the major Arab nations want it and the Israeli public replaces Netanyahu with leadership that seeks peace.
Again, my hope is that Israel ends the occupation, withdraws all settlements, and accepts an autonomous Palestinian state. And that Palestinians abandon their irredentist goal of eliminating Israel and set about the business of governing their own state and devoting themselves to establishing a fully functioning society and economy.
Diane, thank you for your response. I would say two things very quickly. In no negotiations, Oslo included, were the Israelis ever willing to grant Palestine a truly sovereign state. That is just fact. The only thing Israel has ever actually offered to Palestinians is some form of territorial self-management with a heavy degree of control (over various things) still in Israeli hands. They also will not offer serious compromises on other major issues, such as certain settlements, Jerusalem, and refugee right of return or at least substantial compensation for the Palestinian refugees who Israeli militias ethnically cleansed in 1948. This is why there has never been an agreement. Not Palestinian or Arab intransigence.
Re: Hamas charter, I would gently suggest again listening to the expert on them that I linked in my original post. You will get a much more nuanced reading of that document, how it changed from their original one, and, most importantly, how they interpret it (interpretation, after all, is the most important always).
Thank you, Matthew.
I am in complete agreement with you about both how important Diane is and has been in her activism in support of real education reform and not the corporate/political variety, and the long and complicated meaning of ‘from the river to the sea”.
But my first reaction to this post was wide eyes that Bill Maher would ever be referenced as an unbiased or reliable arbiter of the history or politics of the middle east – or anything else for that matter. He is an Islamophobic, libertarian entertainer who would have little nice to say about most of the positions written about on this blog.
Maher is smug and a blowhard. But how is he Islamophobic?
The term “Islamophobic” is hurled recklessly, usually at anyone who dares to point out that Islamic theocrats don’t share western ideas about freedom.
Jon, this is true. Consider the issue of women’s rights. In western societies, women are supposed to have equal rights. Women may wear a hat or have a bare head. They may vote and drive a car. They may enter any profession. They have the right to be educated. They may dress as they wish. In some societies, these rights are not available. I grieve when I think of the women of Afghanistan, who had these rights (at least in urban areas) while the country was occupied by American troops but lost them as soon as the Taliban reassumed control. Whatever happened to the brave women of Iran, who challenged the mullahs for the right to remove their scarves and headdresses? I am not Islamophobic. I don’t much like any orthodox religion. I believe in women’s rights.
I’m not the only one who ascribes that label to Maher. https://www.cfr.org/blog/bill-maher-makes-us-dumber-how-ignorance-fear-and-stupid-pop-culture-cliches-shape-americans
‘Consider, for example, comedian and TV host Bill Maher. His Islamophobia is well-known. There are endless examples to pick from when it comes to Maher’s anti-Muslim sentiments, but he outdid himself in an October 2010 episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” his talk show on HBO. Maher confessed that he was afraid that so many babies with the name Muhammad were being born in Western countries. Addressing his panel, Maher asked, “Am I a racist to feel alarmed by that? Because I am. And it’s not because of the race; it’s because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years?”’
A wonderful thing happened in Brooklyn a few days ago. A Palestinian restaurant in Bay Ridge called Ayat invited its Jewish neighbors to a free Shabbat dinner. Over 1,000 people of all religions showed up to eat and schmooze. The owner picked up the $40,000 tab.
Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are stupid. People can get along.
Would I want to live in Iran or Afghanistan as a woman under sharia law? No.
Would you?
On reflection, I suppose Maher may be Islamophobic, in the sense that he fears Islam, or at least Islamic fundamentalism. But there may be good reason to fear it.
“Would I want to live in Iran or Afghanistan as a woman under sharia law? No.
Would you?”
No, absolutely not. But sharia law as practiced in Iran and Afghanistan – only two of the nearly 50 countries with Muslim majorities – does not lay claim to Islam any more than Hasidism equals Judaism or Evangelicalism Christianity. I wouldn’t want to live under their “laws” either.
Iran and Afghanistan are not the only Muslim majority nations that practice Sharia law. Saudi Arabia does, and there are more:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/sharia-law-countries
Diane, unfortunately, that Palestinian restaurant made clear that anyone who identified as Zionist was not welcome at that Shabbat dinner. 😬
Until we have no Hamas and no Neten yahoo, we will not have peace. Until we integrate society where all perceive themselves as fairly treated, we will never have peace.
Roy, right as usual.
Nutty-yahoo….much better.
Extremism on both sides will not likely result in a peaceful resolution. It is sad for all the reasonable people on both sides caught in the middle.
Nyet’n Yahoo
Isn’t Jordan a majority Palestinian state? Not that I propose that as a solution. The Jordanians apparently don’t want any more Palestinians as is true of all Arab states apparently. Bill Maher certainly is not an unbiased actor, but I don’t see anywhere that Diane presented him as such. If I was a Jew, though, I would find it hard to think that a state under the control of the Palestinians would protect the rights of non-Palestinians including the 20% of Israeli citizens who are not Jewish. Israel is fighting for their survival. Hamas is fighting to utterly obliterate them. Hamas knew exactly what it was doing. They knew what Israel would do with a hard right government in power. I don’t condone what Hamas or Israel has done, but obviously the solution does not lie in more brutality.
Thank you.