Palestinian leaders claim that Israeli settlements in disputed territory constitute the chief obstacle to peace, but their arguments actually expose the nature of their extremist agenda.

At CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, representatives of Israeli settler communities expressed their willingness to live under governance of a new Palestinian state, if that state provided the same guarantees of safety and equal rights Israel grants to its nearly two million Palestinian Muslim citizens. Unbending Palestinian insistence that all Jews must vacate their long-term homes to create a Jew-free, all-Arab Palestine proves that the core of the problem remains what it has always been: Arab refusal to accept an organized Jewish presence in any part of the Jewish people’s ancient homeland.

Until Palestinians clearly accept the right of Jews to live in security alongside their Arab neighbors in the Middle East, there can be no two state solution or progress of any kind toward lasting peace.