Arab rejectionism or Palestinian rejectionism is the alleged refusal by Palestinians and the Arab world to recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state.
Arab rejection of Israel
characterizes "Arab rejectionism" as being "at least partly responsible" for the "uprooting and occupation" of Palestinian Arabs, referring to the rejection by Arab leaders of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. Noam Chomsky described Soviet support for "Arab rejectionism" as demonstrating that the USSR was "concerned only to cause trouble and block peace." In his book, Yaacov Lozowick asserts that Arab rejectionism is responsible for having made the murder of Jewish civilians into a persistent feature of Arab policy that has been ongoing since the 1920 Nebi Musa riots and that continues in modern terrorist attacks. Daniel Pipes regards the question "Should Israel exist?" as the "core issue" of the Arab–Israeli conflict. According to Pipes, "most Arabs at most times have emphatically replied with a "no." This attitude—what I call rejectionism—stubbornly holds that the Jewish state must be destroyed, with its inhabitants either subjugated, exiled or killed." According to anthropologist Philip Carl Salzman, Arab Rejectionism is best understood in the context of Arab tribalism. Far from being irrational, as it can seem to non-Arab observers when, in Salsman's example, Arab states refuse to accept aid from Israel after earthquakes and other disasters, rejectionism is consistent with a culture rooted in tribalism because it utilizes hatred of an external enemy to "diffuse internal discontent," draws on "Arab organizational principles based on opposition," and is seen as a way to defend "honor of the Arabs," viewed as having been challenged by Israel's existence.
The Rejection Front of the 1970s and the PFLP, which identified with the Rejection Front, were and continued to be strongly rejection.
The end of Arab rejectionism
According to Secretary of State James Baker, the unity of "Arab rejectionism" was defeated in the Gulf War along with the more "radical" Palestinian factions.
