by Bassam Tawil
Is the actual wish to help the Palestinians "finish the job" Hitler started while they, the Europeans, sipping their claret, can pretend to appear as righteous and just?
Why would any country -- especially one smaller than Maricopa County, Arizona -- allow anywhere near it, let alone on its border, a barbaric, homicidal state, committed to its destruction? Would Luxembourg, or even France, welcome Al-Qaeda or Islamic State on its border?
Such a hostile state, dedicated to Israel's destruction, would pose an existential threat to its neighbor and massively destabilize the region. Perhaps that is why the Europeans are advocating it?
If the Gaza Strip, after Israel's withdrawal, became a launching pad for terrorism, why should anyone believe that a Palestinian state in the West Bank would be any different?
As US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee noted last year: "If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I have a suggestion for them–carve out a piece of the French Riviera."
Even now, a year after Abbas promised French President Emmanuel Macron that he would hold presidential and parliamentary elections, no elections have taken place.... Macron publicly welcomed it as evidence that the Palestinian Authority was committed to reform and democratic renewal.
One year later, there are no elections, no timetable, and no meaningful reforms.
As Palestinians would no doubt have elected the terrorist organization Hamas, perhaps it is for the best that elections have not taken place. Abbas can plainly see that he would be have been committing himself and his Palestinian Authority to a sumptuous, permanent retirement.
Palestinian leaders fear being branded traitors by their own people if they accept compromise with Israel. They have preferred to reject the Israeli proposals rather than explain to their people that peace requires difficult concessions – chiefly, giving up their dream of obliterating Israel.
At the same time, Palestinian leaders have failed -- deliberately, one assumes -- to prepare Palestinians for peaceful coexistence with Israel. Instead of promoting reconciliation, many Palestinian leaders continue to pay and glorify terrorists, incite hatred and teach generations of Palestinians that Israel has no right to exist.
Hamas, for its part, squarely rejects any disarmament plan or peace process. Hamas does not seek a Palestinian state living alongside Israel. Hamas seeks a Palestinian state replacing Israel.
That goal appears to be what the Paris conference was really about.
The conflict is not fundamentally about the absence of a Palestinian state. It is about the refusal of many Palestinians, as well as Iran and its terror proxies, to accept the existence of Israel within any borders. The Europeans, pressing for an openly warmongering Palestinian state, apparently agree.
The entire goal of these supposed "friends" of Trump in "helping" him has been to make sure that Iran's regime survives to try to eliminate Israel after Trump leaves office.
Sadly, the Paris conference could have made a meaningful, constructive contribution. It could have called on Palestinians to renounce terrorism, end incitement, and recognize Israel's right to exist. It could have insisted on genuine reform and elections inside the Palestinian political system.
France and other Western countries are free to continue promoting the two-state solution. Before doing so, however, they should answer a few basic questions: Who will govern the Palestinian state? How will Hamas be prevented from taking over and attacking Israel "time and again until it is annihilated," as it has vowed to do? How will Iran be prevented from again turning the Gaza Strip into a forward operating base against Israel? What guarantees will be provided that October 7 will not be repeated from the West Bank hills overlooking Israel's major population centers?
Nearly three years after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, many Western governments and diplomats remain trapped in a dangerous fantasy: the belief that creating a Palestinian state will bring peace to the Middle East.
The latest example is France's international conference in Paris, where foreign ministers, activists, and self-appointed peace advocates gathered this month to revive the two-state solution and promote the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The conference is detached from reality. Why would any country -- especially one smaller than Maricopa County, Arizona -- allow anywhere near it, let alone on its border, a barbaric, homicidal state, committed to its destruction? Would Luxembourg, or even France, welcome Al-Qaeda or Islamic State on its border?
It is astonishing that after October 7, anyone can still argue that a Palestinian state under current circumstances would enhance peace and security. The opposite is true. Such a hostile state, dedicated to Israel's destruction, would pose an existential threat to its neighbor and massively destabilize the region. Perhaps that is why the Europeans are advocating it?
Is it possible that the organizers of the Paris conference appear to have learned from October 7 that possibly Israel might be able to be destroyed -- and are now, over wine and frisée, hoping to call into existence a 21st century Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany's armed forces)?
Is the actual wish to help the Palestinians "finish the job" Hitler started while they, the Europeans, sipping their claret, can pretend to appear as righteous and just?
The Gaza Strip, home to two million Palestinians, already served as a test case for Palestinian self-rule. After Israel removed every soldier and Jewish civilian from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Palestinians received an opportunity to build foundations of a future state. Instead of focusing on economic development, institution-building, and peaceful coexistence, the Iran-backed Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007 and transformed it into a base for jihad (holy war) against Israel.
Billions of dollars in international aid flowed into the Gaza Strip. Much of the money, however, was diverted to digging tunnels, manufacturing rockets, and creating a military infrastructure designed for one purpose: the destruction of Israel.
The result was October 7, when thousands of Hamas terrorists crossed the border from the Gaza Strip and carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. They murdered, raped, kidnapped, and tortured hundreds of Israeli civilians and foreign nationals. Their objective was not to improve living conditions or advance Palestinian statehood. Their objective was to eliminate Israel.
If the Gaza Strip, after Israel's withdrawal, became a launching pad for terrorism, why should anyone believe that a Palestinian state in the West Bank would be any different?
As US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee noted last year: "If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I have a suggestion for them–carve out a piece of the French Riviera."
The reality is that Hamas would almost certainly emerge as the dominant force in any future Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which currently controls parts of the West Bank, is weak, corrupt, and deeply unpopular among its own people. Countless public opinion polls have shown that a majority of Palestinians want PA President Mahmoud Abbas to resign.
The PA has lost much of its legitimacy because of financial and administrative corruption, mismanagement, and its inability to improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians.
Even now, a year after Abbas promised French President Emmanuel Macron that he would hold presidential and parliamentary elections, no elections have taken place. Abbas made the promise in June 2025. Macron publicly welcomed it as evidence that the Palestinian Authority was committed to reform and democratic renewal.
One year later, there are no elections, no timetable, and no meaningful reforms.
As Palestinians would no doubt have elected the terrorist organization Hamas, perhaps it is for the best that elections have not taken place. Abbas can plainly see that he would be have been committing himself and his Palestinian Authority to a sumptuous, permanent retirement.
Instead of democratic renewal, Palestinians have witnessed further stagnation and growing concerns about succession politics inside Abbas's ruling Fatah faction.
The failure to implement even the most basic democratic commitments raises an unavoidable question: How can Western governments speak about Palestinian statehood when the Palestinian leadership has failed to fulfill promises it voluntarily made just a year earlier.
The truth -- which Macron and the other Europeans would have had to work hard not to know -- is that Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected opportunities to establish a state. Over the past quarter century, Israel presented far-reaching proposals that would have resulted in the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
Yasser Arafat did not accept the offer made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000.
Abbas did not accept the proposal presented by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008.
Both proposals offered the Palestinians more than 90% of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian control over large parts of east Jerusalem.
Palestinian leaders fear being branded traitors by their own people if they accept compromise with Israel. They have preferred to reject the Israeli proposals rather than explain to their people that peace requires difficult concessions – chiefly, giving up their dream of obliterating Israel.
At the same time, Palestinian leaders have failed -- deliberately, one assumes -- to prepare Palestinians for peaceful coexistence with Israel. Instead of promoting reconciliation, many Palestinian leaders continue to pay and glorify terrorists, incite hatred (such as here, here and here), and teach generations of Palestinians that Israel has no right to exist.
Hamas, for its part, squarely rejects any disarmament plan or peace process. Hamas does not seek a Palestinian state living alongside Israel. Hamas seeks a Palestinian state replacing Israel.
That goal appears to be what the Paris conference was really about.
The participants spoke as if the conflict revolves around borders and settlements. October 7 proved otherwise. The conflict is not fundamentally about the absence of a Palestinian state. It is about the refusal of many Palestinians, as well as Iran and its terror proxies, to accept the existence of Israel within any borders. The Europeans, pressing for an openly warmongering Palestinian state, apparently agree.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Iranian regime are not fighting for a two-state solution. They are fighting for a one-state solution -- without any Israel. Even after a "peace deal" is signed, they will not stop planning for that result.
By continuing to promote Palestinian statehood without addressing this reality, Westerners are rewarding extremism and terrorism.
US President Donald J. Trump's "helpful" mediators -- Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey -- all loathe Israel, despite Egypt's icy peace treaty. For signing it, Egypt's then President Anwar Sadat was murdered by his countrymen. Turkey sounds as if it is already gearing up for a war with Israel. The entire goal of these supposed "friends" of Trump in "helping" him has been to make sure that Iran's regime survives to try to eliminate Israel after Trump leaves office.
Trump appears to have an understandably hard time seeing who his real friends are. If world leaders are charming to him -- that is their job; how else can they get their way? -- he seems to believe that they are actually his friends and have his and America's best interests at heart, not just their own, possibly extremely different, long-term agendas. This difficulty also includes "my friend," the KGB wonder boy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the president of China's Communist Party, Xi Jinping.
The message the Europeans are, in fact, sending to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups is: massacre Israelis, launch wars, reject compromise, and eventually the international community will pressure Israel to agree to its own destruction.
Sadly, the Paris conference could have made a meaningful, constructive contribution. It could have called on Palestinians to renounce terrorism, end incitement, and recognize Israel's right to exist. It could have insisted on genuine reform and elections inside the Palestinian political system.
Instead, the participants chose to recycle slogans and formulas that -- to no one's surprise -- have repeatedly failed.
An additional revealing aspect of the conference is the question: Who exactly do the attendees represent? Certainly not Hamas. Certainly not the Palestinian Authority leadership. It is a group of Europeans trying to tell Israelis, in their far-away sovereign state, how to live. Have the Europeans pressed Turkey for a Kurdish state or to abandon occupied northern Cyprus?
The conference largely relies on civil society activists, NGOs, and members of what has become known as an international "peace industry" that often speaks in the name of Palestinians and Israelis without enjoying broad public support from either society, and without having to suffer the potential consequences of their soft-headed, unworkable ideas.
It would seem as if Europe has enough troubles of its own that they appear committed to not solving. Chief among these are a self-inflicted energy crisis, increasing repression of free speech and a ballooning hijrah – a migration in the cause of Allah to anchor Islam across Europe's Judeo-Christian culture.
Conferences produce photographs, declarations, and communiqués. They do not produce peace.
France and other Western countries are free to continue promoting the two-state solution. Before doing so, however, they should answer a few basic questions: Who will govern the Palestinian state? How will Hamas be prevented from taking over and attacking Israel "time and again until it is annihilated," as it has vowed to do? How will Iran be prevented from again turning the Gaza Strip into a forward operating base against Israel? What guarantees will be provided that October 7 will not be repeated from the West Bank hills overlooking Israel's major population centers?
Until these questions are answered, conferences such as the one in Paris do not advance peace. Instead, they promote, as their sponsors undoubtedly know, merely a destabilizing illusion.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. His work is made possible through the generous donation of a couple who wish to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.
Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22612/the-two-state-fantasy
No comments:
Post a Comment