The case against a two-state "solution"
Western plans to impose a Palestinian state on Israel do not address Israel's security concerns.
Western leaders are obsessed with a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. They sound like people who have never heard the arguments against it.
In a craven surrender to the Jihadist thugs that have taken over their cities, some Western countries are planning to reward the unspeakable terrorism of October 7. France and Spain are going to recognize a Palestinian state unilaterally. The UK is considering it. This betrayal of Israel to pander to anti-Semitic voters, including by US Democrats, reveals a deep moral stunting.
It is nonsense and lunacy to think this will bring peace.
Middle Eastern politics is played by its own set of rules, which the West does not understand. The cardinal one is strength equals respect. Showing weakness is a terrible idea in a region that despots run, militias have overrun, and where religious and tribal allegiances trump all.
In the Middle East, those too weak to defend their land lose it. Syria wanted Lebanon and only gave up its claim in 2008. It has lost the Golan Heights to Israel and is now ravaged by civil war. Lebanon itself has lost much of its sovereignty to Iran-backed Hezbollah. Yemen has lost half its territory to the Iran-backed Houthi militia. Jordan and Egypt wanted to carve up Israel and lost control of the West Bank and Gaza. Iraq has become a client state of Iran.
Surrendering land in a region of tyrants and clerical madmen displays weakness, and that you are ripe for the taking. A shrinking Israel is a weaker Israel. Islamists see a two-state solution as a stepping stone to destroying Israel, bit by bit. Shamefully, the West is trying to appease Jihadism. It is extraordinary that even after the Second World War, they do not understand that appeasement is folly.
The West, although in secular decline, cannot shake its colonial habits. They should recall that unilateral boundary drawing at the end of the colonial era is what caused many of the Middle East's problems today. They did not understand the region then, either.
Patronizingly, they refuse to listen to Palestinians and Israelis, most of whom do not want a two-state solution. Polling from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows that 64 percent of Palestinians do not support a two-state solution, while a Pew Research Center survey shows that only 35 percent of Israelis think it can work peacefully.
Western leaders misunderstand the conflict. They think the Palestinians want self-determination, Israel wants security, and that two states are the obvious answer.
Wrong!
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