Why the West has no serious policy on the Israel-Palestinian dispute

Western countries have no coherent policy on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. They blather on about supporting a "two-state solution" to hide this fact. It is time to speak truth to this nonsense.

Most Western countries’ policies on the Israel-Palestinian conflict have as much substance as the emperor’s new clothes in Hans Christian Anderson’s famous folktale, which is none.

Country after country, and even the corrupt and ineffectual United Nations (UN), have declared their support for the so-called “two-state solution,” as though this was a real policy.

It is not.

It is what leaders talk about when they have no idea what they are talking about.

A proposal that has no chance of succeeding is not a policy; it is a fantasy. It is like me calling my dream of winning the 100-meter sprint at the Olympic Games a policy. It is not going to happen no matter how committed I am to it.

Only a fundamentally unserious person could consider the two-state solution a policy. Here is why:

It is based on a flawed premise: The premise that Jews and Arab Palestinians want their own states is incorrect. The Jews want (and have) a state, but the Palestinians do not want one, which is why they always reject offers of one. They want the Jews not to have one and for Israel not to exist. The Palestinians do not want self-determination; they just want to deny it to Jews. Granting Palestinians a state will in no way change or ease the dispute’s fundamentals.

Gives neither side what it wants: Most Israelis and Palestinians do not want a two-state solution. The Israelis want a single Jewish state of Israel with Arab citizens and residents. The Palestinians want a state in place of Israel without Jews. It is peculiar that the world thinks the solution is something that neither side wants. It is hard to call it a serious policy.

It will not achieve peace: Even if two states were agreed, it would not bring peace. At best, Palestinian factions such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are opposed to peace on any terms, would continue terror campaigns against Israel. At worst, the entire Palestinian state would become a full-blown terror state, ala Gaza. Civil war between rival factions wanting to rule a Palestinian state is probable, if not inevitable.

A Palestinian state would not be economically viable: Ever since the UN’s 1947 partition plan, which the Palestinian Arabs rejected in favor of war and terror, it has been known that Israel and a Palestinian state would need to be economically intertwined. Even under the Oslo Accords, Jerusalem was to collect import taxes and duties for the Palestinian Authority, as well as income taxes on Palestinians working in Israel, and many other economic integration measures.

Two states would require such a high degree of interdependence that it makes the whole idea pointless. Bureaucrats would be the only beneficiaries.

It has failed as an approach for a century: Why so many governments persist with an approach that has failed for almost a century is as mysterious as quantum mechanics. The Palestinians rejected two-state solutions in 1937 (Peel Commission), 1947 (UN partition of Palestine), 1967 (End of Six-Day War), 2000 (Oslo Peace Accords), 2005 (Israel’s unilateral pullout from Gaza), and 2008 (proved version of Oslo Accords), and this is just off the top my head.

Why, given that it is not a real policy, do countries continue to insist it is? It is because it serves many governments and politicians’ self-serving political goals. Consider:

It enables leaders to sound reasonable: What can be fairer than dividing the land? This denudes the dispute of its enormous complexity, allowing politicians to turn it into sound bites and talking points. It enables leaders to repeat the same thing over and over like it is some sort of anxiety-coping mechanism.

As a career journalist and media strategist for some of the world’s biggest companies, I can tell you that having “talking points” for leaders to return to whenever they can is a cornerstone technique. Banging on about two states, self-determination, and Palestinian dignity, is an easy message. Messages are not solutions, though. They are just noise to serve the speaker, not solve the problem.

It is a risk-free position: Politicians fear two things - facts and risk. Supporting two states puts a leader in sync with most other countries, so it requires no courage. It will not make a leader a pariah. It is the fraidy cat’s position.