The core problem behind the Palestinian-Israeli battle is obvious for all to see, but our leaders refuse to address it.
The usual suspects have been talking about recognizing a Palestinian state. President Biden, his secretary of state, European leaders, the Saudis, and the UN have all recently made mention of recognizing “Palestine,” something that those here in Israel see as a reward for Hamas’ barbaric murder/rape/theft/kidnapping spree of early last October. We are told that a Palestinian state will magically cure all that ails the region and put Iran in its place.
The creation of a Palestinian state will solve nothing. Let’s look at the Palestinian situation on October 6th of last year. Gaza was effectively a mini-Palestinian state. It was Judenrein, as every proposed Palestinian state must be. Palestinians in the form of Hamas ran the place and had police and military control of Gaza. Mahmud Abbas is in the 19th year of his four-year term in the West Bank. He has a presidential palace, the Mukhata, a personal plane, and rules over much of the West Bank, including cities such as Jenin, Nablus, Hebron, and Jericho. The Palestinians also have an official observer in the UN. So, while the Palestinians do not have an official state, they have the trappings of statehood. Abbas does not hold elections because he knows that Hamas will win them hands down.
The elephant in the room, which our peace negotiators conveniently ignore, is a combination of Palestinian fantasy and bloodlust. The Palestinians will tell anyone within earshot that there was a mythical Palestinian state until all of those terrible Zionists showed up and stole everything, initially slowly, and then in 1948 and 1967 in great gobs. The obvious historical reality is that the Ottomans ruled pretty much all of the Middle East until World War I when the “sick man of Europe” was crushed. The French and British took the spoils, with Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine fully under British control. When the British left in 1948, the state of Israel was declared, and the Israeli War of Independence commenced. At no time was there ever a Palestinian state run by Palestinian Arabs. Period. Even the West Bank in 1948 was Jordanian, while Gaza was Egyptian. There was no Palestine there, either.
The director of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, gave the game away in a recent interview. As Israel names more and more UNRWA employees who either participated directly in the 10/7 pogrom or were active members of Hamas, and Israel finds more Hamas presence in UNRWRA facilities, UNRWA is being exposed for what it is: an active player in the attempted destruction of Israel and partner in terror against Jews. So General Lazzarini complained that Israel is fighting to destroy UNRWA and, by doing so, ending the hope for “the right of return”. As UNRWA has included anyone born to any Palestinian anywhere as a “Palestinian refugee”, the number of such refugees has ballooned from around 720,000 in 1948 to millions today. The UNRWA head has made it clear that UNRWA, beyond supporting Hamas with space and war material, wants to jam several million Arabs into what today is Israel to make the latter country effectively disappear. My parents were forced to leave Germany in the late 1930s to save their lives. Is there any sane person who would support my claim to get their homes back in order to live in them? Of course not. My parents and grandparents were refugees, but in the eyes of the world, I am an American citizen and a permanent resident of the state of Israel. Even extremist lefties in Israel, the few who remain after the punch in the nose that 10/7 was for their dreams of peace, are not interested in millions or even thousands of Palestinian great-grandchildren getting free land in Israel. Both left and right-leaning governments have rejected the right of return, but it is the UNRWA and, by extension, the UN's official position.
As to bloodlust, the Palestinians still love killing Jews. I know that is not all of them, but over 70% support what Hamas did in raping women and beheading babies. Since the Palestinians are total failures in every aspect of their supposed society, their only joy is in seeing Jews suffer. During the second intifada, over 1,000 Jews were killed and more than 10,000 wounded. Did the Palestinians gain anything politically? Did they get any further than where they had been with the Oslo Agreements? Nope. They enjoy killing Jews, and they use that activity in place of actually advancing a functioning society. They have no natural resources; they have no hi-tech sector, they export nothing, and they live on international donations. I saw a video of Abbas shaking the hand of one of the women who brought the Palestinian Authority (PA) policeman/bomber to downtown Jerusalem in the attack in which my son and I were wounded. These are their heroes: murderers. They name streets and town squares after them. Just as BLM often fetishes career criminals, so the Palestinians hold in reverence people who killed women and children.
Giving the Palestinians a state would probably mess up our lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority. I doubt that Blinken and company could care less about us or our evidence against the PA in ten terror attacks, even though a New York jury found them guilty on every count. Giving them a state will make Israel’s job harder because the “state of Palestine” will try to make defensive treaties with China, Russia, the Europeans, and, of course, the US. Until the Palestinians give up on their baseless “river to the sea” mantra and their love of spilling Jewish blood, nothing will bring peace between them and the Israelis. The Palestinians certainly do not deserve a state, and giving them one will solve nothing.