A very recent poll shows that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank still support Hamas’ actions on 10/7 by a large majority.
Americans are a can-do people. If one looks at the very early days of the Manhattan Project, the program would seem impossible: to build a working atomic bomb during World War 2 based on some lab results showing the fission of uranium. $2 billion were spent, huge tracts of land were purchased, technologies went from the lab to full production in no time, and at one point, over 10% of the electricity produced in the US was being used for uranium isotope separation in Tennessee. Similarly, when the US Air Force put out a request for a bomber with speed, range, and payload never seen before, a few Boeing executives sitting in a Dayton hotel room put together a proposal including a balsa wood model. The result was the B-52 bomber, still flying today 70 years after its first flight and scheduled to be in service for another 25 years.
But what happens when something is either truly insurmountable or people perceive it as such? Even with advances in diagnostics and new treatments, cancer remains a killer of more than 600,000 Americans each year. However well-meaning or otherwise politicians try to grapple with poverty, crime, homelessness, drugs, and other urban scourges, nobody is claiming that they have defeated any of these problems. This brings us to the question of the Palestinians and a state of their own.
A very recent poll taken of 1,570 Palestinians, half in the West Bank and the other half living in Gaza shows 65% support for what Hamas did on 10/7 while 71% want Hamas to rule Gaza after the war. There are other details, such as that twice as many people who did not see the terrorists’ GoPro videos said that crimes against humanity were not committed as compared to those who saw the horrific and brutal acts from that day. The strong support is nearly identical to the level of support measured shortly after the attack (71%). No doubt, much of the support is out of hatred for the IDF turning much of Gaza into a parking lot. But many of those who side with Hamas no doubt feel that the murderers did the right thing in attacking women and children, civilians and soldiers. The question for Israel and the international community is where does one go when over 60% of the Palestinian people openly support the murder of 1,200 people in cold blood?
The two-state solution that has been peddled by the West for over 50 years is based on mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. When the majority of Palestinians (we’ll assume that the polling was representative) are happy that Israelis lost loved ones and/or had others taken into brutal captivity, where exactly is the basis for coexistence? For decades and from both parties, politicians and their secretaries of state have sold a lie that the Palestinian Authority (PA) was something different than Hamas, PFLP, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad: it wanted peace, it was “normal”, and it was against terror. Data from the field said otherwise: the PA continues to pay the salaries of terrorists, allows the use of its people and supplies for attacks against Israeli civilians, and employs rhetoric no less inflammatory than that heard from the muftis and leaders of the openly Islamic terror groups. So even if Israel is a country of geniuses, there is no solution to the Palestinian issue that involves statehood, commerce, and mutual respect. When people want to kill you, it is your sacred duty to make every effort to prevent them from doing so. Israel can separate from the Palestinians, do the best to keep weapons out of their hands, and protect its citizens, even at the expense of Palestinian land, business, and quality of life.
As Americans, we believe that every challenge can be met and overcome. We live for the happy ending of movies, and hope for the same in real life. The problem with peace is that both sides have to want it. It is interesting to note that when both Germany and Japan surrendered, their leaders effectively said that continued fighting would only be to the detriment of their peoples without any possible military upside: they made peace when they had no choice, and we are now celebrating 80 years of that peace. The Palestinians do not feel that they need to make peace. They have been promised by Islamic and secular leaders that they will defeat the “Yehud” and take over all of the land. Their thrill over the blood-spilling orgy of 10/7 is like Japanese pilots reminiscing on the success of Pearl Harbor and choosing to forget everything that happened afterward, including the two atomic bombs.
There will be no peace with the Palestinians any time soon. Their areas are like bad neighborhoods in big cities that you simply avoid. Israel will have to learn to manage the future growth and safety of its population while making sure that the Palestinians can no longer fire rockets or come into Israeli towns to murder civilians. The Palestinian death cult would rather have another 75 years in refugee camps and no peace with Israel rather than enjoy a brighter future that would require recognizing that Jews have rights in the land, either from their biblical/historical presence or their return well before the formation of the state of Israel. Just as at this time cancer can’t be beaten, only detected earlier and treated with more advanced drugs and forms of radiation, there will be no peace with a people who by a large majority support the mass rape and murder of Jews. The relationship can only be managed, but two thriving states there cannot be. From the river to the sea, may the state of Israel flourish.