The Two-State Delusion

As Israel continues its efforts to root out Hamas (almost literally, given the hundreds of miles of tunnels the terrorists built with Western aid), the Best-and-Brightest of the West (and our administration) continue engaging in the delusion that peace can be achieved if Israel grants Palestinians land and autonomy. That is, the ever-dreamt-of "two state solution."

I wrote just a week after the 10/7 attacks about the ivory-tower crowd's fondness for "decolonization" and other progressive tropes, and since then we have a mountain of evidence that Palestinians and their ardent supporters have absolutely no interest in any outcome that includes Israel continuing as a nation, or that leaves any Jews in that part of the world.

Sure, we have apologists and equivocators woke-splaining to us that "from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free!" does not mean the expulsion of all Jews and the elimination of Israel, but the chanters themselves affirm their ardent belief in de-Jewing what they dub Palestine. This isn't new. Offered a nation in 1948 (see: the UN Partition Plan), offered land for peace across the ensuing decades, actually granted a land to run as their own (see: Gaza)... none of it was enough. Yasser Arafat, the two-faced, forked-tongue leader of the PLO for decades, and later president of the Palestinian Authority, never recognized Israel except in languages other than Arabic (see: Taqiyya), at least in part because he knew hard liners would assassinate him if he actually pursued a two-state peace plan.

Any rational observer would conclude that you can't have a two-state outcome when one of the parties involved categorically rejects it. That party isn't limited to radicals, or to dictatorial leaders. Most Palestinians reject Israel's right to exist. Hamas was voted into power soon after Gaza was granted autonomy by people who fully knew what Hamas was and is about. Even if a new election was held today in Gaza or the West Bank, Hamas, the organization that raped Israeli women, butchered Israeli babies, and committed countless other atrocities, would be elected.

This isn't a people needing liberation from a tyrannical cabal. This is what hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Gazans and West-Bankers embrace.

Unfortunately, rationality and politics are oil and water. The people that crave political power are often narcissistic and geocentric sorts who think the world is infinitely malleable, that they can shape whatever reality they envision if only the benighted masses would listen to them.

This is Thomas Sowell's "conflict of visions." This is what Thornton Melon calls “fantasy land.” This is academics believing that reality can be overwritten by the Best-and-Brightest, if only they are given free rei(g)n.

An acquaintance has long voiced sympathy for the Palestinians, saying "I want them to have their own place." That view persists even after the Palestinians' repeated rejections of "their own place," because acceptance is conditioned on accepting that Israeli Jews get to have "their own place" as well. Others have offered rationalizations about "apartheid state," "lockdown," and "Israel-imposed misery," but you and I both know this conflict would end the moment Palestinians put down their arms, stopped paying their people to kill Israelis, and accepted a two-state solution.

It's as simple as that. The two-state solution is not Israel's to proffer or concede. It's the Palestinians' to accept. Scolding Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders is exactly the wrong thing to do. It reinforces the terrorists' and "river-to-the-sea" absolutists' resolve, and signals that simply outlasting Israel's military response is the best tactic.

The goal of Hamas, Hezbollah, and pretty much every other Palestinian organization is the takeover of Israel and the purging of all Jews - by displacement or by murder. Until that changes, until the people they represent decide to seek coexistence, until the Palestinians stop teaching their children that murdering Jews is Allah’s wish and the pathway to heaven, a two-state outcome would be nothing more than a continuation of terroristic war against Jews in the Middle East.

We have politicians in Congress who pretend to a two-state solution, but believe in their hearts that Israel should cease to exist. And, that all Jews in Israel should be expelled or exterminated. There's no reaching consensus with such people. There's no middle ground there. Until Israel's right to exist is accepted by Palestinians and their supporters, there's no two-state solution to be had.

Biden and Blinken and the rest of the Democrats' brain trust need to get that into their heads.