Let’s take a hint: the Palestinians don’t want a state. Actually, let’s take the many hints: The several times that they rejected two-state solutions. Their long-standing support for terrorism. Their long-standing support for parties that are most opposed to a two-state solution.
In any normal circumstances, we would take a hint, but we are so used to coddling Arab extremists that we automatically block out any recognition of reality if it doesn’t fit the narrative that they’re helpless victims. That’s anti-Arab racism. It’s the bigotry of lower expectations.
I admit that I have been as guilty of this as anyone else, but October 7 cured me of this delusion. To continue to believe the fantasy that a Palestinian state is the solution is to be willfully ignorant. If the massacre perpetrated by Hamas, by far the most popular Palestinian party, on October 7 wasn’t enough, then the Palestinian celebrations (both in the Palestinian-controlled areas and abroad) that quickly followed certainly did it for me.
Let’s believe the Palestinians when they say that they’ll never accept anything less than everything. Let’s believe their slogan “from the river to the sea”. And let’s act accordingly.
Once we recognize this obvious reality, let’s look at solutions other than a two-state solution. If the US administration doesn’t have a realistic solution, it should not propose any rather than propose something that would never work. Judging by the number of countries that automatically support any anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations General Assembly, there are many countries who support the Palestinians, but they too have no solutions.
The most anti-Israel countries of course have a solution, which is to have no Israel at all. It is the Hamas solution. It is not a solution that any ethical person would support, so we fall back on the two-state solution and ignore that it would never work because the Palestinians don’t want it and never have. It’s time to change the tune.
