Why a Palestinian state won’t happen any time soon

Nor did Israel’s last best offer in 2008 break the pattern. It would yield all but 6.5 per cent of the West Bank, compensating the Palestinians with a similarly-sized piece in Israel proper. Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) growled: “We won’t yield an inch” and wiggled out.

Today, the two-state solution dwells in Neverland if we are to believe Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who stated flat-out on September 11 with a sideswipe at the UN gathering: “There will be no Palestinian state.” In Israel, the national trauma of October 7, when Hamas slaughtered 1200 Jews, is too deeply rooted to favour risk-taking. Now, only 21 per cent of Israelis favor two states. In truth, even a moderate government excluding the ultra-right would not let go of Gaza at this point.

Such are the realities, a string of Arab opportunities missed and Israeli dreams shattered. Still, at the UN talk marathon in New York, Britain, France and Canada intend to recognise a fiction named “Palestine,” joining the 147 UN members who preceded them. Clear-eyed statecraft this is not, and proclamations are not midwifery.

Palestine has a flag, but none of the defining features of statehood, above all accepted borders and a government that assures order and security. If Hamas stays, so will the terror raging since 2007 when it grabbed total power by expelling its Fatah rivals. In Ramallah, Fatah chairman Mahmoud Abbas survives only thanks to the IDF. The last semi-free elections were staged in 2006.

Why would Her Majesty’s Government suddenly recognise a non-state – possibly as early as this weekend? Look back. In 1948, it actually refused this honor to the nascent state of the Jews because it had not fulfilled classic conditions of statehood. Israel’s borders were as provisional as was its government.

The US and USSR had no such qualms. On the same day, May 14, they both recognised Israel. For all three, the issue was not international law, but crass national interest. Britain balked because did not want to alienate the Arabs. The two giants saw Israel as a beachhead for their expansion into the Middle East. In each case, power politics dwarfed legalities.

Which national interests drive London, Paris and Ottawa in our days? None because the crux is domestic politics. For one, public opinion at home has pitilessly turned against the Jewish state – and not only on the Left where the uproar spilled instantly into the streets. Just one day after the Hamas massacre of 1200 Israelis, the slaughtered were forgotten. The victims were guilty. Soon, the fury spilled into the established parties. To still the rage, governments turned against Israel, and never mind cold-hearted national interests in pacifying the Middle East.

Electoral tactics is point two. By now, double-digit millions of Muslim live in the West, above all in the large cities. In Greater Paris, there are 1.7 million, in London 1.4 and in Toronto 650,000. These numbers betray electoral clout. They help to explain why governments have tilted against Israel. “A scoundrel who thinks ill of it,” runs a familiar French line. No, such are the ways of democratic politics.

The IDF’s unbridled war against Gaza, now almost in its third year, daily damages the “purity of arms” – the principle that forbids violence against civilians. Now listen to Yossi Klein Halevy, a centrist Israeli voice, as he highlights his nation’s dilemmas. “Even when fighting an existential war against enemies without moral restraint, there are limits to what is morally permitted to the Jews.” On the other hand, the war must “deny terrorism the ability to hide behind innocents and achieve immunity.”

Thus, Hamas sacrifices its own wards while its top leaders shelter in foreign capitals. The dreadful logic: The higher the Gazan death toll, the better for us in the court of world opinion. Its men dress as civilians who hide underneath apartment blocks, mosques and hospitals – a no-no of the Geneva Conventions. When they emerge, they capture food transports, which enriches Hamas and feeds the narrative of mass starvation. Add the slogan “From the River to the Sea.”It spells the end of Jewish Israel. Call it “statocide.”

Such torturous facts and are not on the agenda of London et al., nor have they ever been for the 147 nations that have recognised the Palestinian non-state. Does this account favour Israel? Not quite. Hence let’s quote from a book coming out at the end of the month: Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death and the Pursuit of Peace. Its authors, Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, who once led the Palestinian and American teams in peace talks, are no friends of Israel. Yet these relentless critics suddenly write: “Israelis might have been more open to persuasion, if offered reason to believe that territorial withdrawals would yield security. Their experience suggests otherwise.”

Least of all now after the October 7 bloodbath, given that France offers unconditional recognition while Britain, coming down hard on Israel, also wants Hamas to disarm and forego any part in the governance in Gaza. Obviously, it will refuse. Why should Hamas redivivus yield – or Israel? Every time when the West imposed pressure on Israel, its enemies escalated the violence. This is an iron law.

The remedy is not recognition as the free gift delivered by the147. “The hard part is security in Gaza,” writes Elliott Abrams in a searching essay.  He has served four American presidents as security and Middle East expert. Would an Arab or, even more unlikely, a Western force subdue the Hamas death cult? How about the Palestinian Authority huddling in Ramallah? This is a pipe dream, too. Four-fifths of Palestinians want to get rid of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. And a huge majority of 77 per cent does not want to disarm Hamas, reports the Palestinian Survey Center PCPSR.

Assume, though, “two states for two nations.” Posthaste,the killer brigades – Hamas, Islamic Jihad – would grab political power, which “grows out of the barrel of a gun”, Mao famously taught. The guns would come from Iran, paid for by Qatar. These realities keep torturing an accursed plot joining three continents, and they won’t yield to yet another wave of recognition. Such no-cost moves will fuel the refusal of Hamas and the toxic imperial phantasies of Israel’s Far Right.

Nor does the mood of the Israeli public promise relief. Most recently, 61 per cent of the country’s Jews favour the withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza if Hamas frees all the hostages. It won’t because they serve as human shields for the Qassam Brigades the IDF has not eliminated in two years. The crux is the validation of Israel’s statehood and a halfway legitimate order in Gaza, which would dispense with terror. Neither is in sight.

A cast of 195 on the UN stage will not and cannot pacify the Middle East, nor will Britain, France and Canada, driven by domestic politics. Let one of the greatest political minds, Charles de Secondat, aka Montesquieu, have the last word. Politics is not proclamation. It is “like a dull file, which cuts gradually and attains its ends by patient progression, demanding cold blood and attention to detail.” Recognition is but ersatz – a cheap substitute.

Josef Joffe is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University. He has taught International Politics there as well as at Harvard and Johns Hopkins