Landes:
In (dis)honor of the Swedish and British initiatives to recognize a Palestinian state right away, and Meir Javedanfar’s announcement of a blogpost on the topic: “Writing a blog entitled: ‘Top ten reasons why I think a Palestinian state would be good for #Israel.’ Standby.”
I write
the following counter-list: 10 reasons why a Palestinian State (right now) is a
bad idea for everyone.
Please
note: I do think a Palestinian state is by far the most desirable outcome for
everyone (except the jihadis), if we’re talking about a state that behaves the
way European Union nations behave: they disagree, but understand they’re on the
same side. If however, as is every person with power in Palestinian culture
right now, they are bent on our destruction, then trying to make a state with
them will weaken us and strengthen them (good for no one but the jihadis). I am
a member of Peace When, not Peace Now.
1. There
is no serious evidence that the Palestinian leadership both “secular” (Fatah)
and religious (Hamas) want a state of their own that will live in peace with an
Israeli state. There is, on the contrary, ample evidence that they will treat
anything they get as a staging ground for further attacks.
2. The
Palestinians have, for all their opportunities, never been able to set up the
infrastructure of a responsible state. The miserable career of Fayyad
illustrates how far from a transparent governance, a fair juridical system, a
competent administration they are. Why create a sure failure?
3. This
likelihood is all the greater if they get their concessions by means that
involve going around the backs of the Israelis and having things forced on the
Israelis. In honor-shame cultures, any time a foe is forced to make concessions
it’s a sign of weakness, and an occasion to make further (violent) claims.
4. As
the withdrawal from Gaza showed, Hamas will eat Fatah within months of any
power vacuum. Thus it is a near certainty that a Palestinian state will become
a militant Jihadi state. Indeed, Daesh (ISIS) would probably eat Hamas as quickly
as Hamas eats Fatah.
5. With
51 Muslim majority states in the world, 22 Arab states, all of them either
failures or worse, none of them solid democracies, most of them consistently
belligerent to neighbors whether Arab or Muslim or not, why on earth would the
world community want yet another guaranteed failed, bellicose, fascist, Jihadi
state? Giving the current Palestinian leadership a state is like giving a
crack-addicted teenager the keys to a fully-armed tank.
6. There
are people with a much greater claim on the world community’s values to have a
state, peoples with their own language, in some cases their own religion, their
own (real) history: Kurds, Berbers, Tibetans, Tamils, Chechens, etc. To give a
state to a group with the same language, religion, and (until a generation ago)
the same identity, as 22 other Arab ones sets a terrible precedent.
7. The
West faces an implacable enemy in global Jihad. It would be nothing short of
reckless to create another major opening for Jihadi forces to take root and use
state privileges to expand operations (e.g. diplomatic immunity).
8. Israel
represents the only civilizational ally the West has in the Middle East (pace
Obama’s delusions about Turkey and his BFF Erdogan). To undermine her in a
battle for her existence by empowering a genocidal movement with state power
would be little short of insanely self-destructive. Without Israel, no Jordan,
no Lebanon (however dysfunctional). No intelligence, no counter-weight to
Jihadi impetus.
9. To
give in to the tyranny of a democracy of tyrannies in the UN is to undermine
the very principles of international democracy.
10. At
this time, with an incompetent if not malevolent Palestinian leadership, with
global Jihad the “strong horse,” and a Western world falling ill to the disease
of anti-semitism and the outbreak of an aggressive Muslim “street,” it would be
suicidal to press so foolish a policy.
