No Israel, No Palestine: A Thought Experiment

On October 5, 2005, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the face of the earth.” Despite the genocidal nature of his statement, the world did not respond by isolating him or Iran. Instead, in 2011, Ahmadinejad was invited to address the United Nations, reflecting a disturbing tolerance for such rhetoric.

On October 7, 2023, just eighteen years later, or roughly one generation, Iran attempted to make good on their promise, as Hamas, their proxy, carried out the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Their explicit aim? Murdering as many Israelis as possible to eradicate the Jewish state “from the river to the sea.” 

Given this continuing obsession with destroying the Jewish state, and the global obsession with a “free Palestine,” it’s worth conducting this thought experiment: Imagine if Israel is no more. We can start with the War of 1948 and the Armistice borders of 1949, which reveal much about an Israel-free Middle East. Indeed, when five Arab armies attacked the fledgling Jewish state, there was no call to “liberate” an Arab Muslim Palestine.

On the contrary, Jordan expanded and amassed Judea Samaria and Egypt annexed the entire Gaza Strip. Paramount to the lie of the “Disappearing Map of Palestine” is the certainty that from 1949 to 1967, neither Jordan nor Egypt “freed” these territories and helped to create an Arab Muslim Palestine. Indeed, variations of the phrase “from the River to the Sea” appeared only after 1967, documented in graffiti and used in protest chants. Put differently, when Jordan and Egypt “occupied” the region of Palestine, Arab Muslims did not consider themselves living under occupation.

If Israel had lost the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948, the five Arab countries would likely have further divided up the region. While we cannot be certain who would have gotten what, what is certain, as evidenced by the 1949 Armistice Lines, no Arab Muslim Palestine would have ever been created.

The result of a sovereign Jewish vacuum from the river to the sea will be fought over between Hamas and the Fatah Party, the Palestinian Authority that governs Areas A and B in Judea Samaria. The bloodbath that would ensue would be colossal but would not, of course, garner the world’s attention as Jews will no longer be part of the equation.

Just ask the Kurds, or Sudanese, or Nigerians what happens when there is actual slaughter but no Jews. The most stunning case, perhaps, is the silence of the world, especially the human rights world as Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian former dictator, gassed half a million of his own population. Mass graves are being discovered in Syria, yet the International Criminal Court (the ICC) makes no demand that Assad be tried for crimes against humanity.  

No mercy will be had between Hamas and Fatah, both of whom are, on paper, devoted to “freeing Palestine.” Mass executions would follow. Arabs who were once Israeli citizens would not only not be spared, but cruelly tortured before death for the crime of conspiring with the Zionist entity. We know this because when Hamas took control of Gaza in 2006, violent clashes broke out between Hamas and Fatah forces. An estimated 170 Arabs in Gaza were executed by Hamas for the sin of sympathizing with the Fatah party. Furthermore, to punish Hamas and the Arabs who sympathize with the terrorist organization, the Palestinian Authority (PA), controlled by the Fatah party, has been shutting off electricity for the Arabs in Gaza ever since 2007.

Suffice it to say that should Israel be gone, Arabs will butcher one another as the Arabs do in other volatile parts of the Middle East, namely Iraq, where, after Saddam Hussein was removed from power in 2003, the country experienced a series of profound violence and tumultuous changes. The only difference would be that the world will no longer care. In the power vacuum created by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the country has been ruled by several sectarian radicals. During the height of ISIS’s territorial control, mass executions, often targeting civilians, resulted in the murder of over 40,00 people. Ethnic minorities like Yazidis and Christians suffered genocidal attacks. For example, thousands of Yazidis were massacred in 2014 during ISIS’s Sinjar offensive.

If there is no Israel, there is no Palestine for Palestinian Muslim Arab identity was born as a response to the modern Jewish national movement known as Zionism. We need not look too far to reclaim Palestine from Muslim Arab national identity. In 1937, the Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee to the British Peel Commission, Awni Abd al-Hadi stated that “there is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented.” And because Palestinian Muslim Arab identity is the counterpart to Zionism, if Israel disappears, the phantom legs of this national movement will soon vanish.

Despite Iran’s promise to “destroy Israel and replace it with the heroic Palestine nation,” the reality would look very different. Here then, is a dismal prediction if we were to entertain this macabre thought experiment:

On the first day, the #WeDidIt will be trending on social media. On the streets of New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Paris, London, and Amsterdam, mass jubilation will compel those who stand with Hamas to pour on the streets and shout that indeed, “Allahu Akbar” (G-d is most great). Piers Morgan will invite the regular cast of Jew-haters on his show; CNN’S Anderson  Cooper will stand with one hand pressed against his earpiece, a baffled look spread like a cabbage on his face, as he tries to recount the breaking news, while Christiane Amanpour will not be able to contain her delight at the toppling of the Jewish “apartheid” state; universities will issue a statement replete with words such as “complex, nuanced,” and “inclusive voices” while Jewish students on campus will watch as their peers and professors raise the fist of liberation. In some K-12 schools, teachers may even cancel classes, a reward for the hard work of helping to “free Palestine.” In the oval office, the U.S. administration will hold an emergency meeting as America will have just lost a critical ally in the Middle East.

And while those in the West will be celebrating, the very real people of the Middle East who know all too well what an Israel-free Middle East will invoke, will let out a cry of horror for the progressive and reformed West, which will have participated in the greatest act of murder: the slaying of half of the world’s Jewish population as 7.2 million Jews live in Israel, 2 millions Arabs who live as citizens in Israel, and millions more of Arabs who identify as Palestinians and live in Gaza and Judea Samaria.

In a month, “from the river to the sea” will be run by clans of ISIS, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hezbollah, and the Houthis, buttressed either by Russia or Iran, who will turn on one another for they no longer have a common enemy: the little Satan, Israel. They will, of course, move onto the real target: the big Satan, America. 

From the river to the sea will be a mass grave, women will have no rights, and minorities will either be beheaded or enslaved. Attempts at helping to establish a 58th Muslim country and 23rd Arab country will be made by the United Nations and judging from the failures of the Palestinian Authority with an abysmal GDP of $2,500, as well as other Arab countries in this vicinity, namely Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon ($4,000), and Syria, under $1,000, there is no doubt that this 23rd Arab Muslim state will fare no better than any of its Arab neighbors, none of which are democracies. Finally, the economic failings of this 23rd Arab and 58th Muslim state will accelerate the radicalization of the people, fast-tracking the country to being a terror state. And just like Hamas never called the Gaza Strip Palestine nor the Palestinian Authority named lands they govern in Areas A and B of Judea Samaria, Palestine, the likelihood that Palestine will be freed is a farce.

October 7 has set a new precedent. Phrases such as “we hid in the trashcan hoping no one would find us,” or, “I dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead” uttered in Hebrew cut to the core: such words do not belong in the language of Jewish sovereignty, on Jewish soil. It reminded many that history is a capricious child. What we think is constant can be taken away at any moment. 

What this distressing though important thought experiment reveals is that Israel’s survival does not lie solely in the hands of those with weapons, but in the hands of educators and most critically, within the Jewish people’s ability to articulate a position on Israel and the Middle East rooted in a deep understanding of Jewish identity, history, and the nature of radical Islam. Our artillery is constructed from words. We cannot hope to win the propaganda war if we ourselves are not sure how to refer to the land: Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Judea Samaira, occupied territories, illegal settlements or Jewish towns? We cannot hope to win the propaganda war if we cannot articulate with confidence and moral clarity that the Jewish people come from the Land of Israel, that we do not owe anyone any explanation, hasbara, for why we live from the river to the sea. We are here and the world is going to have to deal with it.

Naya Lekht is currently the Education Editor for White Rose Magazine and a Research Fellow for the Institute for Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy.