The Oprahs of Gaza
Who knew barbarism as a career path pays so well? With the ostensible objective of bringing the war in Gaza to an end—and the moral perversity of punishing Israel for the continued endangerment of Gazans at the hands of Hamas—the leaders of France, the U.K. and Canada have announced their nominal recognition of a Palestinian state. (Germany, for now, is merely halting the shipment of weapons to Israel.)
Israel’s immediate answer was to extend its sovereignty by occupying all of Gaza—thus prolonging the war until Hamas is finally vanquished and the hostages returned. This is what you get when you trivialize a crime like what occurred on October 7, by rewarding savages with a state instead of allowing Israel to finish the job.
Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz and Mark Carney are absolute geniuses at international diplomacy.
A Palestinian state! Now? There’s no better example of the Western world’s groveling capitulation to Islamic extremism. Given the jackpot of statehood, what incentive does Hamas now have to release hostages, agree to a ceasefire and surrender?
A Palestinian state! Now? There’s no better example of the Western world’s groveling capitulation to Islamic extremism.
As a parting gift for its savagery and continued intransigence, Hamas manages to preserve whatever of its ranks remain, and graduate from outlawed terrorists to legitimate state actors. Not a bad deal: welcomed into the family of nations to kill off one of the others—the explicitly Jewish one.
The world is already flush with nations that bring little benefit to humankind—and that fail all measurable standards of democratic liberalism: their treatment of women, homosexuals, artists and intellectuals; and the absence of free speech, religious tolerance and the rule of law.
There are 22 Arab-Muslim states that specialize in oil, Sharia law, terrorism and antisemitism—and not necessarily in that order. For 20 years the West has guilelessly imported these pathologies of the Middle East. Alleged asylum seekers were actually making inroads into anti-infidel mischief. And now we can look forward to Palestine, which has all the accouterments of a terrorist state—natural resources in instability, bloodthirstiness, and Jew-hating aplenty, without the oil.
After rejecting five offers of statehood that required direct negotiations with Israel and reassurances that they would renounce terrorism and live within peaceable borders, European leaders of democratic nations—held hostage by violent Islamists to whom they have granted citizenship—took it upon themselves to say, “Abracadabra! Presto Chango!” here we have Palestine.
If Hamas is deserving of such a reward, can ISIS, al Qaeda and Boko Haram be far behind? Macron, Starmer and Carney are now de facto benefactors of rogue states, the Oprahs of Gaza: “You get a state! And you get a state, too!”
But can they even do this, legally—serve as state-makers for a people who have never shown an appetite for nation-building?
Some reference to international law might prove instructive. Pursuant to Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Conference on the Rights and Duties of States, nationhood demands a stable population, defined territorial boundaries, a government capable of governance, the willingness to live in peace with its neighbors and an aptitude to engage in diplomatic affairs.
“Palestine” fails on all accounts.
Palestinians presently live in non-contiguous regions: the West Bank and Gaza. And they are governed by two different entities that despise one another: Fatah, which directs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza. The former is an anti-democratic kleptocracy that can’t even deliver the mail; the latter is a jihadist death cult. Hamas murdered Fatah leaders soon after they defeated them at the ballot box in 2007.
Unity exists nowhere within these regions. The West Bank towns of Jenin and Nablus might as well be in Gaza given the population’s sympathies for Hamas.
Neither Fatah nor Hamas has held elections since each took power; and neither has demonstrated any capacity for self-governance, or desire to live in peace with neighboring Jews—or Christians, for that matter.
What’s more, no recognized international boundaries for a Palestinian state exist on any map. Perhaps that’s because no Arab state named Palestine has ever existed in human history. Neither the United Nations nor Israel, for that matter, has a clue as to where the lines for a Palestinian state should be drawn. This has never bothered Palestinians because the only state they have ever wanted goes by the name Israel.
Finally, and most damningly, Hamas and the PLO never amended their respective charters calling for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews wherever they may be found.
These are the statesmen France, the U.K. and Canada have in mind?
Immediately after October 7, 2023, one Hamas leader, Ghazi Hamad, appearing on Lebanese television channel LBC, pledged a repeat performance, “again and again. . . . [T]here will be a second, a third, a fourth [until the] annihilation of Israel.”
Not once has anyone from Hamas or Islamic Jihad withdrawn those genocidal commitments. And the world is expecting Israel to withdraw from Gaza and welcome a Palestinian state?
Meanwhile, the U.N. High-Level International Conference on the Two-State Solution recently “condemn[ed] the attacks committed by Hamas against civilians on the 7th of October,” and declared that “Hamas must free all hostages, . . . end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons.”
France, the U.K. and Canada all participated in that conference! How is this reconcilable, especially when Hamad told Al Jazeera: “The powerful blow that was delivered to Israel on Oct. 7 has yielded … historic achievements. … Why are all these countries recognizing Palestine now?”
These political and moral contradictions are easily explainable. Macron, Starmer and Carney are terrified of rampaging Muslims and see their Jewish minority as easily expendable. Rarely are survival instincts so cynically dependent upon brass knuckles and mind-numbing politics.
Europe’s Enlightenment has been thrown into moral darkness. Western culture, as we have come to know it, has surrendered to those who glorify death and see beauty in extinguishing life. Sleeper cells are suddenly wide awake. Insomniac jihadists have become a fitting fifth column.
Western culture, as we have come to know it, has surrendered to those who glorify death and see beauty in extinguishing life. Sleeper cells are suddenly wide awake. Insomniac jihadists have become a fitting fifth column.
Over the weekend, a Jewish man in Montreal was brutally beaten in front of his children, who pleaded for their father’s life. The culprit was a Canadian Muslim waiting impatiently for the next caliphate. Maybe he just got overly excited by the prospect of a Palestinian state.
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”
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