Post-Palestine Policy - Part 2 of 2
Palestine isn't working, it's time for something new
Last week I wrote and podcasted a fairly discursive analysis of the political viability of Palestine, mostly as reflected by the quasi religious beliefs of the left, which is now the only movement that supports a Palestinian state. I was super digressive (sorry!) but my ultimate point was that Palestinians have themselves denied every opportunity to create a state for over a hundred years, their chosen governance is Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PLO/Palestinian Authority, and their infrastructural achievement is a tunnel system in Gaza. This is what they’ve built and accomplished with hundreds of billions of donor dollars and global diplomatic support, food and materials aid for over 70 years. I don’t think these lay the right groundwork for sovereignty if you want peace. If you want war and genocide, Palestine guarantees both.
The two-state solution has migrated from the more-or-less dispassionate, geopolitical spheres of British and then US foreign policy to being solely endorsed by the left as an ideological pursuit. No Republican or European right wing party advocates for Palestinian sovereignty, certainly not after October 7th, yet it remains a core belief from center-leftists like Chuck Schumer all the way to the anti-Jewish Progressive Congressional Caucus. I know that’s redundant.
One more step to go. If you’re also with me that the left, in general, hasn’t delivered on their platform positions over the past several decades — like decreasing income inequality, adding housing, lowering costs for the middle and working class, protecting free speech or their main raison d'être: meaningfully improving representation for black and brown people at the academy or in corporations, then it’s fair to critique their foreign policy. Beyond Israel, you can look at Ukraine/Russia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China/Uighurs/Taiwan or the Mexican border to see how they’ve fared when Democrats have control.
The two-state solution is essentially an obscure idea. It's part of the catechism of the DEI/Trans/Palestine left. Personally, I don't believe the left exists anymore as a viable or coherent political movement. I can’t identify a consistent policy beyond the three items I just listed.
As a brief aside, earlier I wrote that I’m hoping for a new politics that focuses on Prosperity, Infrastructure & Safety. Republicans talk about the first and last agenda items. Democrats are nowhere on all three. If you don’t believe me, take the new Moynihan Hall next to Penn Station in Manhattan as an example. It didn’t add any trains, tunnels or tracks. It’s a giant waiting room that cost $1.6 billion dollars to build. Still takes the exact same time to get to Boston or DC, and this is after four years of Amtrak Joe.
If you agree it’s OK to critique the possibility of the two-state solution, then that means, brass tacks, you’re willing to question the likelihood — if not the deeply problematic ethics — of creating a sovereign state for Palestinians.
Wait! What did he just say? No Palestine!?
Yes, exactly.
There hasn’t been, isn’t now, and should never be a Palestinian sovereign state according to the standard definition of sovereignty: physical control of a geographical territory and its resident population.
If past is prologue, and if you believe people should take responsibility for their actions, then it’s clear that if magically there was a Palestinian state, days or even hours later it would launch a terror war on Israel funded by Iran or Qatar — and perhaps also on Egypt and Jordan where this theoretical state shares borders. An armed coalition would respond, take over the territory and end Palestine.
This fast rise and fall of the state has been the obvious scenario since at least the start of the second intifada in July of 2000, which not coincidentally has linkage to the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda, a group ideologically and religiously aligned with Hamas.
Palestine as a normal sovereign state is a fiction — or a bid for wide-scale regional violence. Either way, still no Palestine.
If you don’t believe me, ask yourself why Palestine as a nation hasn’t happened in the 30 years since the Oslo Accords. To take one example, Obama was the most antagonistic president to Israel in recent history. There’s a direct line from his political support of Palestinians to the current atmosphere on college campuses and within progressive cultural and political spaces. He was a charismatic unifier of his party for 8 years who won decisive elections.
Palestine still didn’t happen.
Where do we go from here?
I’m not a PhD and I don’t work in the State Department. I’m merely an American voter expressing opinions based on my understanding of reality. I can’t “solve” the “problem” of Palestinians being violent for 100 years while a political movement in American makes excuses for them because of the intersectionality of their supposed skin color and proscribed victimhood.
Remember, in the leftist victim olympics, the greatest loser earns the greatest claim to violence. This is the moral innovation of the left in the past few decades with their focus on oppressed vs oppressor. Interestingly, this has echoes of a prior generation of leftists when they supported Soviet Communism and made excuses for Stalin’s atrocities and massacres.
You can see evidence of this current bias for leftwing violence in progressive pro crime urban policies that create locked up drug stores and increasingly violent street crime, gender theories that create conditions where male convicts masquerading as women commit sexual violence against actual female inmates, or in the daily discourse in university classrooms and quads that calls for murdering people, ideally Jews. This what “resistance,” “by all means necessary,” and “globalize the intifada” mean.
From Duke University:
Anytime someone in power talks about “solutions” for a people, which means there’s a “problem” with those people to solve, run away. Talk like that from elites is usually deeply hostile and racist.
Since I will vote for people who will do their utmost to deny Palestinian sovereignty, which I know would be temporary and bloody at best, let’s talk about what positive position to support.
First, I can tell you is that it’s not working. And by it, I mean having a large population of armed Palestinians surrounding the State of Israel. Israeli politicians across the political spectrum now call for separation. What they’re saying is: Get them away from us.
How do you do that without resorting to violence in a way that benefits all parties?
I think a few peaceful, prosperity-oriented approaches should be considered.
Step 1 - acknowledge the impossibility of Palestinian sovereignty, as defined as a government exclusively controlling a defined territory while wielding a monopoly of violence.
Whatever does evolve in Gaza and the West Bank, it won’t be a normal state. Perhaps it’ll be territory administered by Egypt and Jordan, as it was prior to 1967, assuming Israel annexes the larger settlements in the West Bank as was agreed to in the Oslo Accords. Perhaps it’ll be a demilitarized territory run by Gulf technocrats. Perhaps Trump will build an epic series of golf courses. I’m not sure, but removing the option of Palestinian physical and political control is a necessary first step if you’re paying attention to what Hamas has wrought in Gaza after having de facto sovereignty (control of territory and monopoly of violence) since 2005.
Step 2 - on a voluntary basis, with a coordinated and well funded diplomatic initiative, give Palestinians full citizenship in partner countries. These partner countries must provide their new citizens with initial housing and employment — while the hosts take measures to protect themselves from the Palestinians, like by monitoring fighting age males and making sure they’re de-radicalized and remain unarmed.
If you think that sounds mean to all the Palestinian guys, imagine the fear of Egyptian, Lebanese and Jordanian governors when contemplating their stability with an increased Palestinian population that includes men who kill children with their hands when their not using their own children as human shields. For decades.
Arab leaders have been to this rodeo before. Many of their predecessors inflicted horrific violence on Palestinian insurrectionists. Bipartisan American support can strive for something new for all parties.
This will cost billions and require diplomacy. Where would the money come from?The UN and member nations already spend billions, donate thousands of tons of supplies and expend political energy on Palestinians. Let’s refocus their efforts.
Partner states could be Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Germany or others. The US sends billions to Jordan and Egypt to maintain peace treaties with Israel. In 2025 it's hard to imagine Jordan or Egypt launching a land war like in 1973. The US can use its money and diplomatic muscle to create a pathway for Palestinians to live elsewhere in dignity and security. No one should be shipped anywhere by force.
I suspect a significant portion of Palestinians will take up this offer if it’s done supportively (money, jobs, security) and competently (follow through others can observe, which means no Democrats in charge). If they do, that will relieve the administrative pressure of policing the remaining male Palestinians of fighting age within Gaza and the West Bank. Yes, I’m looking to find a way to peacefully and positively shrink the population by creating opportunities for everyone.
It’s said in America that if impoverished urban black teenagers had good jobs, there would be less violence in gang-ridden neighborhoods. This comes up every summer in Brooklyn when kids are out of school.
Why isn’t this true in Gaza? Policing is necessary, sure, but violence is the least pleasant half of the equation. Add money and you can find peace. Ask the NYPD how many hard working earners join gangs.
As an American, I can move to another country, apply for a work visa and even try for new citizenship. I have freedom of movement. Why can’t Palestinians do the same? Adding guaranteed passports and jobs is a glide path to better pastures.
OK, it’s a little more complicated than just the territories. Many Palestinians are in a stateless position outside of Gaza of the West Bank. Why?
Arab states have denied them citizenship, so the Palestinians are stuck in what are falsely called refugee camps, but are really towns with no agency, for generations. UNRWA does the same but in the territories. It’s observably not good and has never been fair for those stateless Palestinians, but it’s also understandable from a security perspective of their respective host states, including Israel. They don’t want to be attacked or toppled. We’ve seen what Hezbollah did in Lebanon, what the PLO did in the same state twenty years earlier, and I can only imagine what security chiefs Egypt and Jordan talk about when eyeing their borders.
Diplomacy. combined with funding and security initiatives, must include those stateless Palestinians in the periphery.
A friend has a funnier idea. The Europeans murdered 6 million Jews 80 years ago. Not that I’d recommend it to them, but he suggests Germany takes in a few hundred thousand Palestinians. It’ll be like those lopsided hostages for prisoners trades Israel does with Hamas, but the other way around. Fun to contemplate, especially after Germany did much of the same for Syrians without any arm twisting, but this is more dark humor than realpolitik.
Step 3 - Create a demilitarized administrative infrastructure for the people who remain in the Palestinian territories, after you create security buffers to protect Israel, and after you annex Jewish towns in the West Bank that were always going to Israel according to the Oslo Accords. It won't be a democracy, it won't be a state and it will have check points and other controls to make sure there are zero weapons. Sounds great for the elderly, mothers and children. Men will need work, so let's hope for farms, factories and schools not run by the Ivy League+.
To get to this step you’ll need an interim deprogramming stage I alluded to, like de-Nazification in Germany, de-Baathification in Iraq and de-radicalization of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. That’s a longer process perhaps deserving it’s own step, but it’s fair to say that after 100 years, Palestinian society is broken and deeply radicalized.
Hamas wasn’t imported from Columbia University, it’s homegrown. It remains the most popular governmental organization in the West Bank, let alone Gaza. In other words, Palestine = Hamas. If Israel abandoned the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Hamas would rise up in a few hours (like the Taliban in post-American Afghanistan) and take over the territory. Hamas is comprised of Palestinians. In the argot of the left, it’s an indigenous movement.
Perhaps this is all pipe dream. Big diplomatic moves that change the status quo of UNRWA and later, the Oslo Accords calling for two states isn’t easy. But compared to full Palestinian sovereignty with an army, like in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria, my ideas are more realistic, faster to achieve and more humane.
The big picture is fostering a peaceful, stable and dare I hope, prosperous Middle East, where Israeli tech entrepreneurs build businesses with Jordanian engineers financed by UAE investors who sell goods to Lebanese consumers. Much of the world enjoys cross border cooperation and wealth creation, I want this for the Middle East after centuries of economic and political stagnation.
Are Palestinians or even Israelis the key to all of this? Not really, we’re talking about a few million people in an impoverished, illiberal region of nearly half a billion souls. But any step towards peace and stability is better than continuing war and disruption, which is exactly what a Free Palestine will provide.
Freedom from Palestine is a better course.