How is a two-state solution to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians like a cure for cancer? Consider the following:
- Rational people of goodwill wish that there truly were Y today.
- Rational people of goodwill hope that someday in the future there truly will be Y.
- Rational people of goodwill understand that, notwithstanding their wishes and hopes, Y is not a reality today.
If you substitute Y for either “a two-state solution for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians” or “a cure for cancer,” you will generate propositions that most people, I think, would endorse. That demonstrates that there is a substantial degree of similarity between a two-state solution and a cure for cancer.
But there is another important similarity that underlies a controversial issue very much in the news these days. Consider this suggestion:
- Rational people of goodwill understand that, precisely because Y is not a reality today, it is unreasonable to do today the kinds of things it would be reasonable to do if Y were a reality today.
Suppose someone proposes that we immediately close all cancer treatment centers. When asked to explain the justification for such an extraordinary and counterintuitive suggestion, the proponent asserts (correctly) that we wish there were a cure for cancer today and hope that one day there will be such a cure. When that happens, the proponent (correctly) says, we will undoubtedly shutter cancer treatment centers forever. So, to make our present-day reality more like the reality that we will have when cancer is cured, we should close them all right now.
This argument, which ignores the difference between hoped-for future events and the present state of affairs, is, of course, nonsense. If we were to close all cancer treatment centers immediately, the result would be horrendous. An untold number of people who might have been cured or whose lives might have been extended in positive ways would lose those benefits. No reasonable person would entertain such an idea.
But the governments of countries that either have recognized or plan to recognize a so-called Palestinian state are making the same mistake that “supports” the immediate shuttering of cancer treatment centers. Those governments are taking a step that arguably might be reasonable if there were already a two-state solution, but that makes no sense whatsoever in today’s reality.
Like the fool who advocates for the immediate closure of treatment centers, the governments that have recognized or soon will recognize the so-called state of Palestine are blind to the harm their actions cause, and they are blinded in precisely the same way. They think that by making the current reality look more like a desired reality that could only exist at a future time, they will somehow facilitate the emergence of that desired future reality. They are mistaken.
Most people correctly understand that any two-state solution requires accommodations on both sides. But those governments that have granted, or soon will grant, official recognition to a so-called Palestinian state have effectively informed the Palestinian Authority—whose leader, 89-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, is now in the 19th year of a four-year term in power—that they need make no compromises whatsoever. Perhaps Abbas believes that “recognition” of a nonexistent Palestinian state brings such a state closer to reality, but the opposite is true. Such recognition only confirms the P.A.’s belief that it does not have to change its behavior at all; rather, it merely must mouth certain phrases or words. That belief pushes any solution farther into the future.
Surely, no Israeli government, regardless of who is the prime minister, would agree to recognize a Palestinian state that is governed by officials who are unable and/or unwilling to suppress Palestinian Islamist terrorists pledged to the destruction of Israel. Yet ever since 2007, when Hamas seized Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in a bloody coup, the P.A. has proven itself to be impotent, weak and corrupt, and unable to suppress terrorism or confront Hamas.
The United Nations convened the high-level international conference on the two-state solution last month, which resulted in the New York Declaration. In that declaration, the conferees stated, inter alia, that they “welcomed the ‘One State, One Government, One Law, One Gun’ policy of the Palestinian Authority and pledged our support to its implementation … .”
This is a stunning example of the willful failure of the “international community” to face present-day reality. We’re told that the P.A. has a “one government … one gun” policy, but there is a huge difference between a policy, which is a method of action, and a bumper sticker, which is only words.
For the last 18 years in Gaza, which is a part of the territory of the so-called Palestinian state, the “one government” has been Hamas, and the “one gun” has been brandished and fired by Hamas and its terrorist allies. Still, the global community and P.A. prefer to pretend otherwise.
When a cure for cancer is discovered, it will be time to shutter the cancer treatment centers, but not before then. When Israel reaches a mutually satisfactory agreement with a credible, reliable Palestinian governing body that can, and will, stop terrorist attacks on Israel, it’ll be time to recognize a Palestinian state, but not before then.
