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The Palestinian State Fantasy

(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - Trump's decision to champion the idea of moving Palestinian Arabs out of Gaza is enormously consequential, even if it doesn't happen. It decisively changes the conversation about the Middle East and means the end of the fantasy about the creation of a Palestinian state. The international community, Arab and Muslim worlds, and the Palestinians themselves are outraged about the idea because all of these groups are still holding on to the idea that Gaza must be preserved as a bastion of anti-Zionist irredentism. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with that failed idea or compel them to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders can be drawn. Every American administration until Trump 2.0 held onto the belief that a Palestinian state was the way to end the conflict. A Palestinian state was an integral part of the first Trump administration's "Peace Through Prosperity" Mideast plan. The centerpiece of this new project is its clear assumption that there will never be an independent Palestinian state in Gaza or elsewhere. Still, it remains an article of faith among the foreign-policy establishment that Israel must be compelled to facilitate the creation of a state whose main purpose will serve, like Gaza under Hamas, as a springboard for Israel's eventual destruction. What Trump has done is to serve notice that the U.S. will no longer regard the facilitating of this destructive concept as a policy goal. He has made it clear that a different solution has to be found for the Palestinians. The people who cheered the orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction on Oct. 7 will not be rewarded for this with more pressure on Jerusalem to do something the overwhelming majority of Israelis oppose as suicidal.
2025-02-11 00:00:00
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