One Government, One Gun: Two Lies
Last month, the U.N. convened the High-Level International Conference on the Two-State Solution, which was co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, and also included among its participants sixteen other states—among which were Canada, Mexico, Egypt, the U.K., Japan and Italy—plus the European Union and the League of Arab States.
The conference concluded with the issuance of the New York Declaration, which memorialized the alleged successes the participants had achieved. It must indeed have been a very successful conference—or, at least so the conferees thought—because the declaration contains forty-two numbered paragraphs and an annex that runs on for seventeen pages.
It is impossible in this small space to dissect all the illogic, falsity and downright silliness that permeates the declaration. I will instead focus on one small part that exemplifies the fictional nature of almost all of the document.
In paragraph 11 of the declaration, the conferees assert:
Governance, law enforcement and security across all Palestinian territory must lie solely with the Palestinian Authority, with appropriate international support. We welcomed the “One State, One Government, One Law, One Gun” policy of the Palestinian Authority and pledged our support to its implementation …. In the context of ending the war in Gaza, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.
This is a stunning example of the willful, utter failure of the “international community” to face reality. We’re told the P.A. has a “One Government … One Gun” policy, but there is a huge difference between a policy and a bumper sticker.
A dictionary definition of “policy” is: “a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, a policy necessarily leads to action; a bumper sticker is only words.
In Gaza (which is supposed to be part of the territory of the so-called Palestinian state), for the last eighteen years the one and only government has been Hamas and the only guns have been carried and fired by Hamas and its terrorist allies. In other words, the P.A.—whose “president,” Mahmoud Abbas, is now in the twentieth year of his four-year term—has for almost two decades done absolutely nothing to put its “One Government …, One Gun” mythical policy into action in Gaza.
If the P.A. truly embraced a “One Government …, One Gun” policy, it would have been reasonable to expect that, when Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, the P.A. would have literally joined forces with Israel to end Hamas’s control over Gaza. The P.A.’s so-called “policy” requires that only the P.A. should govern and bear arms in Gaza, so why haven’t P.A. armed forces joined Israel’s armed forces in combatting Hamas? The answer is obvious: the P.A. in reality is too weak and corrupt to adopt a course or method of action that would lead to “One Government …, One Gun” in Gaza. But the P.A. pretends otherwise, and the “international community” is happy to go along with that farcical delusion.
The idea of convening the U.N. High-Level Conference was proposed simultaneously with the announcement, by President Macron of France, that France would be recognizing a “State of Palestine” when the U.N. General Assembly meets in September. And, soon after Macron made that announcement, Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Carney of Canada indicated that their respective countries would also almost certainly grant recognition in September.
A senior Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, has said that these decisions to recognize a so-called Palestinian state are “one of the fruits of October 7.” This is the same official who pledged, shortly after October 7, that Hamas would repeat the attack “again and again,” and that “everything” Hamas does “is justified.” Obviously, Hamas’s determination to continue its war on Israel has only been strengthened by Western decisions to recognize a Palestinian state.
A rational person might think that praise and applause from Hamas would cause Western democracies to reconsider the recognition of a Palestinian state. But the sad truth is that the leaders of those democracies are not primarily interested in ending the conflict. If ending the conflict were their true goal, they would take concrete, positive steps to compel Hamas to immediately lay down its arms and release all Israeli hostages, living and dead. Such steps would most importantly include fully supporting Israel in its struggle against Hamas.
But what Macron, Starmer, Carney and other leaders of Western democracies are primarily concerned about is not the fate of Palestinian civilians, who suffer grievously under Hamas rule. Rather, those leaders are worried about controlling and mollifying swelling pro-Islamist, anti-Zionist factions among their own populations. Mobs have taken to the streets in Western democracies, and craven leaders pander to them in the hope of forestalling even greater disorder. Thus, recognition of Palestine is a performative gesture meant primarily for domestic consumption in Europe.
In sum, the international community pretends to believe that the P.A. has the power and the will to demilitarize Hamas and govern Gaza; with the hope of mollifying anti-Zionist mobs in their own countries, major Western leaders decide to “recognize” an imaginary Palestinian state; nothing on the ground in the Middle East changes; and Hamas cheers.
This is the world we live in today.