Satanic State

À screenshot from YouTube of Salman Rushdie from an interview with 60 Minutes.

The problem with the politicians in the West–who look for the easy way out from the crisis in front of them–is that they usually disregard the ideological reality on the ground.

The acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie was right. The creation of a Palestinian state in the actual circumstances would only lead to the establishment of an Islamic state in the image of ISIS or Iran. Hamas would eventually topple the corrupt and feeble PA and reengage in the path of Jihad against Israel creating another Jihadi ecosystem and replicating the prototype of Gaza. Einstein once said that: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”  As matter of fact, the ingredients of such state is already full-blown in the West Bank, and if it weren’t for Israeli presence in the territories Hamas and Islamic Jihad would have long overthrown the PA. And they wouldn’t lack popularity neither, as the polls show that the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank were supportive of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7.

According to Reuters Almost three in four Palestinians believe the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel was correct, and the ensuing Gaza war has lifted support for the Islamist group both there and in the West Bank.

Only this time, the cruel aspirations would be higher, the scale of the Jihad bid would be much larger, the holy war would be an institutionalized thriving industry. On the face of it, it would look like rewarding Hamas thugs for their terror on October 7 by offering them more land to replicate more of October 7-style raids. Unchecked–by the IDF and Israel security services–in their proposed sovereign state, Hamas would have all the time and resources it need to build an even greater underground city of tunnels under the West Bank, and easy ways for Iran to smuggle weapons from Jordan.

There is no reason to believe that the fate of a formal Palestinian state would be something different, or for that matter, enlightened and Jewish-friendly than the proto-state of Gaza.

The problem with the politicians in the West–who look for the easy way out from the crisis in front of them–is that they usually disregard the ideological reality on the ground, indulging themselves into the realms of a world of fantasy where Palestinians represent a modern nationalist people who are striving to have a country of their own that embodies their newfound identity, willing to relinquish their armed struggle and live side by side with their Jewish neighbors, and that once the intransigent Israel accepts to grant them that state, the Magical peace would instantly materialize. But nothing could be further from the truth in this ill-informed vision.

You can only convince a group of humans of such a cruel solution if you succeeded in dehumanizing the other

 The problem is and was intrinsically a religious one. The Palestinian Arabs and their brethren in the Middle East are drunk with extremist Islamic dogmas, believing that the land, the whole land of Historic Palestine, became Muslim in the year 636 AD and thus it must stay so, and that Jihad is the only legitimate way by which the land would be reconquered, and according to Muslim dogma regarding the end of time: “The Hour will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them, until a Jew hides behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say: O Muslim, O slave of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Except the gharqad (a thorny tree), for it is one of the trees of the Jews.”  Would Mr. Borell be intersted in such prophecy?

“From the river to the sea”, the slogan says, or “throw the Jews into the sea”, an older one asserts. Here, in the Arab world, for both the indoctrinated masses and elite, liberating Palestine means throwing the Jews into the sea. The ten million?! Yes the ten million. You can only convince a group of humans of such a cruel solution if you succeeded in dehumanizing the other – In this case the Jews. Apes, pigs, flies, etc.

Israel, in my view, has learnt the hard way not to give anything – especially land –  for free. Ipso facto it didn’t give Sinai back to Egypt till it was absolutely sure that the peace agreement with Egypt would keep this country at bey, and it did. And when it was sure of the good intentions of President Sadat and his sincerity in making a durable and lasting peace. For the same reason it didn’t hand over the Golan Heights to Syria as the regime there is an avowed enemy of the state. So why should that change now regarding the West Bank and Gaza especially after the massacre of October 7?!