This damned war is continuing not because of diplomatic cover and arms for Israel but for Hamas. It would be over in a day if Hamas was not still being propped up as an active threat (!) to Israel seven months into Hamas’s failed war (waged in violation of local ceasefire agreements and of international law).
Meaningless photo ops like the Irish, Norwegian, and Spanish politicians’ paper recognition of a state with no contiguous borders, no independent monetary policy, no actual army, and no functional popular government, are simply divorced from reality – the reality of state-building and the reality on the ground.
1948 was the last year an independent Palestinian State could have emerged. That ship sailed long ago and it doesn’t help Palestinians to pretend it still would be a viable option but were it not for Israeli obstinacy.
For a long time I’ve thought that people advocating a 2 State Solution are generally (but innocently) working against Palestinian interests, out of ideological bias. This impression was understandably strengthened by the USA’s injection of 2 State discourse into strategic talks during this war (as if establishing a paper state will prevent a new generation from taking up Hamas’s banner for Iran) and is confirmed by this latest episode of European “diplomacy” in attempting to reshape the Middle East (as if their new policy will change any facts on the ground and end the various conflicts in this region).
Enough of the endless foreign meddling and paper-pushing – and of trying to fit ourselves and our situation into the cultural categories and geopolitical theories of the West. Regardless of how the agents of imperialism and colonialism distort our histories and our identities, we are one people with one common destiny. Time to return to what we know.