For decades, world leaders have repeated the same formula with ritual devotion: “We support a Palestinian state.” It has become a mantra in Paris, London, Canberra, and Washington, as though saying it often enough will make it real. But the harder question remains unasked: do Palestinians themselves, as represented by their leaders and institutions, truly want statehood—if that state must exist alongside a sovereign Jewish state? The historical record suggests otherwise. Ernest Bevin, Britain’s foreign secretary in 1947, identified the essential divide: “For the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.” That was long before settlements, occupation, or Israeli right-wing governments could be blamed. The refusal runs deeper, and it has proven remarkably consistent.
The pattern is undeniable. In 1937, Palestinian Arab leaders rejected the Peel Commission plan. In 1947, they rejected the UN partition plan. After 1967, the Khartoum summit famously declared “no peace, no recognition, no negotiations.” In 2000, Yasser Arafat walked away from an offer at Camp David that would have given him sovereignty over nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as his capital. In 2008, Mahmoud Abbas did the same with an even more generous map. At each junction, Palestinian leaders were offered what most nations long for—recognition, borders, sovereignty—and each time they refused, because the cost was acknowledging that Israel, too, had a legitimate claim to exist. What has changed since then? Little. The political culture that rejected partition in 1937 is the same one that encouraged the Second Intifada in 2000 and that cheered the October 7 massacre from Gaza. When given the chance to govern territory, Palestinian leaders have consistently used it not as a platform for state-building, but as a base for violence.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the so-called refugee question. In every other post-imperial conflict, displaced populations were resettled and borders redrawn. Yet the Palestinians were preserved in a permanent state of limbo, not least by UNRWA, which counts not only the original refugees of 1948 but their children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. By this inflationary arithmetic, more than six million people are classified as “refugees,” many of whom have never set foot in Israel. Their “right of return” is not about returning home but about eliminating the Jewish state by demographic means. The demand is simple: two Arab states between the river and the sea. One in Gaza and the West Bank, cleansed of Jews, and one in place of Israel, overwhelmed by millions of resettled “refugees.” When Palestinian leaders speak of two states, this is what they mean—not coexistence, but duplication.
Those who denounced Ariel Sharon for withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza argued that such a move would invite disaster. They were right. Within two years, Hamas violently seized control and transformed the Strip into a launchpad for terror. The October 7 attacks were not an aberration; they were the logical outcome of a political project that defines itself not by what it builds but by what it destroys. The lesson is that territory, without a genuine acceptance of Jewish sovereignty, solves nothing. The international community’s habit of insisting on “a Palestinian state” without demanding clarity about what kind of state Palestinians intend to build is an act of willful self-deception.
Here lies the paradox. Palestine is treated as a state when it serves the purpose of prosecuting Israel at the International Criminal Court. It is not a state when it comes to assuming the responsibilities of sovereignty—controlling militias, resettling refugees, ending perpetual war. In one context, the cat is alive; in another, the cat is dead. Such ambiguity may satisfy diplomats eager to “feel good,” but it guarantees that no real peace will emerge. Western governments often confuse doing good with feeling good. Declaring support for Palestinian statehood feels good. It aligns with post-colonial instincts and grants moral satisfaction. But doing good—actually building peace—requires saying what no one wants to say: the century-long war to erase Jewish sovereignty has failed. Israel is here to stay. A Palestinian state can only emerge when it is conceived not as Israel’s replacement but as its neighbor.
Europe’s post-war peace did not come through wishful thinking or endless negotiation. It came because destructive ideologies were defeated, borders were enforced, and populations were resettled. That was not pleasant work. But it was necessary. The same is true in the Middle East today. To respect Palestinians is to take them seriously at their word. They have consistently said no to a state beside Israel and yes to perpetual struggle against it. Until that ideological commitment is confronted and rejected, all talk of statehood remains a myth. The responsibility of serious leaders—political, intellectual, and religious—is to cut through comforting illusions and name the reality: peace requires not just promises of sovereignty but the final acceptance of a Jewish state in any borders. That truth is uncomfortable. But only by facing it can we hope to build something real, rather than chasing a mirage that has already wasted a century.