By Husam Dughman

An unmarried Libyan man was once asked why he had not got married yet. Aware that his precarious financial situation did not allow him to bear the cost of having a family, he replied, “Does a sinking truck hook up a trailer?” That retort somewhat conjures up Israel’s bafflement at those who advocate for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza following the horrific terrorist attacks of the 7^th of October. Like the above-mentioned Libyan man, the Israelis are perplexed by the strange logic of those who support a two-state solution. The Israelis must be thinking, “What? Do you think that after we granted Gaza self-governance and withdrew from it completely in return for which we only got terrorist attacks culminating in the atrocities of the 7^th of October, that we should now allow for the emergence of a second hell to be unleashed on us?”

The UK, Canada, and Australia (as well as Portugal) have just recognized a not-yet-born state called “Palestine.” They have thereby fulfilled a pledge which they had reportedly made earlier this year to the effect that they would do so if by September of this year Israel did not stop the war against Hamas and implement a comprehensive ceasefire. The aforementioned countries have thus joined 147 other member states out of a total of 193 members states of the UN. They have done so despite their apparent acknowledgement that a viable Palestinian state is not yet in existence. They, and presumably numerous others, appear to be of the opinion that they have chosen to grant such a recognition in order to keep their dream of a two-state solution alive. However, there are some major problems with this so-called recognition. In political science, for a state to be a state, it has to have four ingredients: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory; (3) a government; and (4) sovereignty. The Montevideo Convention of 1933 mentions the first three of those while the fourth-essentially with the same meaning as above- was stated as “capacity to enter into relations with other states.”

When we look at the history of Palestine, what do we see? The land named as Palestine was called “Syria Palaestina” by the Romans only in the 2^nd century AD following the Second Jewish Revolt against Roman rule. In the 10^th century BC, King David (recognized by Islam as a prophet) had ruled the Kingdom of Israel, with Jerusalem as its capital. Following his death, his son King Solomon (also recognized in Islam as a prophet) governed the Kingdom of Israel, with Jerusalem as its capital. That united kingdom subsequently split up into a northern kingdom (referred to sometimes as the Kingdom of Israel, other times as Samaria, and still others as Ephraim) and a southern kingdom (referred to as the Kingdom of Judah). The former had ten of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel, while the latter had two of those. The northern kingdom was invaded in the 8^th century BC by the Assyrians who took the ten tribes away as captives. No one really knows for certain what happened to them subsequently. Interestingly, one of the reasons why the Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah as foretold in their holy books is that one of the conditions for such recognition is the ability of that candidate to succeed in gathering the ten lost tribes and bringing them back to the Land of Israel, something which Jesus did not accomplish. Two centuries later, the Kingdom of Judah was attacked by the Babylonians who not only took the Jews there captive, but they also destroyed Solomon’s Temple, the first and most important monotheistic temple dedicated to the one and only God. Half a century later, those Jews were freed from their Babylonian captivity by King Cyrus the Great following Persia’s defeat of Babylon. Cyrus returned the Jews to Judah and granted them autonomy over their lives in their historical land. They then set about rebuilding Solomon’s Temple which became known as the Second Temple.

A couple of centuries or so later, the Jews were conquered by the Greeks. Nevertheless, they managed to govern themselves for about a century during the days of the Hasmonean Kingdom following the success of the Maccabean Revolt. They were later ruled by the Romans whose policies towards them were highly repressive. As a result, the Jews rebelled against Roman rule. Their first uprising- known as The First Jewish Revolt- was viciously put down and their Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the 1^st century AD. When the Jews rebelled against Roman rule again in the Second Jewish Revolt in the 2^nd century AD, not only was the uprising cruelly crushed, but the name of their land was changed by the Romans from Judaea to Syria Palaestina, after the Philistines who had earlier immigrated to the land from southern Europe. The region was thus known, more-or-less- as Palestine only from the 2^nd century AD to the 20^th century AD. Of high importance, though, and unlike the Kingdom of Israel, is the fact that throughout those eighteen centuries, Palestine never existed as a sovereign state governed by Palestinians; it was always part of one empire or another.

In the 20^th century, the Palestinian Arabs were given an opportunity to have a state of their own as a result of a two-state solution proposed by the UN in 1947. The Jews accepted it, but the Arabs turned it down. The Palestinian Arabs, along with their supporters from neighbouring countries, attacked Israel in 1948 following its declaration of independence. They lost. Although they had the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza from 1948 to 1967, they never attempted to form a state there. They wanted all of the land from the river to the sea, i.e. no Israel. This crass failure to recognize Israel’s right to exist has by far and away been the single most important factor in the failure of the two-state solution. Even when the Palestinians were offered an excellent opportunity twice- in 2000 and 2008- to have an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, they did not want to know. To this day, the vast majority of Palestinians whom I know, as well as those whom I have known or read about, want one single state called Palestine with no Israel. Shimon Peres once hit the nail on the head when he said, “They don’t want a state next to Israel; they want a state in place of Israel.”   

This brings me back to the four above-mentioned criteria for a state to be called as such in international relations. The envisaged Palestinian state that most countries in the world have rushed to recognize does not seem to have all of those criteria: One may- with some reservations- accept that there is a permanent Palestinian population. But is there a defined Palestinian territory for such a state to arise? That is a moot point considering Israel’s control of 60% of the West Bank, while Gaza is now virtually destroyed. Is there a unified government running the West Bank and Gaza? Certainly not. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has run 40% of the West Bank, while Hamas (up until very recently) had run Gaza. Although one may argue that the PA does engage in relations with other countries in the world, one can hardly claim that it has sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza. Not only are three of the four criteria defining a state practically missing here, but to be recognized as a legitimate state in the world of international relations nowadays, you need UN approval. Given its veto power, the US does not look like it will allow that to happen anytime soon.

If Hamas is virtually dismantled; if Mahmoud Abbas is almost 90 years old now; and if the only known political alternative- Marwan al-Barghuthi- has been in Israeli prisons for many years and it does not appear like he is going to be released in the near future, what kind of government would run that envisaged Palestinian state assuming it miraculously came into being? Not only that, but how would it firmly establish itself? Who would participate in it? Would it be strong enough to withstand attempts by militants or terrorists to overthrow it? Might it establish close relations with some of Israel’s deadliest enemies? Could it grant those enemies of Israel military bases on its territory, something which would pose a mortal danger to Israel’s very existence? If the Palestinian population was not deradicalized like the German and Japanese populations were in the wake of World War II, would that radical Palestinian political culture not be a fertile ground for the future emergence and success of extremist Palestinian factions? Those are considerations which the countries that have now recognized a Palestinian state do not seem to have seriously examined. However, if they have, it may then be the case that they have decided to grant that recognition anyway for internal consumption by their deluded leftist supporters and their partial antisemitic Muslim populations. If that is indeed the case, then long-term wisdom has been sacrificed for short-term personal gains. Not a particularly intelligent course of action, is it?

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About the author

Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.

Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.