Tamar CPT

NO to the two-state solution. That ship sailed, hit an iceberg, and sank a long time ago. And from a Jewish perspective, I’m tired of being told that Jewish safety has to depend on giving the Palestinian national movement one more chance to prove it can coexist with us. Not every national movement automatically earns a state. The Kurds have a powerful claim to self-determination after generations of persecution, yet somehow Palestinian statehood is treated as an international obligation no matter how many times violence, rejectionism, and failed leadership follow. At some point, “try again” becomes insanity. I keep seeing Jews praise Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib as a “radical pragmatist.” He condemns Hamas, which is good. He criticizes Israel, which naturally gets him plenty of attention. His bio describes him as “pro-Palestine & anti-Hamas/violence, pro-peace/coexistence.” Okay. Let’s unpack that. Pro-Palestine. What exactly does Palestine mean here? A Palestinian culture and people? Fine. But if it means another sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, then we’re still discussing the same political objective. The method may be different, but the destination remains Palestinian statehood. Anti-Hamas. Good. But after October 7 and after what Hamas has done to Gazans themselves, opposing Hamas should be the starting point, not some extraordinary act of courage deserving a blank check on everything else. Anti-violence. Again, good. But violence has repeatedly brought Palestinians devastation rather than independence. Israel survived every attempt to destroy it. A pragmatist should understand that better than anyone. Pro-peace. Wonderful. Every Jew I know wants peace. But what does “peace” actually require? Israeli concessions? Ending military operations regardless of the security situation? Another agreement based on promises that the next generation won’t pick up where the last one left off? Jews have heard promises of peace before. Forgive us if Jewish survival requires more than promises. And then there’s coexistence. Israel already contains Jews from every corner of the diaspora alongside Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, Bedouins and others. It isn’t perfect because no country is, but coexistence isn’t some theoretical idea Israelis have never attempted. Meanwhile, the Palestinian national movement has left a very complicated history with its neighbors: Black September in Jordan, the PLO’s role in Lebanon’s turmoil and war, Arafat’s disastrous support for Saddam Hussein after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and ultimately the collapse of the Oslo dream into another era of bloodshed. So why is Israel always expected to be the laboratory for the next experiment? Jewish history has taught us something rather important: when someone tells you their political ambitions require putting Jewish lives at risk, believe the risk. Before Israel is asked to gamble Jewish lives on another promise that this time will be different, let Palestinian society demonstrate peaceful, functional self-government and coexistence somewhere other than against the people it has spent generations calling its enemy. Israel does not owe anyone a suicide pact disguised as optimism. For two thousand years Jews prayed toward Jerusalem while empires came and went. We finally returned to sovereignty in our ancestral homeland. Protecting that sovereignty and Jewish life is not extremism. It is one of the hardest lessons Jewish history ever taught us. You don’t reward the threat of violence with sovereignty.