I. Israel Is Real
Israel is a legitimate country, and pretending otherwise is not analysis. Both the Bible and the Quran recognise the ancient connection of the Children of Israel to the land. The Quranic passages concerning conflict with Jewish communities in Arabia were contingent, defensive and historically bounded. They were never theological commands for permanent hostility. It is therefore a categorical error to abstract those episodes from their context and apply them universally to all non Muslims or to Jews today.
That distinction is also visible in Israel's institutions. Its legal system recognises Sharia courts, while Tel Aviv Jaffa contains several mosques, including Hassan Bek Mosque. The same institutional religious autonomy cannot be claimed for the communist dictatorship of Siad Barre, which restricted Sharia and persecuted religious leaders, while also placing mosques under state control.
Yet Israel's modern legitimacy does not depend on religious scripture alone. It has a permanent population, functioning institutions, international recognition and the capacity to defend itself. In modern international law, Israel was admitted to the United Nations in 1949, whose Charter places its members within a system based on their sovereign equality. One may dispute borders, policies or conduct without pretending that the state itself is unreal. Any serious solution must begin with its permanence, just as any serious regional strategy must begin with the world that exists rather than the map someone wishes existed.
II. Indigenous History Matters
The claim that every Israeli is a recent European settler is historically dishonest. It also ignores the 21 per cent of Israelis who are Arab. Research has estimated that more than 40 per cent of Israeli Jews have Mizrahi ancestry, while the histories of Jewish communities in Iraq, Yemen, the Levant and North Africa long predate modern Zionism. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes indigenous Jewish communities living across North Africa for centuries. Many came from societies that belonged to, bordered or survived alongside the Ottoman Empire. Their history cannot be erased to make a slogan cleaner.
III. The World Accepted Uglier Partitions
If this is described as history's most evil or catastrophic conflict, perspective has already been lost. The 1947 partition of British India displaced roughly 15 million people and killed between half a million and two million. It was bloodier and more chaotic than the partition of the British Mandate for Palestine. Comparison does not diminish Palestinian or Israeli pain. It demands that emotion and vibes give way to honest reasoning.
IV. Hamas Must Disarm
Hamas is a terrorist organisation and must be dismantled and demilitarised. The United Kingdom proscribes Hamas in its entirety, not merely its military wing. No society can build freedom under an armed movement that subordinates civilian life to ideological war. Palestinian political renewal begins when guns no longer confer a veto over the future.
V. Force Cannot Reconcile
Israel cannot achieve lasting peace through military force and its alliance with the United States alone. Military superiority can deter enemies, destroy capabilities and provide periods of security. It cannot manufacture regional acceptance. As I argued in War Will Not Stabilise the Middle East, power must serve a political architecture or it becomes an expensive holding pattern.
VI. Complexity Demands Honesty
The Gaza war confronted Israel with armed fighters embedded in a dense civilian environment, hostages held underground and a governing movement that prepared the battlefield over many years. Most countries have never faced that combination. None of this makes every Israeli decision correct. It means that condemnation is easier than producing a workable alternative that could protect Israeli civilians, free hostages, defeat Hamas and spare Palestinian civilians at the same time.
VII. There Was a Genocide in Gaza
The destruction of Gaza looks genocidal. Its flattened neighbourhoods, mass death and uprooted families remind me of the Isaaq genocide and Somaliland's mirror. That is a moral and visual judgment, not a claim that the legal question has been finally decided. The International Court of Justice case remains before the Court. Recognising the scale of devastation does not require denying Israel's right to exist. As of this writing, Palestinians continue to die in large numbers, and calling it a genocide is one responsible way to apply pressure to end the violence.
VIII. Pain Does Not Grant Statehood
Even an alleged genocide does not automatically guarantee statehood. Suffering can establish compelling claims to justice, protection, return, compensation and accountability. The Nazi genocide of the European Roma, the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and ISIL's genocide of the Yazidis did not produce new sovereign countries for those victim groups. Statehood remains a separate political and legal question involving territory, institutions, security and the capacity to govern.
IX. The Two State Solution Is a Hoax
Recognition by most of the world cannot manufacture a functioning state. Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention identifies four standard qualifications for statehood. They are a permanent population, a defined territory, government and the capacity to conduct relations with other states. Palestine plainly has a permanent population, but its territory is disputed and fragmented, its government is divided between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and neither authority exercises unified or independent control. More than 150 countries recognise Palestine, but recognition cannot supply the missing institutions.
Taiwan offers a brief historical warning. Governments once recognised the Republic of China as the government representing China, then changed their minds and recognised the People's Republic of China when political and practical realities changed. The United States made that switch in 1979. The world can recognise the wrong political configuration and later reverse itself. Recognition of Palestine is not immune from the same correction, and the number of countries supporting it does not make an unworkable arrangement viable.
The Palestinian leadership record cannot be ignored either. Under Arafat, the PLO developed an armed state within a state in Jordan and challenged the authority of King Hussein, culminating in the Black September conflict of 1970. Hamas later built another armed order in Gaza, fuelled in part by Iranian funding, weapons and training. Hezbollah offers the clearest regional example of where that model can lead, an armed Iranian proxy operating beyond responsible state control. Any proposal for Palestinian sovereignty must explain why it would not reproduce that danger beside Israeli population centres.
X. Free Palestinians, Not Palestine
Free Palestinians, with dignity, rights, security and a future? Absolutely. Their freedom is a moral necessity even if another conventional state is not the responsible vehicle for delivering it. Confederation, shared sovereignty, regional guarantees or other practical arrangements should be judged by what they do for human beings, not by whether they satisfy the familiar shape of a map.
The same perspective applies to national representation. The Arab world has 22 member states in the Arab League, making it exceptionally rich in sovereign representation. By contrast, roughly 30 million Kurds remain one of the world's largest peoples without a sovereign state, while the Jewish people have one state. This does not cancel Palestinian rights, but it puts the claim that Jewish statehood is uniquely excessive into perspective.
Jordan cannot be excluded from that discussion. More than half of its population is of Palestinian origin, and most Jordanians of Palestinian origin hold Jordanian citizenship.
The region does not lack flags. It lacks a serious plan for Palestinian freedom.