Myth

Palestine has the right to exist but Israel prevents it.

Putting it in Context

By Alessandro Verdoliva

Fact:

This accusation, among the most moderate and seemingly sensible, has an ambivalent nature because it deals with two distinct and specific issues, overlapped in this case for greater accessibility of the argument to the international public at large. Syntactically, the sentence affirms a right on one hand, presuming a converging interest in the object “Palestine has the right to exist” while adding a negative causal link that this case does not occur “but Israel prevents it.”

Such an assertion, common to almost all pro-Palestinian international public opinion circles, can be written in various ways; however, you will hardly find a different connotation of the statement: in any way it is written, this instance always equates the

 

presence of a right (the right to create a state), the implicit will of the actor to avail itself of this right (the Palestinian authority), and the cause of the violation of this right by another actor (Israel). Let’s examine these elements together: the presence of the right, the interest in asserting this right, the violation of this right by Israel.

A)  THE RIGHT TO BECOME A SOVEREIGN STATE IN GENERAL TERMS.

 

The “right” of a nationality to obtain legal personality, translated into operational terms in internal sovereignty (monopoly of coercion within defined boundaries; thus, a union of demographic and territorial aspects) and external sovereignty (recognition of the former sovereignty at the international level) is not regulated by international law, except for historical exceptions due to colonial independence demands (which is why colonialism is instrumentally used by the Palestinian narrative to fall under the protected legal exception). So, how does a population obtain the right to become a public legal entity?

In this regard, there are several processes to ascertain this right, all of which have one presupposition: the petitioning party must actually constitute a separate nationality and establish a political organization that can represent its demands. The prerequisite for this is that the intention is to create a nation-state, i.e., a combination of national identity and state-like political organization. This task is usually in the hands, or influenced by, international politics, and may be assisted by international jurisdiction. The described processes are not mutually exclusive; they can therefore overlap in certain material or discursive phases.

1.    Militarily Conflictual Creation Process.

 

In this process, statehood is defined on the battlefield by the law of the strongest. The victor simply establishes the terms and conditions of creating or not creating new state entities or merging pre-existing ones. If this outcome is not agreed upon internationally, there is a possibility of a violation of external sovereignty (for example, the annexation of Crimea, Abkhazia, or Sahrawi, recognized only by the same actors).

 

Application: This path, i.e., imposition by force, was undertaken first by Arab states with conventional armies and then after the Yom Kippur War by Palestinian forces using terrorist methods.

Both of these modes – conventional and irregular – aimed at imposing their demands by force, were regularly thwarted by the opposing party.

2.    Legal Recognition Route

 

During the legal recognition phase, where the existence of such a right is not yet ascertained, the assertion, to be translated into law, presupposes certain circumstances:

Firstly, there must be a specific nationality (otherwise, the absence of the national element from the “Nation-State” formula), secondly, this nationality must have an authority, which, thirdly, is invested with sovereignty. The authority making the request for the creation of new statehood must be monolithic (i.e., it must be the sole representative of the demands of that given people) and must be the same as that actually exercising sovereign control (this is, for example, the flaw in the Kosovar question, where the party making the request for independence from Serbia was not the same as the one exercising sovereignty over the territory in question).

Application: This mainly legal path is difficult to apply for Palestinian demands, as, if the Palestinian one is to be considered a legitimate “national” request entitled to its own statehood, it is not understood why, according to the same criterion, such a right should not also apply to Catalonia, Scotland, Quebec, South Tyrol, and so forth, with the various separatist movements spread throughout the world, all having similar properties to those of the Palestinians.

Furthermore, Palestinians do not have a monolithic authority: there is not a single organized political entity, but at the very least two can be enumerated: Fatah and Hamas (without considering all the others latent and antagonistic). None of these political authorities enjoys coercive monopoly, hence not even the right to full

 

representation of the entire Palestinian population. So, even if one were to attempt to create a Palestinian state today, who would govern it if potential authorities were to slaughter each other? Who would be the plenipotentiary invested with the power to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians and to create a Palestinian state?

It would seem natural, therefore, that a Palestinian state should necessarily in the early stages be governed by external powers to impose nation-building and state- building that conform to the surrounding political reality, failing which it would immediately regress to a “failed state.” So far, no one has been willing to take on such a burdensome task, neither Egypt, nor Jordan, nor the Saudis.

However, even if someone were to take on such an onerous task, i.e., to ferry Palestinians from perennial headless refugees to a modern Nation-State, who would guarantee that the conditions that led to the outbreak of hostilities in 1967, when the so-called “Israeli settlers” did not yet exist and when Palestinian territories were under the jurisdiction of Egypt and Jordan, would not be recreated? This option involving Egypt and Jordan, called the “Three-State solution,” however, turns out to be the most feasible geopolitically and legally.

3.    Negotiation Between Equals Route

 

The parties involved agree on the partition of the territory into distinct public legal entities, each respectively monopolistic over a given territory, or the union of multiple entities under one (for example, the division of Czechoslovakia or the incorporation of East Germany into West Germany).

Application: This path has been attempted several times by Israel, but has found favor mainly with two equal parties, Egypt and Jordan. Negotiations with the Palestinian Authority have failed or have been short-lived (Oslo ’93). Lately, this process was taking a positive turn for the region with the Abraham Accords, yet again interrupted by hostile activities of one of the Palestinian factions (Hamas, specifically the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade).

 

4.    International Consultation Route

 

The parties, either voluntarily or involuntarily (unable to resolve the dispute themselves), are bypassed by international bodies such as the UN (and the power balances contained therein), which step in as third-party actors to decide on their behalf.

The instrument of “resolution” is a legal institution within the UN that is legally non- binding – nor coercively binding. It is, in fact, a legal instrument of a directly political nature, given by the political will of individual states that vote in favor or against, reflecting the balance of international power among states.

This is the modus operandi used in the 1950s through which new states emerged, such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel, specifically thanks to UN Resolution

181. The use of UN instruments is usually employed as a last resort when such disputes risk escalating into wider geopolitical instability; therefore, these instruments can be invoked even without the consent of the parties involved.

Application: This approach is the only one that has had any follow-up so far, materialized in the aforementioned Resolution 181. This resolution guaranteed a partition of Palestinian territory into Arab administration on one side and Israeli administration on the other.

Thus far, the only right to the existence of the State of Palestine comes from this source. However, fundamental considerations that undermine this conclusion cannot be overlooked: Resolution 181 dates back to 1948 and was born out of a vastly different international framework. In fact, the Palestinian authorities did not declare their intention to establish themselves as such de jure until 1964, when the terrorist group PLO was founded by Yasser Arafat, commonly known as the father of modern terrorism and the inventor of the current Palestinian flag.

Moreover, from the right to establish themselves as a state obtained in 1948, for almost two decades (until approximately 1964-1969), there was no concrete

 

manifestation of the intention to establish an independent Palestinian authority to lead the Palestinians toward the creation of a sovereign state. Instead, there were three major wars (1948, 1967, 1973), all triggered by Arab factions with the explicit objective of not creating a Palestinian state but rather eradicating the Jewish presence from the area; all three of these Arab wars were rigorously lost. From 1948 to the present day, there have been countless terrorist attacks and reprisals. All these elements, if the mere temporal criterion were not sufficient, fundamentally undermine, with an extremely wide margin of doubt, the current validity of the right obtained in 1948. If this right is now considered expired, other routes listed above must be sought.

B)   EXISTENCE OF A CONVERGING INTEREST IN THE RIGHT

 

Assuming now that Palestinians have more right than Catalans to establish their own nation-state, we must confront the interest in availing themselves of this right.

The interest of the Palestinian authorities in establishing themselves as a nation-state is an act of sheer presumption, as it is not supported by any empirical evidence or a thorough study of Palestinian strategy. This means that having a right and being interested in using it are two distinct issues, but they are erroneously overlapped and taken for granted. Interest and right are not the same thing.

Empirically, as already reiterated, the main wars between Arabs and Israelis until the Yom Kippur War and between Palestinians and Israelis afterward did not primarily aim at respecting Resolution 181 (two peoples, two states), but rather at eradicating the State of Israel itself. Additionally, as already reiterated, Palestinian national sentiment is a matter of very recent “nation-building,” dating from the late 1960s to the 1990s, and until those dates, there had been no concrete manifestation of the intention to create a sovereign Palestinian state.

Strategically, however, we must consider the political modus operandi of pro- Palestinian factions network. This entails a structural analysis of their actions and policies. We know that with a right comes a duty, so let’s try to understand if the

 

empirical absence of concrete Palestinian steps towards establishing themselves as a nation-state is the result of a series of historical mistakes or of a specific strategy.

Since establishing themselves as a nation-state renders the actor subject to multiple responsibilities, we must understand if these responsibilities that the State of Palestine would acquire would be congruent with its strategic set.

So let’s make some examples and ask ourselves:

 

• Would the actions taken by Palestinian factions today be possible if they were a sovereign, legitimate, and functioning nation-state?
• Would it be legally possible for this nation-state not to accept the 7 million Palestinian refugees who would immediately claim the right to citizenship?
• Would it be possible for this new Palestinian state to sponsor or directly commit terrorist attacks against its neighbor?
• Would it be possible for this Palestinian state to publicly endorse explicitly genocidal policies where incitement – from schools, media, and squares – to the eradication of Israel – including its citizens – occurs?
• Would it be possible for this Palestinian state to use international donations to enrich the ruling classes while leaving the population to die of hunger, as in the worst dystopian kleptocracies?
• Would it be possible for a State of Palestine to maintain the status of illegality for Jews and homosexuals on its territory as it does today?

All these modi operandi can be undertaken by Palestinian factions exclusively by virtue of their legal irresponsibility derived from the absence of statehood. It is clear that there is no interest in exercising this right because doing so would necessitate a total reevaluation of the entire strategy built over the past half-century. The entire Palestinian strategic architecture revolves around the fact of being in a legally unclassifiable limbo whereby any action sees everyone responsible, ergo no one responsible.

 

From here, we must derive that the historically low activism of Palestinian factions in actively seeking to create a nation-state is not due to an error of history and chance, but rather to the same strategic structure upon which Palestinian factions thrive. Therefore, assuming that the right to establish a nation-state corresponds to an equally strong interest in exercising it is misleading, presumptuous, and unfounded. To one who has enriched themselves through a condition of disability, does it really benefit them to eliminate those disabling conditions? If so, then let it be demonstrated through concrete actions.

C)      ISRAEL HAS PREVENTED THE CREATION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE

Given the absent premises to validate either the existence of an objective right or a demonstrable interest in such a right, it follows that this conclusion is already implicitly flawed. However, arguing further, it is important to remember that any geopolitical actor has an interest in maintaining good relations with its neighbors, relations that allow for the reduction of arms and the birth of new trade and technological exchanges. This interest belongs to all states, except for those states that see collective martyrdom as a virtue to idolize in their own narrative.

It is therefore to be excluded, unless proven otherwise, that Israel does not have a primary interest in ensuring its borders and population are safe from violence. Can this attitude be demonstrated logically or with empirical examples? No. Attitudes cannot be precisely demonstrated but can be accurately deduced.

However, being this a strategic-argumentative setting, there is no claim to provide a historical chronology. Nonetheless, some historical examples demonstrating this Israeli willingness can be given for illustrative purposes only.

These range from the Israeli constitution itself to the non-expulsion of Palestinians who remained in Israel after the Nakba (which did not occur in reverse), as well as the voluntary negotiations by Israel (Menachem Begin) with the defeated counterpart (Anwar Sadat) for the return of the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for peace (1979-83). The same applies to the Oslo Accords of 1993, establishing Areas A, B, and C in derogation from the 1967 occupation; the same occurred in 2000 at Camp David with Clinton as a mediator and Barak and Arafat as parties. Over the years, Israel has traded its military victory for peace, however, withou achieving any concrete results beneficial to anyone.

 

This is Israel’s great fault: failing to materialize victory. To simplify greatly – with the obvious distortions resulting from such simplification – the general negotiation pattern in the history of Israeli relations with its neighbors is as follows: Israel is attacked, Israel wins, Israel offers back the conquered lands in exchange for peace and diplomatic relations. Conversely, the same attitude in counterparts is lacking without any margin for objection.

 

Therefore, attributing to Israel in its entirety the violation of the Palestinian right and will to establish a state (elements which, as argued, are inherently flawed) is entirely misleading, inaccurate, and only assumes meaning and validity under a biased, preconceived, instrumental, and not bona fide perspective. Good faith, a necessary element for any international negotiation to have legal validity, is absent.

When peace cannot be achieved despite dozens of peace initiatives and plans over almost a century, sowing death and mutual destruction, one must wonder if it is not the same claims and premises for peace that are unjust.

 

 

CONCLUSIONS ON THE JUNGIAN PROJECTION

 

In conclusion, a parallel emerges with the psychology of Carl Jung. Without intending to ridicule an immensely broad international issue, it cannot be ignored, in the opinion of the undersigned, that there is a resemblance to the defense mechanism of “projections.”

Projections are a psychological process symmetric and opposite to introjection and essentially involve attributing one’s own wrongdoings to others because of an inability to process them oneself.

If we review together the accusations directed at Israel, we cannot fail to notice that the content of such accusations is predominantly constituted by actions typical of Palestinian ranks rather than Israelis. Proportionality has never been the concern of factions hostile to Israel. Since 1948  until  today, Israel is  proportionally a tiny fraction inserted into billions of square kilometers of hostile countries that actively promote, directly or indirectly, violence against Israel and its civilians for almost a century. Accusations of apartheid can be directed at the Palestinian Territories, where, unlike Israel, Jews are prohibited. It is the Palestinian authorities that make a clear racial distinction. Accusations of genocide and colonialism likewise: the military objective of October 7 was Jews as such, not the army, not the government, and this is an explicitly genocidal intent as it presents both elements systematically (since the same approach has been evident since the 1930s); ending with colonialism, which would be incorrect, yet the Arabs have left the Arabian Peninsula and colonized an area stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean, reaching Spain, the Balkans, and Sicily.

It is difficult not to see this mechanism of projection, which perhaps masks a claim of exceptionalism, but this specific aspect of collective psychology should probably be discussed and analyzed in a different setting, not by a strategic-geopolitical analyst such as the undersigned.