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By Morton A. Klein
(August 29, 2025 / USA Today) We have been fed the same delusion for decades: If Israel gives the Palestinians a state, peace will follow. World leaders have recited this daydream endlessly. Mainstream media have promoted the same message at every opportunity. Too many Jewish leaders bought into the same fantasy and spread it to their congregations and followers. It has become a hope blindly clung to by the naïve, the misguided, and even many of the most intelligent among us. But it is not true. And it has never been true. A Palestinian state will not bring peace. It will bring war and terror and will further destabilize the region.
How do we know that a Palestinian state would be a nightmare? In a word: Gaza.
In 2005, Israel made a historic concession that it believed would bring peace. Israel removed every last Jew from the Gaza Strip. Entire Jewish communities were uprooted. Synagogues were torn down. Jewish families were dragged from their homes, crying, kicking or screaming. The Israeli soldiers assigned to this dreadful task cried along with the Jewish families that the soldiers removed from their homes and communities. But the shining idea sold to the public was that this painful exodus would be the first step toward a bright new future. The Palestinians would finally have full control over territory. In exchange, the violence would stop.
In 2005, Israel made a historic concession that it believed would bring peace. Instead of being rewarded with peace, Israelis were bombarded with rockets, terror tunnels, kidnappings, suicide bombings, incendiary balloons, and finally, October 7.
But what came next proved that the entire idea that giving the Palestinians territory would bring peace was pure fantasy. Instead of being rewarded with peace, Israelis were bombarded with tens of thousands of rockets, and besieged with terror tunnels, kidnappings, suicide bombings, incendiary balloons, and finally, on October 7, the deadliest massacre of Jewish men, women and children since the Holocaust.
The premise that “a Palestinian state equals peace” has always been flawed. The premise’s supporters argue that Palestinian sovereignty will civilize those who now commit terrorism. But long experience shows that the opposite is true.
Giving violent regimes their own territory or statehood does not moderate them. Rather, it empowers them. Iran’s mullahs have a state. The North Korean communists have a state. Syria has a state. They have not become peaceful, civilized nations. These rogue regimes use the legitimacy of sovereignty to further oppress, propagandize and perpetrate violence. A Palestinian state would be no different. It would not build hospitals and schools. It would build rocket launchers and indoctrination centers.
A related argument is that a state will calm the Palestinians by giving them hope and responsibility. But, again, what we have seen in practice is that whenever they have been given any form of autonomy or territory, that autonomy and land have been used to promote hatred.
In Gaza, Hamas won the elections and immediately began arming for war. If this is what self-rule looks like, what would a full state bring?
In Gaza, Hamas won the elections and immediately began arming for war. If this is what self-rule looks like, what would a full state bring? It would bring an army. It would bring airports open to Iranian weapons shipments. It would bring international recognition to a regime committed to the destruction of Israel.
People often ask why the Palestinians do not already have a state. The answer is simple. They were offered a state multiple times. In 1937, 1947, 2000, 2001, and again in 2008. Every time, they rejected the offer. Not because the terms were insufficient, but because any deal that includes a Jewish state existing next to a Palestinian one is unacceptable to them. The issue is not borders. It is not settlements. It is not water or land. The issue is ideology. Throughout many decades, the Palestinians have shaped their national identity around destroying what the Jews built, rather than around building a peaceful neighboring state.
The issue is not borders. It is not settlements. It is not water or land. The issue is ideology. The Palestinians have shaped their national identity around destroying what the Jews built.
The push for a Palestinian state is not rooted in reality. It is rooted in a Western obsession with symmetry. People think there are two sides, and therefore, there must be two states. But this is not a conflict between equals. It is a war of annihilation against the Jewish state. On one side, Israel, wants to live in peace. The other side wants the first side dead. Until that changes, until the Palestinians accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, Palestinian sovereignty will only make the conflict worse.
Appeasement has failed throughout history. When evil is accommodated, it grows bolder. After Israel gave up Gaza, Hamas built a fortress of terror. A Palestinian state would not end terrorism. It would legitimize it, fund it, and expand it. It would be a base from which Israel’s enemies launch their next war, not a partner in peace.
If concessions worked, perhaps there would be a meaningful conversation. If giving up land would stop the violence, the Israeli people could seriously take that into account. But giving up land does not stop violence. History has proven that every time Israel gives something away, it suffers from more violence in return. Giving up land is not a prescription for peace. It is a prescription for suicide.
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