Even the Arab world is no longer reticent about the threat of Hamas

Telegraph

4 days ago

In a historic first, all 22 members of the Arab League called on Hamas to lay down its arms and end its rule in Gaza. In fact, despite their public condemnations during this war, most Arab countries have been on Israel's side and against Hamas since the start. They recognise the dangers posed to their own countries by Hamas, a proxy of Iran and offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, both of which represent existential threats to them. Hence Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE helped defend Israel against Iranian missile and drone attacks last year. Some Arab countries have also provided other forms of military support to Israel during its war on Hamas, although these have been very much under the radar.
While they recognise the security benefits Israel brings, none of that means that after decades of aggression against the Jewish state, Arab countries are now in love with it. Indeed, the New York Declaration signed yesterday at the UN, which condemned Hamas, was also sharply critical of Israel for its conduct in the war and actions in the West Bank. The declaration was made during a ministerial-level conference led by France and aimed towards generating progress on a two-state solution at the UN General Assembly in September. Not surprisingly the conference, which David Lammy attended, was boycotted by the US and Israel.
Both countries understand that a two-state solution is not only impossible but also extremely dangerous. That's not because the Palestinian Arabs don't deserve self-determination. Nor is it due to Israeli nationalistic intransigence, but to the overriding need to defend itself. We saw what happened when a two-state solution was tried in Gaza. The whole place was turned by Islamic jihadists into an engine of war and resulted in the horrors of October 7. Is it reasonable to expect Jerusalem to repeat such a devastatingly failed experiment and extend it into the West Bank where the risks are far greater?
When so many lives are at stake and Israel's very existence under threat, hoping for the best – as the likes of Starmer and Macron seem to be doing – is not going to cut it. They need to understand that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is not about land or Arab self-determination, it's a religious war to annihilate the Jewish state and always has been. The Palestinians have been offered their own state many times, including a proposal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to cede virtually all of the West Bank, build a tunnel connecting it to Gaza and relinquish Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem. Every single offer has been rejected. Even the so-called moderate Abbas, while begrudgingly recognising the existence of Israel, doesn't recognise its 'right to exist'– hence his continual demands for the 'right of return', code for swamping Israel with millions more Arabs with the intention of ending its existence. That same 'right of return' is also enshrined in the New York Declaration.
The document calls as well for 'an independent, sovereign, and democratic Palestinian State'. Let's just pause on democracy. Abbas is in the nineteenth year of what was supposed to be a four-year term. He's promised elections many times but never held them because he knew he and his Fatah party would be ousted by Hamas. Polling shows Hamas remains the most popular political entity in the West Bank. During the times I have been there recently, most of the Arabs I met praised Hamas as the only feasible rulers. So, do the New York signatories want a democratic Palestinian state governed by the very people who brought Gaza to utter disaster?
According to the French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot, the Arab signatories to the New York Declaration 'clearly express their intention to normalise relations with Israel in the future' – conditional on concrete progress towards a two-state solution. Establishing diplomatic relations beyond the current Abraham Accords countries would be highly desirable of course. Indeed Saudi Arabia came close to normalisation before October 7, which was the reason Iran sent Hamas to invade and put a stop to it. But important though normalisation is for Israel, none of its benefits can trump the defence of its own people.
The New York Declaration calls for a UN-mandated international force in Gaza after the war. That might be achievable, but given the history of such enterprises, there is no way Israel could cede overall security responsibility to anyone other than their own armed forces. The same goes for the West Bank. The IDF can therefore leave neither, which means there can be no sovereign Palestinian state. The Prime Minister of Israel has many tough decisions to make, but choosing between national survival and what Starmer and the New York Declaration seem to think is the inalienable right of the Palestinians to a state is not one of them. And although Starmer likes to demonise Netanyahu, that would apply just the same to any Israeli premier in the post October 7 world.
Notwithstanding its condemnation of Hamas, the only effect of the New York Declaration will be to harden Palestinian resolve against Israel and encourage Hamas to keep fighting. They say so themselves. Following Starmer's proposal yesterday to recognise a non-existent state, a senior Hamas official wrote: 'International support for Palestinian self-determination shows we are moving in the right direction… Victory and liberation are closer than we expected.'