By Hussein Aboubakr Mansour
Recently, the world watched in horror as Hamas militants in Gaza joyously paraded what were believed to be the corpses of four Israeli civilians: three of them a mother and her two babies.Editor's note:The mother, Shiri Bibas, was not included in the handover; her body was returned to Israel the following day.]
Instead of universal condemnation, we saw cheering children encouraged to revel in the spectacle, and an atmosphere of triumph that shattered any last illusions we might have harbored. The barbarity left Israelis, world Jewry, and many others already familiar with the depravities of Palestinian nationalism around the world in a state of renewed shock. For many of us, however, this should force us to come to a conclusion that is long overdue: the Palestinian national cause, as conceived and developed over the past half-century, has become irredeemable.
A year ago, I allowed myself the optimistic thought that perhaps a different Palestinian identity could emerge: one divorced from the anti-Semitic vitriol, Third World revolutionary fanaticism, and nihilistic strands of death cult introduced in the 1960s by global leftist intellectual currents. I tried, despite my misgivings, to imagine a future in which Palestinian communities might somehow find a new identity based on pragmatic coexistence or even form a civic ethos of their own, free of the destructive impulses that have repeatedly manifested themselves in violence. Today, those hopes are coming to an end.
The legitimacy of “Palestine” is crumbling
The concept of a sovereign Palestinian state was, in its inception, intertwined with big ideas: anti-imperialist liberation, the romance of revolution, global anti-capitalism and the quest for national self-determination. But the decades since have shown that Palestinians never grasped the viable political path. Instead, an identity was cultivated based on an endless cycle of grievance, victimhood and, all too often, terrorism as a method of expression celebrated and sublimated by the most depraved elite of Western intellectuals, including the Western radicals, Arabs and Jews who sit at the top of Western culture and education. But it should now be clear that when your main currency is kidnapping civilians and parading their remains to public cheers, any moral capital that a national struggle might once have enjoyed is lost.
For decades, outside observers believed that nationhood was the necessary response to the dispossession suffered by Palestinians after 1948. Liberals clung to the “two-state solution,” much as one might cling to a protective magic spell rather than a proposed solution. In principle, that argument had some merit. In practice, however, it has failed. Repeated wars, a refusal to disentangle oneself from regional power struggles or global revolutions, a refusal to accept peace deals that might have led to orderly autonomy, and the cultural glorification of martyrdom have created a toxic personality structure that has a flag. Any attempt at constructive state-building has been reduced to dust by corruption, murderous factionalism, and the unabashed cult of violence.
Why dissolve the project altogether?
Some might say it is drastic, even cruel, to declare that a people’s aspiration to statehood must be abandoned. But the events we have just witnessed – children parading around corpses in broad daylight – are not an isolated atrocity, but the culmination of a long march of destruction. They reflect a deeper moral and cultural breakdown: there appears to be no meaningful leadership capable of guiding the Palestinians toward a humane and tolerant society. In fact, the only visible and consistent leadership continues to resort to incitement, illusions of conquest, and pride in acts that defy basic human decency.
To argue that Palestinians should be absorbed into existing states is not to eliminate their communal identity; it is to acknowledge that the formal structure called “Palestine” has, in practice, become a source of destruction for themselves and the region. If the dream of a stable, rights-based Palestinian sovereignty were within our reach, it would have emerged during at least one of the diplomatic windows of the past decades. Instead, repeated attempts have ended in bloodshed.
Easing the burden on generations
The idea of “Palestine” has tragically become an ideological trap that ensnares each new generation from birth, seeding them with the promise of “liberation” that only seems to produce more suffering. In many Arab countries, Palestinians have lived as second-class refugees for decades, deprived of meaningful integration or citizenship by the very governments that proclaim their solidarity. Today’s technology-rich, globally interconnected world offers other paths to personal and communal flourishing. Yet these initiatives will remain blocked as long as Palestinian leaders and their external advocates continue to fan the flames of “resistance” while being funded and applauded by narcissistic Western liberal elites and Qatari conspirators, forever condemning Palestinian children to a cycle of perennial violence and displacement.
By integrating Palestinian populations into established nation-states — whether Jordan, Egypt, or other countries where many already reside — families could finally break out of the cage of perpetual grievance. They could gain stable legal rights, access real economic opportunities, and choose to build a future free of militant dogma. Rather than continuing as pawns of a dying dream, they could become citizens of real countries, with all the responsibilities and privileges that status entails.
Part of the reason we see no way out is the deep-rooted anti-Semitism that permeates the very core of Palestinian identity. While hatred of Israelis – especially in a conflict zone – can be complex and cannot be reduced to simple intolerance, it is impossible to ignore the endless incitement that treats Jewish life as disposable. This is the twisted Fanonian logic of using saved funds so that children can learn in school: the colonized take violent revenge on the colonizers without moral restraints or a constructive end goal. Murder for the sake of murder. This worldview has given birth to a catastrophic reality. After so many “martyrdom” operations and kidnappings, it is painfully clear that the ideological well is hopelessly poisoned.
A grim need
None of this constitutes an endorsement of annexations or expansions at the expense of Palestine. Nor is it a call to dismiss the suffering of ordinary Palestinians, many of whom have been victims of corrupt local rulers and fanatical militias. Rather, it is a reflection of the reality that “Palestine” as a political project has only led to more tragedies. If the region wants peace, if the Palestinian people want a chance at a normal life, perhaps the best path now is to end this destructive chimera.
We might think of this as a kind of autopsy: “Palestine” had its chance, repeatedly, and degenerated into the macabre spectacle we are witnessing now. The costs, both for the Palestinians themselves and for their neighbors, have become too high. A sober reading of events suggests that we put aside the last illusions and move on.
To emphasize, abolishing the dream of a Palestinian state is not equivalent to denying the dignity of the people. On the contrary, the right path forward – if moral seriousness prevails – is to defend the right of Palestinians to assimilation and citizenship wherever they can be accommodated in already stable and willing Arab states. Young generations, freed from a hopeless and nihilistic search, can invest in education, families, businesses and cultural life without being tied to the odious leftist, liberal and Islamist illusions of “national liberation” that keep them trapped in endless conflict.
Far from being a triumphal decree, this is an elegy for what could have been a positive dream but which deteriorated into an unsolvable nightmare. Watching Hamas parade the corpses of a mother and her babies underscores how monstrous the situation has become. Illusions of a reformed Palestinian nationalism, free of anti-Semitism and the glorification of violence, have disappeared. What remains is a moral and political catastrophe.
Perhaps the most merciful and responsible path is to gently lay Palestinian identity—as a state ambition—to rest. At the same time, families find refuge in the more concrete structures that surround them. The cost of perpetuating a vision that repeatedly falls into cruelty is too high. Let us assume that we really care about the lives of Palestinians, Israelis, and their neighbors. In that case, perhaps it is time to move away from the fantasy of “Palestine” and offer every real opportunity for inclusion and a dignified future elsewhere.
This is not a stirring or sentimental conclusion. It is, rather, a sober statement of what now seems inevitable. The events of the past few days have turned this argument from desperate speculation into an urgent moral demand: there must no longer be a separate Palestine. Let us absorb these populations into viable national frameworks, stop feeding the cycle, and finally move on.
Source: The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs