A majority of Western leaders clearly refuse to exercise integrity when it concerns the Palestinian issue. Only leaders completely sold out to extremist ideologies would persist in pushing a proposal so far detached from reality and so harmful to many people -- starting with the atrociously governed Palestinians -- that it is almost beyond comprehension. Perhaps this phenomena is best described as a "cognitive bias" that can "lead to a person interpreting all new information as supporting their preconception."
Connected to fatuous ideals of utopianism -- especially to the dangerously mushrooming number of extremist Muslims on their shores -- is these leaders' pandering to prospective voters to ensure re-election. In so doing, they not only damage their society, culture and values, but race towards the rapid demise of Western civilization in favour of an Islamist Caliphate under Sharia law. In the UK, for instance, according to Stephen Pollard, "Open Jew hate is now the norm." How the mighty have fallen.
On July 24, President Emmanuel Macron of France announced that "Paris would formally recognize a Palestinian state in September at the UN General Assembly." A week later, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a similar announcement, and on August 11, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined the scrimmage.
Hamas, needless to say, was delighted:
"The Palestinian group described the declaration as 'a positive step in the right direction 'toward justice for the Palestinian people and support for their right to self-determination and an independent state on all occupied Palestinian land, with Jerusalem as its capital.'"
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted:
"If you notice, the talks with Hamas fell apart on the day Macron made the unilateral decision that he's going to recognize a Palestinian state. And then you have other people come forward, other countries say, 'Well, if there is not a ceasefire by September, we're going to recognize a Palestinian state. Well, if I'm Hamas, I basically conclude, 'let's not do a ceasefire because we can be rewarded, we can claim it as a victory.'"
Three countries, Spain, Norway and Ireland, have already recognised a non-existent Palestinian state in 2024. Two of them – Spain and Ireland – have a long history of passionate Jew-hate.
The Irish boast they have never had a "Jewish problem" because, as the author James Joyce noted through an anti-Semitic character in his novel Ulysses, the reason there was no antisemitism in Ireland was because they never let admitted entry to Jews in the first place. Spain's history of the Inquisition and expulsion of Jews in 1492 is well-recorded.
Norway was home to its anti-Semitic leader, Vidkun Quisling, a traitor who supported the Nazi cause and was responsible for sending 1,000 Jews to their deaths. Other than that historic issue, Norwegians are not generally anti-Semitic but driven, rather, by uninformed and naïve perceptions of human rights, "virtue" and "humanitarianism." According to John A. Moen:
"The governing body of Norway's Jewish communities has on a number of occasions emphasized the fact that it does not recognize the claim that Norway is an anti-Semitic society. "
In July 2025, in line with the European Union's incessant criticism of Israel, 28 Western nations condemned Israel's actions in Gaza. From a humanitarian viewpoint, the situation is indeed disastrous for the multitude of innocents on both sides caught up in the conflict. Israel's Foreign Ministry responded that much of the criticism was "disconnected from reality and would send the wrong message to Hamas." The distasteful truth, however, is that no one ever really cares what Israel says -- it is invariably judged and found guilty, without anything even resembling due process or a trial -- in the world of public opinion, notwithstanding the refusal of the UN itself to distribute food in Gaza, as it is obliged to do.
The situation in Gaza could quite easily have been resolved many months ago if Hamas had laid down its weapons and released the hostages it had no business kidnapping in the first place. This did not happen. Nevertheless, Israel is blamed for trying to get its tortured and starved hostages released. What would France, Britain, Canada or Australia have done? The party responsible for Gaza's collateral damage is Hamas. It not only started the war after Israel, in a gesture of goodwill, had granted roughly 20,000 permits for Gazans to come and work in Israel; Hamas also seems to revel in the deaths of their own civilians and fraudulently inflate the numbers to try to blame the casualties on Israel.
Israel, conversely, with US support , is doing its best in horrendously dangerous circumstances to feed the hungry people of Gaza, while Hamas deliberately starves the hostages, and has lately photographed them digging their own graves.
Europe's aspiring powerhouses, France and the UK, nevertheless persist in their folly of endorsing a utopian terrorist Palestinian state. Such a creation – called "Franc-en-Stine" by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in a nod to Mary Shelley's monster -- would bring nothing but disaster to Europe, Israel and to the Palestinians themselves, considering the continuing brutality of their corrupt and dead-end governance. Huckabee stated in June:
"If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I've got a suggestion for them: Carve out a piece of the French Riviera, and create a Palestinian state. They're welcome to do that, but they're not welcome to impose that kind of pressure on a sovereign nation. And I find it revolting that they think that they have the right to do such a thing."
An independent terrorist Palestinian state would reward jihadists murdering Jewish and Arab civilians -- shooting Gazans trying to flee war zones (at the urging of the Israelis), Gazans trying to take the humanitarian aid sent for them, and Gazans accused of alleged "collaboration". A Palestinian state would, in addition, continue trying to conquer more of Israel's historic homeland, and try to drive Jews out of it, as they openly vow to do, in the words of senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad:
"The Al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas's name for its Oct. 7, 2023 invasion] is just the first time, and there will be a second, third and fourth... We must remove that country [Israel]... [It] must be finished. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force.... Everything we do is justified."
That, it seems, is Macron's view of a "just and lasting peace".
Just the same, the West at large and the United Nations persist in striving towards a state for Palestinians, bordering, or within, Israel itself.
In late July, UNRWA ruled that Palestinians would remain permanently categorised as refugees – even if against their wishes. This sleight of hand would mean that they would be entitled to endless funding and lasting status as a people for whom a homeland needs to be established. All descendants of original Palestinian 'refugees' would likewise be entitled to benefits of that status.
"The enforced permanence of the Palestinian refugee issue is absurd," wrote David May, a senior analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), and is contrary to the accepted definition of refugees.
According to May:
"UNRWA is in the business of protracting the refugee crisis, not solving it. While the UN Refugee Agency, which oversees all non-Palestinian refugees, offers a variety of solutions to help refugees improve their lives, including resettlement in a third country, UNRWA indulges the Palestinians' desire to move to Israel en masse and overwhelm the only Jewish-majority country in the world."
A further reason that Western efforts to impose a Palestinian state are inadvisable is that they ignore a warning from the Trump administration that "any country that takes 'anti-Israel actions' will be viewed as acting in opposition to US interests and will face diplomatic consequences." There might therefore be severe financial and economic side-effects for discounting this caution. This is especially so as Trump apparently has other plans for the Gaza area. A July 25 report from FDD explains:
"The recognition of a Palestinian state as a full member of the United Nations, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), would immediately trigger U.S. funding cuts to the international organization."
These efforts disregard Israel's position on the matter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear in February:
"There was a Palestinian state. It was called Gaza. Look what we received. The biggest massacre since the Holocaust. To establish a Palestinian state after October 7 is a huge prize not only for Hamas [but] for Iran....
"I will not allow the State of Israel to repeat the fateful mistake of Oslo, which brought to the heart of our country and to Gaza the most extreme elements in the Arab world, which are committed to the destruction of the State of Israel and who educate their children to this end."
Echoing this idea, David May writes:
"Recognizing a non-existent Palestinian state after Hamas's October 7 atrocities tells the Palestinians that violence works, and rewards Hamas for immiserating Gazans."
The question remains how any rational national leader can simply discount Israel's attitude towards an independent Palestinian (terrorist, Jihadist) state within or alongside its borders? Would those leaders countenance an uppity ISIS or Al Qaeda on their borders? Yet, Starmer and Macron (together with leaders of Spain, Norway and Ireland) are doing exactly that. Is it possible that they are endeavouring to accommodate the millions of Muslim voters they have helped infiltrate into their own broken countries?
France has a long history of anti-Semitism, exemplified by the Dreyfus affair in 1894-1906. The problem, however goes back even further, even to Voltaire (1694-1778), who wrote:
"The Jews are an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched."
This, about the small group that brought the Ten Commandments to the West, as well as its first breaths of social justice:
"You shall give him his wages on his day before the sun sets, for he is poor and sets his heart on it...."
— Deuteronomy 24:15 (NASB 1995)"...but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do."
— Deuteronomy 5:14 (New International Version)"You shall not boil a young goat in the milk of its mother."
— Exodus 23:19"Do not defraud or rob your neighbor. "Do not make your hired workers wait until the next day to receive their pay."
— Leviticus 19:13 (New Living Translation)
This irony is that many in the West who are advocating "social justice for all people" think nothing of vilifying the Jews.
It is anticipated that at the UN General Assembly September session, France will actually announce its recognition of a Palestinian state. This declaration will evidently be supported by Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia and, probably, Britain. A US State Department spokesman curtly responded that "we will not be in attendance at that conference."
The US not only urged other "governments to skip the event;" Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in rejecting Macron's self-indulgent nonsense , wrote:
"This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace. It is a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th."
Without the US endorsing the formation of an independent Palestinian state, it likely cannot eventuate. The same view applies to Israel: they cannot permit the establishment of yet another hostile entity alongside their communities -- one determined to attack them endlessly more -- especially without their participation in the decision. All this posturing is therefore meaningless; most likely designed to distract their nations from domestic woes. It does, nonetheless, indicate their malicious attitude towards Israel's legitimate right to sovereignty, peace and security in its ancestral land.
Should pandering to extremism continue without a major correction in the near future, civilization in Western Europe, as we know it, will be significantly diminished and possibly replaced with the Islamic totalitarian law, effectively as repressive as the Nazi laws were in 20th century Germany, and elsewhere in Europe.
We could see Islamic Sharia law replacing the hallowed Western legal concepts of the rule of law, which, according to Encyclopedia Brittanica "supports the equality of all citizens before the law, secures a nonarbitrary form of government, and more generally prevents the arbitrary use of power," and equality before the law, "which holds that no 'legal' person shall enjoy privileges that are not extended to all and that no person shall be immune from legal sanctions." Amongst other legal remedies, the relief of Habeas Corpus for false imprisonment might be eliminated. The outcome would thus be similar to living under Taliban rule, with no rights for women and other extreme social measures.
By blindly ignoring the social, political and legal destruction caused by their new policies, certain Western leaders could destroy what generations have built up over many centuries.
Europe is apparently determined to destroy itself.
Possibly in the view of these leaders, sacrificing little Israel and a few presumably expendable Jews, is a small price to pay for appeasing the important radical voters that enable Starmer, Macron, Carney, Albanese and other like-minded invertebrates to remain in power.
Slogans such as "globalize the intifada" and "from the river to the sea..." confirm the declaration in the Hamas Covenant. Its preamble states that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it." Article 7 reads:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
At this point in history, Israel's legitimate actions consist in defending its people -- and the stunningly ungrateful West -- from a horror disguised within a veneer of fake "moral clarity," along with false charges of a supposed genocide in Gaza. As Huckabee remarked, "If Israel is trying to commit genocide, they are really, really bad at it." In fact, Israel is defending the West -- the very people undermining them -- from a genocide. Publicly expressed slogans targeting Jews simply support the murderous intent of the enemies of Israel and those apparently trying to help them finish the job.
"Are these people wicked or just very, very stupid?", asks columnist Melanie Phillips. A valid question indeed.
Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Dr. Haug holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology and is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Jewish Journal, James Wilson Institute (Anchoring Truths), Jewish News Syndicate, Tribune Juive, Document Danmark, Zwiedzaj Polske, Schlaglicht Israel, and many others.
