Conservative pundit Matt Walsh complained that a U.S.-Canada trade deal should not depend on whether Canada recognizes a Palestinian state or not.
He’s wrong. American citizens should worry that — or at least wonder why — a Western ally would decide to show support for a failed region saturated with terrorist determinations. How could anyone trust or forget a lasting relationship with a country that appeases terrorists and recognizes lies? Should ISIS have its own state, too? How about throwing in a caliphate and call it a day?
America First is turning into “Me, Me, Me, and Forget about Morality.” This is disturbing.
At least Walsh gave Israel the benefit of the doubt regarding its response to October 7, 2023: “What were they supposed to do? What should they have done?” But he then turned around and made a pretty clear case for America-only nationalism.
That kind of thinking is a moral cop-out. I agree with Dutch conservative leader Geert Wilders and Argentine president Javier Milei, as well as our own DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Israel’s fight against Hamas and Islamic jihad is the fight of Western civilization, of truth vs. error, of freedom vs. tyranny, of self-determination vs. despotism. Their fight is our fight, and we should not shrink from supporting Israel’s eradication of Islamic jihad in our world and in our time.
Hamas has openly declared that it is not just interested in destroying Israel and wiping out all Jewry. It wants to destroy Christians, too, and the “decadent” West. Let us never forget that Iranian politicians were burning American flags on the floor of their parliament. I am at a loss as to why so many right-wing activists and populist conservative commentators are ignoring such blatant Islamic calls for our destruction.
When conservative pundits say, “I don’t care what happens to Israel or any other country,” it’s a cop-out. When conservative pundits and first-world countries side with the Palestinian cult, it’s a capitulation.
We can — and must — identify right and wrong, not just domestically, but internationally. We can side with different interests in international fights, and we can stand for what is right without sending troops into any country. Sanctions, tariffs, and other forms of soft power can get the job done without one drop of American blood being shed. Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union through free enterprise; an aggressive military spending build-up; and the calm affirmation that collectivist, socialist policies would inevitably fail. Trump’s doctrine of sanctions and strategic strikes is also paying off.
Moreover, Israel is winning the peace in Gaza without other nations’ help or limitations via foreign aid. Let it do the fighting. Let it kill the international bad guys. To quote Canadians Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, “if Israel were to stop [Iran] from acquiring nuclear weapons, it would be a gift by the Jewish state to humanity.”
The United States’ best interest must focus on immediate threats, but we should support our allies when they are destroying theirs, too. It's also in our interest not to recognize terrorist cells as independent countries. We should expect our allies to show similar wisdom and restraint. The last thing any country should do is enable more terrorism, more wrongdoing via a recognition of a so-called Palestinian nation.
The whole Palestinian cause is based on lies, anyway. Starting in 1964 (not centuries ago), Egyptian terrorists like Yasser Arafat started calling for another independent state. Previously, Gaza was part of Egypt, and Judea-Samaria was part of Jordan. There was no “Palestine” beforehand — no borders, language, or distinct culture, either.
Some will argue that Hamas is not committing any atrocities in the United States. What Israel is going through is not our fight.
President Trump exposed that false thinking when he directed bunker-busting bombers to target nuclear facilities in Iran last month. Iran props up Hamas as well as Hezb’allah, so we should not separate those terrorist sponsors. Trump’s military action was a necessary intervention to show the ayatollahs and Islamic militants around the world that the United States is not playing around, but her leaders will defend her sovereign and international interests. Thankfully, our leaders are no longer foolish enough to waste billions of dollars in treasure and countless lives trying to create democracies in the Middle East. However, we should not be sitting ducks ready for an Islamic aggressor to strike and destroy us.
Getting back to Hamas and other violent jihadi movements, they have targeted us, and they have come to our soil to do great harm.
Consider the following:
Any Western country bending the knee to Islamic terror does not deserve our respect. Canada, and now France, along with the United Kingdom, has hastened its long, tortured decline by threatening or announcing plans to support a so-called Palestinian state. Canada specifically pledged at the U.N. General Assembly to recognize “Palestine.”
One has to wonder what they think these measures will accomplish. Appeasing aggressors never stops aggression. Just ask Neville Chamberlain with regard to his negotiations with Adolf Hitler, or ask Bill Clinton with respect to his deal to foster North Korea’s denuclearization. Consider what the Israelis did! They gave up the Gaza Strip, and the result has been more terrorism.
For all of the American First podcasters who stress their earnest determination to protect Western civilization and our proud Anglo-American legal tradition, as well as our Jewish and Christian heritage, how can they justify turning a blind eye to the ravaging of Hamas and their worldwide ambitions to destroy all of us? Islamic terror is not going away just because a large cohort of conservatives is distraught about America’s failed efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can fight worldwide evil without bankrupting ourselves or weighing ourselves down with impossible investments. But we shouldn’t slide into moral bankruptcy just to preserve some misguided neo-isolationist credentials. We should not be foolish enough to say we won’t care one way or another which interests our Western allies may ally with.
In fact, not only should the G7 countries resist recognition of any so-called Palestinian state, but they should unite in demanding Hamas’s full surrender and demolition. From there, the nations of the civilized world should stop with the two-faced diplomacy and move their working embassies to the Israeli capital, Jerusalem. Trump’s move during his first term hastened greater stability and legitimacy for the Jewish state. Other countries have signaled their intention to move their embassies to Jerusalem as well. Argentina, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are also exploring this move.
Palestinian militants and their allies will rebuff these arguments and claim that every people group has a right to a country. The longstanding argument for self-determination is a strong one to counter. The general public in the United States and around the world has heard this refrain: that cultures and people groups that live within warring regions should be able to exercise the right of self-determination. More importantly, the United States is founded on this notion of natural rights, and among those rights, human beings can abolish governments to create new ones for themselves.
But I submit to all the conservative activists and allies of the so-called Palestinian cause that this argument no longer has merit. It certainly does not apply to the warring tribes and factions in Gaza and Judea-Samaria. The people groups in those regions have been offered a state five times, and they have rejected every one of these offers. When Israel gave Gaza over to the refugee interests in that location, they proceeded to turn a glorious tourist attraction into a third-world terrorist-cell hell-hole. Instead of exercising their natural right to self-determination and self-defense, they have abused those rights by waging war and unleashing terror on everyone whom they oppose or find offensive.
If people misuse their natural rights to harm others, they forfeit those rights. The residents of the Gaza and Judea-Samaria regions no longer have any right or claim to self-determination. The best solution is not sovereignty, but removal from the area. No one with any conscience or integrity should recognize a state for such militants.
A Palestinian state is a threat to all of us, and shame on anyone capitulating to this murderous dissimulation.
Image via Pexels.