When it came to the Middle East, Emmanuel Macron made two demands in Parliament on Tuesday. Firstly, he said the war in Gaza must end “without any conditions”. This would mean leaving the hostages in the catacombs and Hamas in power, incubating more bloodshed for the future.
Secondly, he said Britain and France should recognise a state of Palestine. This, he insisted, was “the only path to peace”, even though the one-track pursuit of the two-state solution has brought only blood and tears and has been rejected several times by Ramallah.
Sir Keir Starmer applauded heartily. In the sumptuous surroundings of the Royal Gallery, grand statements were made about the fates of distant peoples before all was forgotten at the state banquet.
Three days earlier a different proposal was put forward, this time by conservative Arab chieftains who live in the dust and heat of the region.
Led by Wadee al-Jaabari, head of Hebron’s biggest clan, a coalition of sheikhs proposed seceding from the Palestinian Authority to form an independent emirate that would make peace with the Jews.
Established by the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, the Palestinian Authority is as hated by its own citizens as it is loved by the likes of Macron and Starmer.
Its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is in the 20th year of his supposedly four-year term. His regime is known for its brutality; in 2021, the popular Palestinian human rights campaigner Nizar Banat was beaten to death by Abbas’s thugs (who had been trained by the British Army at the taxpayer’s expense).
It is also corrupt. Consider the gleaming hospital built with aid money at Halhul, on the outskirts of Hebron. Despite the desperate need for healthcare, it has been largely deserted, as officials earn kickbacks by referring patients to private clinics. It is named after Mahmoud Abbas.
This is typical of the Arab world, where the trappings of Western democracy have been crudely imposed on an ecosystem of honour and tribal loyalty. Macron and Starmer may turn a blind eye, but the locals have had enough.
Hebron is a city of reverence. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, holy to all three monotheisms, are believed to be buried there. As such, it has long been a flashpoint of unrest. In 1929, the local Arabs butchered their Jewish neighbours in a foreshadowing of October 7. In 1994, the Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein shot dead 29 worshippers at a mosque.
Today, a small community of devout Jews nestles among more than 200,000 Arabs. The bustling high street has had to be sealed by the IDF as a buffer zone. Yet Hebron is also the stronghold of the Arab clans, which – to the surprise of many – have a working relationship with the Jews.
Ever since Britain and France carved up the Middle East in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, the problem has been the same: while the West thinks in terms of nation states, the Middle East is tribal.
From Lebanon to Iraq, that misunderstanding has led to appalling savagery, both across the new partitions and within the new states, as different ethnic groups battled for supremacy after the democratic powers pulled out.
Have our rulers learnt their lesson? They have not.
For decades, the two-state solution has been imposed by secular elites in Washington, London and Brussels. To the locals, the conflict is a matter of God, their forefathers and eternity. To the West, it’s a matter of maps.
The bloody results speak for themselves. For years, however, conservative Arab sheikhs and their hardline rabbinical counterparts have been building a relationship. Their model should be known, perhaps, as “illiberal peace”.
People often assume that the disputed territories are a hellhole of apartheid and terror. However, Arab and Jewish elders – whose people often work and shop side by side – get together to address mutual problems such as dangerous traffic, agricultural diseases and provocations by their hotheaded youth.
Just as the term “West Bank” is too drily geographical to do justice to the land of Jericho, Hebron and Shiloh, the concept of the “two-state solution” is woefully abstracted from the reality on the ground.
Both sides view the land as God-given, regardless of lines on a map. They also do not think in terms of a “solution”, which is viewed as “our heretics and your heretics getting together and signing a piece of paper”, as Rabbi Menachem Froman of Tekoa, near Bethlehem, once remarked to Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin.
Rather, illiberal peace means a living process, in which two proud peoples, steeped in faith, reach understandings to serve their communities.
Here may lie the true seeds of brotherhood. In 2023, an orthodox rabbi, Leo Dee, from Efrat in the Judean mountains, donated his wife’s kidney to a local Palestinian after she was murdered with their two daughters by a terrorist.
But unless the White House dramatically intervenes, illiberal peace won’t go much further. For one thing, the IDF has concerns about the security of a decentralised model.
The greater obstacle, however, will come from the Palestinian Authority, the jihadis of Hamas, the denizens of the United Nations, the progressives of the NGOs, the liberal broadcast media and leaders like Macron and Starmer.
This unpalatable coalition has neither understanding nor concern for the people on the ground. And far too much to lose.
When it came to the Middle East, Emmanuel Macron made two demands in Parliament on Tuesday. Firstly, he said the war in Gaza must end “without any conditions”. This would mean leaving the hostages in the catacombs and Hamas in power, incubating more bloodshed for the future.
Secondly, he said Britain and France should recognise a state of Palestine. This, he insisted, was “the only path to peace”, even though the one-track pursuit of the two-state solution has brought only blood and tears and has been rejected several times by Ramallah.
Sir Keir Starmer applauded heartily. In the sumptuous surroundings of the Royal Gallery, grand statements were made about the fates of distant peoples before all was forgotten at the state banquet.
Three days earlier a different proposal was put forward, this time by conservative Arab chieftains who live in the dust and heat of the region.
Led by Wadee al-Jaabari, head of Hebron’s biggest clan, a coalition of sheikhs proposed seceding from the Palestinian Authority to form an independent emirate that would make peace with the Jews.
Established by the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, the Palestinian Authority is as hated by its own citizens as it is loved by the likes of Macron and Starmer.
Its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is in the 20th year of his supposedly four-year term. His regime is known for its brutality; in 2021, the popular Palestinian human rights campaigner Nizar Banat was beaten to death by Abbas’s thugs (who had been trained by the British Army at the taxpayer’s expense).
It is also corrupt. Consider the gleaming hospital built with aid money at Halhul, on the outskirts of Hebron. Despite the desperate need for healthcare, it has been largely deserted, as officials earn kickbacks by referring patients to private clinics. It is named after Mahmoud Abbas.
This is typical of the Arab world, where the trappings of Western democracy have been crudely imposed on an ecosystem of honour and tribal loyalty. Macron and Starmer may turn a blind eye, but the locals have had enough.
Hebron is a city of reverence. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, holy to all three monotheisms, are believed to be buried there. As such, it has long been a flashpoint of unrest. In 1929, the local Arabs butchered their Jewish neighbours in a foreshadowing of October 7. In 1994, the Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein shot dead 29 worshippers at a mosque.
Today, a small community of devout Jews nestles among more than 200,000 Arabs. The bustling high street has had to be sealed by the IDF as a buffer zone. Yet Hebron is also the stronghold of the Arab clans, which – to the surprise of many – have a working relationship with the Jews.
Ever since Britain and France carved up the Middle East in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, the problem has been the same: while the West thinks in terms of nation states, the Middle East is tribal.
From Lebanon to Iraq, that misunderstanding has led to appalling savagery, both across the new partitions and within the new states, as different ethnic groups battled for supremacy after the democratic powers pulled out.
Have our rulers learnt their lesson? They have not.
For decades, the two-state solution has been imposed by secular elites in Washington, London and Brussels. To the locals, the conflict is a matter of God, their forefathers and eternity. To the West, it’s a matter of maps.
The bloody results speak for themselves. For years, however, conservative Arab sheikhs and their hardline rabbinical counterparts have been building a relationship. Their model should be known, perhaps, as “illiberal peace”.
People often assume that the disputed territories are a hellhole of apartheid and terror. However, Arab and Jewish elders – whose people often work and shop side by side – get together to address mutual problems such as dangerous traffic, agricultural diseases and provocations by their hotheaded youth.
Just as the term “West Bank” is too drily geographical to do justice to the land of Jericho, Hebron and Shiloh, the concept of the “two-state solution” is woefully abstracted from the reality on the ground.
Both sides view the land as God-given, regardless of lines on a map. They also do not think in terms of a “solution”, which is viewed as “our heretics and your heretics getting together and signing a piece of paper”, as Rabbi Menachem Froman of Tekoa, near Bethlehem, once remarked to Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin.
Rather, illiberal peace means a living process, in which two proud peoples, steeped in faith, reach understandings to serve their communities.
Here may lie the true seeds of brotherhood. In 2023, an orthodox rabbi, Leo Dee, from Efrat in the Judean mountains, donated his wife’s kidney to a local Palestinian after she was murdered with their two daughters by a terrorist.
But unless the White House dramatically intervenes, illiberal peace won’t go much further. For one thing, the IDF has concerns about the security of a decentralised model.
The greater obstacle, however, will come from the Palestinian Authority, the jihadis of Hamas, the denizens of the United Nations, the progressives of the NGOs, the liberal broadcast media and leaders like Macron and Starmer.
This unpalatable coalition has neither understanding nor concern for the people on the ground. And far too much to lose.