One problem, two solutions, and the contrast between them could not be starker. All hail Donald Trump! Like King Lear howling on the heath, Britain and France have shown the world that the habits of Empire die hard.
The European plan was impotent from the start. It began with recognising a state of Palestine without preconditions, a measure that was announced with the notable absence of the Israeli delegation in the General Assembly.
Those familiar with the corridors of international diplomacy tell me that even the Arab states were hardly enthusiastic, knowing it was dead on arrival.
In the Middle East, your public stance, your private stance and your true feelings are often three different affairs. The Macron plan may have won superficial support from Arab leaders, but as he gazed down the length of his nose, the French Jupiter failed to spot the way they were shaking their heads as they smiled.
In omitting Israel and Hamas, this was a proposal with the audacity of an empire yet none of the power to back it up. It focused purely on showering the corrupt, authoritarian and anti-Semitic Palestinian Authority with goodies, followed by polite requests for reform.
What if, having got his recognition already, Mahmoud Abbas failed to change his spots? After all, his pledges in that direction have proven hollow many times in the past. What if he carried on, say, paying reward money to Palestinian terrorists?
“I will do such things, what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth!” howled Emmanuel Macron. Meanwhile, squatting at his side and scrutinising the domestic polls, Starmer muttered: “O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven.”
Of course, any plan emanating from Western leaders who have proven unable to distinguish between a democracy battling for survival and a jihadi regime using human sacrifice for propaganda would be rejected out of hand by Israel.
The fact that it was supposed to be enforced by the United Nations – which, with its “famine” and “genocide” hoaxes, has turned itself into a branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – raised nothing but mockery in Jerusalem.
These are people who have spent the last two years trying to enable an Israeli defeat. And these are people who have spent the last two years suffering the deaths of their sons on the front lines of the battle against jihadism. From her perch at the UN, Yvette Cooper warned Israel “not to retaliate”. How can these people even expect to be taken seriously?
Trump, by contrast, cut an altogether more convincing figure (things have come to a pretty pass when such sentences as those are required).
His proposal was not an example of neocolonial preening, designed for domestic audiences rather than the real world. For a start, both Arab leaders and the Israeli prime minister were on board, which catapulted it instantly into the realms of sanity.
Secondly, it placed the blame where the blame was due. If Hamas refused to accept the plan or abide by its terms, the Israeli army had Trump’s full backing to finish what the jiahdis had started. “This can be done the easy way or it can be done the hard way, but it will be done,” Benjamin Netanyahu vowed.
Unlike the cretinous European proposals, which relegated the release of the hostages to wishful thinking, it placed their plight in its rightful place at the centre. All of them – no ifs, no buts – must be released within 72 hours if a ceasefire was to ensue. Or else.
In addition, it made no commitment to the Palestinian Authority as the future governing body of the Strip. With good reason. The PA is run by a man who is currently enjoying the 21st year of his supposedly four-year term in office, and who has made apologies for Hitler as recently as 2023.
It offers cash handouts to those convicted of terror against Jews. It oversees an education system riddled with anti-Semitic incitement. It is corrupt to the core, with even a Palestinian opponent of the regime, the human rights campaigner Nizar Banat, beaten to death by PA goons a few years ago.
Even the health system is a mess. Near Hebron, there is a state-of-the-art hospital, built with aid money, that is barely used because local officials take kick-backs to refer patients to other facilities. In Ramallah, a cancer centre remains a hole in the ground as the funds seem to have vanished. (British taxpayer spending on the PA health system has totalled more than £200 million since 2008.)
The last time the PA was given territory, when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and handed it the keys, it was chased out by Hamas. The ultimate result was October 7.
So while the Europeans may insist on indulging their noble savage neuroses, the Trump plan has little intention of making the same mistake again.
One might argue that in crowning himself Emir of Gaza, with Tony Blair as his vizier, Trump is showing even greater delusions of grandeur than the pygmy colonialists of Europe. Fair enough.
Moreover, his temperament and proposals may be insufficient to solve one of the most intractable conflicts on Earth. Once again, fair enough.
One thing is certain, however. In its self-regarding and fantastical myopia, in its delusions of self-importance and empty claims to the moral high ground which favour only the denizens of jihad, Europe has never looked more pathetic, weaker or lost.
One problem, two solutions, and the contrast between them could not be starker. All hail Donald Trump! Like King Lear howling on the heath, Britain and France have shown the world that the habits of Empire die hard.
The European plan was impotent from the start. It began with recognising a state of Palestine without preconditions, a measure that was announced with the notable absence of the Israeli delegation in the General Assembly.
Those familiar with the corridors of international diplomacy tell me that even the Arab states were hardly enthusiastic, knowing it was dead on arrival.
In the Middle East, your public stance, your private stance and your true feelings are often three different affairs. The Macron plan may have won superficial support from Arab leaders, but as he gazed down the length of his nose, the French Jupiter failed to spot the way they were shaking their heads as they smiled.
In omitting Israel and Hamas, this was a proposal with the audacity of an empire yet none of the power to back it up. It focused purely on showering the corrupt, authoritarian and anti-Semitic Palestinian Authority with goodies, followed by polite requests for reform.
What if, having got his recognition already, Mahmoud Abbas failed to change his spots? After all, his pledges in that direction have proven hollow many times in the past. What if he carried on, say, paying reward money to Palestinian terrorists?
“I will do such things, what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth!” howled Emmanuel Macron. Meanwhile, squatting at his side and scrutinising the domestic polls, Starmer muttered: “O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven.”
Of course, any plan emanating from Western leaders who have proven unable to distinguish between a democracy battling for survival and a jihadi regime using human sacrifice for propaganda would be rejected out of hand by Israel.
The fact that it was supposed to be enforced by the United Nations – which, with its “famine” and “genocide” hoaxes, has turned itself into a branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – raised nothing but mockery in Jerusalem.
These are people who have spent the last two years trying to enable an Israeli defeat. And these are people who have spent the last two years suffering the deaths of their sons on the front lines of the battle against jihadism. From her perch at the UN, Yvette Cooper warned Israel “not to retaliate”. How can these people even expect to be taken seriously?
Trump, by contrast, cut an altogether more convincing figure (things have come to a pretty pass when such sentences as those are required).
His proposal was not an example of neocolonial preening, designed for domestic audiences rather than the real world. For a start, both Arab leaders and the Israeli prime minister were on board, which catapulted it instantly into the realms of sanity.
Secondly, it placed the blame where the blame was due. If Hamas refused to accept the plan or abide by its terms, the Israeli army had Trump’s full backing to finish what the jiahdis had started. “This can be done the easy way or it can be done the hard way, but it will be done,” Benjamin Netanyahu vowed.
Unlike the cretinous European proposals, which relegated the release of the hostages to wishful thinking, it placed their plight in its rightful place at the centre. All of them – no ifs, no buts – must be released within 72 hours if a ceasefire was to ensue. Or else.
In addition, it made no commitment to the Palestinian Authority as the future governing body of the Strip. With good reason. The PA is run by a man who is currently enjoying the 21st year of his supposedly four-year term in office, and who has made apologies for Hitler as recently as 2023.
It offers cash handouts to those convicted of terror against Jews. It oversees an education system riddled with anti-Semitic incitement. It is corrupt to the core, with even a Palestinian opponent of the regime, the human rights campaigner Nizar Banat, beaten to death by PA goons a few years ago.
Even the health system is a mess. Near Hebron, there is a state-of-the-art hospital, built with aid money, that is barely used because local officials take kick-backs to refer patients to other facilities. In Ramallah, a cancer centre remains a hole in the ground as the funds seem to have vanished. (British taxpayer spending on the PA health system has totalled more than £200 million since 2008.)
The last time the PA was given territory, when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and handed it the keys, it was chased out by Hamas. The ultimate result was October 7.
So while the Europeans may insist on indulging their noble savage neuroses, the Trump plan has little intention of making the same mistake again.
One might argue that in crowning himself Emir of Gaza, with Tony Blair as his vizier, Trump is showing even greater delusions of grandeur than the pygmy colonialists of Europe. Fair enough.
Moreover, his temperament and proposals may be insufficient to solve one of the most intractable conflicts on Earth. Once again, fair enough.
One thing is certain, however. In its self-regarding and fantastical myopia, in its delusions of self-importance and empty claims to the moral high ground which favour only the denizens of jihad, Europe has never looked more pathetic, weaker or lost.