Dr. Avi Perry is a former professor at Northwestern University, a former Bell Labs researcher and manager, and later served as Vice President at NMS Communications. He represented the United States on the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Standards Committee, where he authored significant portions of the G.168 standard. He is the author of the thriller novel 72 Virgins and a Cambridge University Press book on voice quality in wireless networks, and is a regular op-ed contributor to The Jerusalem Post and Israel National News.
European leaders have a favorite bedtime story. Whenever the Middle East flares up, they dust it off and recite it with solemn faces: “There must be a Palestinian state. Two states, living side by side in peace.”
It sounds noble. It sounds moral. It looks good in a press release. But like all fairy tales, it collapses the moment you step into the real world. The problem is not the idea of peace — it’s the delusion that Europe’s plan could ever deliver it.
Let’s walk through why Europe clings to this dream, why it makes no sense, why their hypocrisy is obvious, and how their posturing can and should be exposed.
1. Why Do European Leaders Favor a Palestinian Arab State?
Because it’s politics on the cheap. Because it costs nothing. Because it wins applause.
- Virtue signaling. For Europe, "Palestine" is the ultimate selfie filter. A leader waves the Palestinian flag and instantly looks righteous. They get to pose as defenders of justice without taking any responsibility for the consequences.
- Domestic politics. Many European countries have large Muslim populations whose votes matter. Calling for Palestinian Arab statehood pleases them, while most other voters don’t care enough to object.
- Global relevance. Europe has lost real weight in global affairs. The U.S. dominates, China rises, Arab Gulf states make deals, and Europe is left out. By pushing "Palestine", they pretend they are still “major players.”
- Distraction. It draws attention away from their own crises: immigration chaos, terrorism in their cities, stagnant economies, energy dependence. "Palestine" is their diversionary theater.
In short: European leaders chant “Palestinian state” not because they believe it will happen, but because it makes them look important while solving nothing.
2. Why Does It Not Make Sense? The Devil Is in the Details
Europe loves sweeping slogans. But states are not built on slogans — they’re built on institutions, security, borders, and reality. And the reality here is ugly.
- Leadership. Who exactly would govern this state? Hamas? Their charter calls for Israel’s destruction. The Palestinian Authority? Corrupt, weak, and despised by its own people. A unity government? Oil and water have a better chance of mixing. Europe waves this away, but without credible leadership, the “state” would be a failed state on day one.
- Security. Every Israeli withdrawal ends in disaster. From Lebanon in 2000 to Gaza in 2005, terrorists moved in, rockets followed, and Israelis paid the price. A Palestinian Arab state in the "West Bank" would put Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, and Israel’s coastal strip under daily threat. Europe’s answer? UN peacekeepers. Yes, the same blue helmets who couldn’t protect Srebrenica. That’s not security — that’s stand-up comedy.
- Borders and Settlements. Over half a million Israelis live beyond the Green Line. Should they be uprooted en masse? Left under Palestinian Arab rule? Either option is explosive. Europe pretends this can be solved with a pen stroke. In reality, it’s a social earthquake.
- Jerusalem. Europeans think you can just divide the city with a ruler, as though it were a cake at a birthday party. But Jerusalem is not real estate — it’s history, religion, and emotion condensed into stone. Slice it the wrong way and the whole region ignites.
- Refugees and the “Right of Return.” Palestinian Arabs demand the “return” of millions of descendants of 1948 refugees. That would erase Israel as a Jewish state. Europeans quietly ignore this demand because it reveals the truth: their dream is demographic suicide disguised as human rights.
The devil isn’t in the details. The devil is the details. And every one of those details makes the fantasy a nightmare.
3. Don’t They See Their Naivete Will Be Exposed?
Of course they do. Most European leaders are not naive — they’re cynical. They know this “solution” won’t work. They know the details are impossible. But politically, the fantasy works for them.
- It buys them applause at home.
- It gives them a stick to beat Israel with when nothing changes.
- It allows them to look like peacemakers without lifting a finger.
Meanwhile, the real Middle East has already moved on. The Abraham Accords proved peace with Arab states does not depend on solving the Palestinian Arab issue. Trade, technology, and alliances are thriving without Europe’s fairy tale.
Europe is stuck in 1975, peddling a fantasy no one buys anymore. A policy with a 0% success rate over 75 years is not a strategy. It’s a punchline.
4. How Can We Expose Them and Make a Mockery of Their Deception?
By forcing reality into their rhetoric — and by ridiculing the absurdity of their double standards.
- Highlight hypocrisy. Would France tolerate rockets from Normandy if a militia seized it? Would Spain shrug off daily terror from Catalonia? Of course not. Yet they demand Israel accept what they never would.
- Expose failures at home. Europe can’t integrate a few million migrants without riots and terror. Yet they claim Israel should live peacefully next to a hostile armed neighbor. That’s like asking a drowning man to give swimming lessons.
- Show the theatrics. For European leaders, Palestine is not policy. It’s stagecraft. A way to look virtuous while their own societies crack at the seams.
- Mock mercilessly.
- Europe thinks peace is like IKEA: just ship the box, follow the sketch, and it will assemble itself.
- The EU’s Middle East policy is the only product with a 0% success rate that they keep rebranding as “new and improved.”
- Their strategy is the foreign-policy version of Windows Vista: it crashes every time, but they keep reinstalling it.
- They want Israel to trust UN peacekeepers — the same people who need peacekeepers to protect their peacekeepers.
Mockery matters because it strips away the one thing these leaders cling to: the illusion of moral authority. Once exposed as posturing, they stand naked, and the world laughs.
Conclusion: The Toy Train Set
European leaders like to imagine themselves as visionaries guiding the Middle East to peace. In reality, they’re children with toy train sets, convinced that if they push the toy hard enough, it will become real.
But the Middle East isn’t a playroom. It’s life and death. And in life and death, fantasies kill.
History will not remember Europe as the savior that solved the conflict. It will remember them as the clowns who peddled an IKEA peace plan that never came out of the box.
A Palestinian state built from IKEA parts won’t stand. But Europe’s obsession with it? That will stand forever — as the punchline of global diplomacy.