In a tweet both searing and succinct, Israeli intellectual and former MK Dr. Einat Wilf captured the absurd paradox at the heart of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: “Is Palestine a state for the purpose of assuming responsibility for attacking and attempting genocide against Israel? No. Is Palestine a state for the purpose of attacking Israel in international bodies? Yes.”
This “Schrödinger’s Palestine” — simultaneously a state and not a state depending on what is most politically expedient — is not merely a rhetorical flourish. It is a reflection of the deep-rooted inconsistencies and contradictions that have prevented the resolution of this conflict for decades. These inconsistencies are not incidental. They are central to the Palestinian political strategy and to the way much of the international community engages with it.
If we are serious about peace (real, enduring peace) then we must confront the dangerous flexibility with which the Palestinian cause is treated. Statehood cannot be a revolving door: evoked when it benefits, denied when it burdens. Recognition must come with responsibility. And accountability must accompany agency.
The Palestinian Authority: A State When Convenient
Since 2012, “Palestine” has enjoyed non-member observer state status at the United Nations. It has joined multiple UN agencies, signed international treaties, and even acceded to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It presents itself as a sovereign nation, capable of pressing legal claims against Israel and representing “its people” in global forums.
And yet, when asked to behave as a state — particularly in matters of peace, diplomacy, or accountability — the Palestinian leadership retreats into the language of victimhood and powerlessness. The Palestinian Authority (PA) insists that it cannot disarm terrorist factions, cannot stop incitement, cannot reform textbooks, and cannot negotiate unless every precondition is met and every Israeli action reversed.
This is not how responsible states behave. This is how movements behave — specifically, movements that do not yet accept that their war is over.
Weaponised Statelessness
The oscillation between “statehood” and “statelessness” is not accidental. It is strategic.
By claiming to be a state, the Palestinian leadership seeks legitimacy, legal leverage, and international recognition. But by insisting on being stateless, it deflects responsibility, avoids accountability, and preserves the image of a powerless underdog.
This is most evident in the international legal arena. At the ICC, the PA pushes for war crimes charges against Israeli officials, despite the fact that:
- It does not control a defined territory (Gaza is ruled by Hamas),
- It has not held elections in nearly two decades,
- It lacks the internal capacity to investigate or prosecute war crimes,
- And it routinely glorifies violence against civilians.
No other aspiring state is allowed to operate in this liminal zone — benefiting from state-like privileges while disavowing state-like obligations.
The Perpetual Refugeehood Farce
Dr. Wilf also highlights another dangerous fiction: the myth of perpetual Palestinian refugeehood. Unlike every other displaced population in the aftermath of World War II, Palestinians are the only group whose refugee status is inherited indefinitely, thanks to the unique structure of UNRWA, the UN agency created solely for them.
Today, over 5 million people are classified as “Palestinian refugees,” many of whom are citizens of other countries or residents of the Palestinian territories themselves. This is a political distortion, not a humanitarian one.
At the heart of this lie is the so-called “right of return” — the demand that millions of descendants of 1948 refugees be permitted to settle inside the State of Israel. This is not a policy for peace; it is a policy for demographic warfare. It aims not to create a Palestinian state beside Israel, but to end the Jewish state altogether.
So long as this claim remains central to Palestinian political identity, peace remains impossible. No nation can be expected to negotiate its own national erasure.
The Ideology Problem: De-Nazification as a Precedent
Dr. Wilf’s analogy to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan is deliberately provocative, but it is historically and politically instructive. After World War II, both defeated regimes were not merely disarmed. They were ideologically restructured. The ideologies that fuelled genocide, conquest, and racial supremacy were discredited, dismantled, and legally proscribed.
Today, both are democratic allies of the liberal world order.
No such process has occurred in Palestinian society. On the contrary:
- Hamas’s charter still calls for Israel’s destruction and incorporates antisemitic conspiracy theories.
- Palestinian Authority institutions name schools, streets, and sports tournaments after terrorists.
- Children’s television programmes glorify martyrdom.
- Palestinian textbooks erase Israel from maps, deny Jewish historical ties to the land, and frame Jews as enemies.
This is not simply bad messaging. It is an entrenched ideology of rejectionism. And until that ideology is confronted and reformed, no amount of diplomacy will produce peace.
What Recognition Should Mean
Palestinian statehood is not a right to be bestowed without conditions. It is a responsibility to be earned.
Recognition should be contingent on:
- An explicit end to claims of return to Israel.
- Acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
- Dismantling of all institutions that glorify violence and promote antisemitism.
- Renunciation of terrorism, in practice and in doctrine.
- Reform of educational systems to promote coexistence, not conflict.
Only when these conditions are met can Palestine move from being a political abstraction (invoked when convenient) to a real, responsible member of the international community.
Toward True Peace
The enduring tragedy of this conflict is not that Palestinians lack a state. It is that they have repeatedly chosen rejection over resolution. In 1947, 2000, 2008, and again in 2020 under the Abraham Accords framework, opportunities for statehood were offered. Each time, Palestinian leaders walked away.
Why? Because peace would require accepting that the Jewish state is permanent, legitimate, and here to stay.
Dr. Wilf is right: only when the Palestinian national movement surrenders its foundational commitment to Israel’s destruction can true peace emerge. That peace must be built not on ambiguous slogans or legal theatre, but on ideological transformation and narrative honesty.
Schrödinger’s Palestine cannot endure forever. Sooner or later, it must choose: be a responsible state — or remain a perpetual cause.
