If you missed Thursday’s Hot Takes Happy Hour with
and me, do yourself a favor and watch the replay here. We had one of those conversations that reminds you why nuanced debate still matters in a world obsessed with picking teams.Dany and I agree on most things, but Gaza? That's where it gets thornier – and where things get interesting. We can have a heated discussion about Israeli policy, Palestinian statehood, and the mess of Middle East diplomacy without questioning each other's moral credentials or storming off in a huff. Revolutionary concept, I know.
What makes our dynamic work is something increasingly rare in foreign policy discourse: We actually listen to each other. I hear where Dany's coming from, even when I think she's wrong on the details. She extends the same courtesy to me, even when she's rolling her eyes at my arguments. It's called disagreeing without being disagreeable – a lost art in the age of Twitter takedowns and cable news shouting matches.
The Gaza debate exemplifies everything wrong with how we discuss foreign policy, and politics in general, today: The death of nuance. You're supposed to pick a side and plant your flag: Team Israel or Team Palestine, with no room for the messy middle ground where most reasonable people actually live. But the real world doesn't operate in Twitter-sized moral absolutes, and neither should serious policy discussions.
Which brings me to this week's UN conference and the recognition circus that followed…
This week's UN conference on Palestinian statehood produced all the expected diplomatic theater: soaring speeches about justice, carefully choreographed recognition announcements, and the familiar pageantry of international moral positioning.
The conference unfolded against the backdrop of reports, and a new assessment by the world's leading body on hunger, that the worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in the Gaza Strip – a humanitarian catastrophe that Israel insists isn't happening while the rest of the world watches emaciated children on their news feeds. Originally scheduled for two days, organizers had to tack on a third day because apparently everyone and their diplomatic cousin wanted a turn at the microphone.
The symbolism of the some 125 UN members attending a conference on Palestinian statehood was unmistakable – and profoundly disconnected from reality. These weren't lifelines thrown to drowning Palestinians; they were paper boats launched into a hurricane.
As I wrote last week, I believe in the creation of a Palestinian state living alongside Israel in peace and security. The brutal reality is that recognition doesn't get them there. It doesn't create the institutions necessary for statehood, build hospitals or schools, or develop functioning governments. Most importantly, it doesn’t feed starving children. What it does do is give Israeli hardliners ammunition to argue that the international community rewards terrorism, potentially pushing any real Palestinian state even further into the distance.
The death of nuance in foreign policy discourse means we're supposed to pick sides: Either you support Palestinian statehood or you don't. Either you condemn Hamas or you're anti-Palestinian. Either you criticize Israel or you're complicit in genocide. This binary thinking is precisely what perpetuates conflicts rather than resolving them.
The reality is messier and more hopeful than the Twitter debates suggest. Israel has legitimate security concerns that won't disappear with recognition ceremonies. Palestinians have legitimate aspirations for statehood that won't be fulfilled through European parliamentary votes. And Arab states have finally accepted the uncomfortable truth that Hamas is an obstacle to Palestinian aspirations, not their champion.
This is what got lost in all the breathless coverage of moral virtue signaling: The truly remarkable development from this week's UN conference wasn't the predictable recognition parade. It was something far more significant that barely registered in the headlines.
For the first time in history, the world's Arab countries joined unanimously in calling for Hamas to lay down its weapons, release all hostages, and end its rule of Gaza. The 22-nation Arab League – including countries that have hosted Hamas leaders and mediated on their behalf – endorsed a declaration condemning the October 7 attacks and demanding Hamas disarm as a condition for Palestinian statehood.
Let that sink in for a moment. Qatar, which hosts Hamas's political office, signed on. Countries across the region that have long maintained working relationships with the group essentially told Hamas: Your time is up.
This wasn't some hastily drafted statement. It was the product of months of painstaking work by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to create what they call "the conditions for a Palestinian state" – detailed working groups on governance, security arrangements, and stabilization missions. Real diplomatic architecture, not hashtag activism.
In three decades covering the Middle East, I can’t recall a similar declaration from Arab states. Even those who might sympathize with armed resistance recognize that Hamas must be eliminated militarily and politically for the West to be fully engaged in ending the occupation.
This represents a fundamental shift in regional dynamics that the recognition crowd completely missed. When Qatar – Hamas's primary patron – signs a declaration calling for the group's disarmament, that's a seismic development. When Saudi Arabia spends months crafting detailed governance proposals rather than just demanding statehood, that's serious diplomacy.
The seven-page “New York Declaration” envisions something resembling actual statehood: the Palestinian Authority governing all Palestinian territory, backed by "a temporary international stabilization mission" under UN auspices. It's a roadmap that acknowledges the messy realities of post-conflict governance rather than the clean lines of diplomatic recognition.
Hamas's response? A masterclass in missing the point. The group welcomed "any effort" to support Palestinian rights while demanding "unconditional international recognition" and pointedly avoiding any commitment to disarm. Classic Hamas: Take the praise, ignore the accountability.
Which brings me to the uncomfortable truth that nobody wants to acknowledge: Several things can simultaneously be true. Hamas bears responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in, AND Israel is the military power in Gaza with the ability to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. Expecting Hamas – a terrorist organization that has never demonstrated concern for Palestinian welfare – to suddenly prioritize civilian lives is a fool's errand. You can’t call yourself a democracy that abides by international law on one hand and hold yourself to a different standard: principles and values are only meaningful when they are inconvenient.
Moreover, its time for Israelis to realize that continuing this war isn't helping Israel. We've entered the realm of diminishing returns, where each additional day of conflict costs more in international legitimacy than it gains in security. Even Israeli analysts are calling the resumed campaign a "total failure" that has achieved none of its stated objectives while turning allies into critics.
The smarter play? End the war, flood Gaza with aid, and let the Arab League's unprecedented consensus work. When Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are all telling Hamas to disarm, that's not European colonialism or Western imperialism talking – that's the neighborhood association laying down the law.
But recognizing a Palestinian state as punishment for Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe? That's virtue signaling masquerading as diplomacy. It brings the war no closer to an end and Palestinians no closer to actual statehood. If anything, it reinforces that symbolic gestures matter more than grinding diplomatic work. More importantly, it signals that Hamas' brutal October 7 attack bore fruit.
The path forward isn't through empty gestures from Paris or London. It's through the hard work of building actual institutions, creating security arrangements that work for all parties, and developing economic frameworks that give Palestinians something to build rather than just something to resist.
That doesn't mean Israel gets a free pass to continue policies that make peace impossible. Settlement expansion, restrictions on Palestinian movement, and the systematic destruction of Palestinian institutions all undermine the very governance structures that any future state would need. But it also doesn't mean that symbolic recognition from distant capitals creates facts on the ground.
The Arab League's declaration offers something far more valuable than European virtue signaling: regional legitimacy for a post-Hamas future. When Palestinians' own neighbors are saying Hamas must go, that carries weight that no UN resolution ever could.
The question now is whether the international community will support this regional consensus with the kind of sustained diplomatic and economic engagement that actually builds states – or whether we'll continue settling for symbolic gestures that make Western leaders feel better while accomplishing zero for the people they claim to support.
After decades of failed peace processes, maybe it's time to try something different: Less moral preening, more practical diplomacy. Less theater, more institution building. The Palestinian people deserve better than paper boats in a hurricane. They deserve partners willing to do the hard work of actually building a state, not just recognizing one that doesn't yet exist.
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