THE END OF PALESTINE? Martin Peretz's excellent article, Is This the End of Palestine? concludes:

Would that there were a mature national will among the Palestinians. It might even be able to temper the rage of the Arabs against one another. Not until their sense of peoplehood conquers their rage against one another will they be in the psychological position to think of peace with Israel. I doubt this will happen any time soon. This is the end of Palestine, the bitter end.

In Who Killed Palestine? Bret Stephens likewise concludes:

What does this mean for the future? At yesterday's summit in Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah threw rose petals at Mr. Abbas's feet. But the potentates of the Middle East will not midwife into existence a state the chief political movement of which has claims to both democratic and Islamist legitimacy. The U.S. and Israel will never bless Hamastan (even if the EU and the U.N. come around to it) and they can only do so much for the feckless Mr. Abbas. "Palestine," as we know it today, will revert to what it was--shadowland between Israel and its neighbors--and Palestinians, as we know them today, will revert to who they were: Arabs.

Whether there might have been a better outcome is anyone's guess. But the dream that was Palestine is finally dead.

But isn't that the point--that all it takes is the recognition of the UN to lend legitimacy to Gaza as a Palestinian state (and how hard could that be). Sure, the dream of a Palestinian state may be dead, but the idea of a Palestinian state--a nation for the Palestinian people--was a myth to begin with. What is really stopping Hamas from establishing an Islamic state in Gaza--even as various countries trip all over each other in the rush to create a secular Palestinian state in the West Bank?

Included in the myth of a Palestinian state is the fantasy that the establishment of such a state will bring peace and stability to the region.

And that dream is not dying so fast.

UPDATE: Mario Loyola agrees with Stephens:

When Palestinians voted for Hamas, they chose war over statehood; resistance over peaceful coexistence; and self-destruction over progress. And why did they do that? Maybe Golda Meier was right: Maybe these people simply hate the Jews more than they love anything, even their own children. In any case, the dream of Palestinian statehood is dying; and the Palestinians themselves are killing it.

Another point he makes is the type that bothers me:

The reason so many of us were quietly happy to see Hamas win an election among the Palestinians was that the Palestinian terrorists would not longer be able to hide behind the myth of a victimized people yearning for freedom and peace. Finally, the people had openly chosen terrorism and war in a free and fair election, and their leaders would no longer be able to claim one set of objectives before the world, and another before their people.

This kind of comment assumes that there is a solid core group out there that is not taken in by Palestinian PR and the media as a whole. Well, he did say "quietly happy"--maybe that's the problem.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Fatah and Hamas and Palestine and Bret Stephens and Martin Peretz.