The pronouncements to recognize Palestine statehood coming from French President Macron and United Kingdom Prime Minister seem entirely inconsistent with the primary aim they pitched as the outcome: the two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian Conflict. That their positions have drawn endorsements from Canada, praise from Australia, Portugal, and hints of approval from Germany invite the kind of parody composed by the late Tom Lehrer: ‘Who’s Next’? Apparently, the answer is Slovenia. The country announced it would neither purchase nor sell weapons to Israel despite the absence of even a trace of past or current military transactions between the two countries.

The assumption that imposing strictures on the country waging war against Hamas, the movement determined to eradicate the idea of two states for two peoples, defies logic. That these official statements are blessed by Hamas leaders and denounced by Israel’s government is all that is needed to know about what such linguistic political bromides can deliver. Adding, almost as an afterthought, a call for the release of hostages and an expectation that Hamas will have no role in the future governing of Gaza only thickens the level of deception and faulty reasoning that actually fit neatly into a template distilled from the pattern laid down in earlier Israeli-Gaza wars–from 2008-09 to 2012, 2014, 2021: past clashes stopped by international mediation because of the........

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