A Masterful Review of Robert Spencer's Book "The Palestinian Delusion"

Dr. Anjuli Pandavar's detailed review of Robert Spencer's 2019 book The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process should be required reading for politicians, media members, college students, and anyone who publicly opines about the Middle East. Contrary to the Orwellian-style cancel culture that has become prevalent in the media and on U.S. college campuses, it is not "Islamophobic" to state the truth about the religious theology underpinning the actions of Iran and her terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas' Charter is easy to find online, and it describes in great detail Hamas' inspirations and goals. It is just as easy to find Hezbollah's foundational documents and underlying ideological imperatives, here quoted in pertinent part and expressing the same goals that Hamas has (emphasis added):

Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no ceasefire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.

After reading the primary source material, it is clear that one has to be either woefully uninformed or antisemitic to pressure Israel to negotiate a ceasefire with an enemy whose sworn purpose is to destroy Israel and who explicitly refuses to recognize any treaty or cease fire with Israel. The reader may accordingly draw appropriate conclusions about President Biden, Vice President Harris, various international leaders, the college professors/college students who chant "Free Palestine," and many media outlets that distort historical truth to promote a preferred narrative.

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Pandavar's review: 

The "delusion" in the title refers to multiple delusions: that of a Palestinian nation; that the "Arab-Israeli conflict" is a simple struggle over land; that the so-called "peace process" is a series of negotiations; that Judea and Samaria — what the Jordanians dubbed "The West Bank" during their occupation — and Gaza (and the Golan Heights) are "occupied territories"; and that the Muslim Arabs are the wronged party. Along the way, many lesser and shorter-lived delusions are referred to, both directly and indirectly...

The United Nations and its agencies come in for a well-deserved pummelling in The Palestinian Delusion, for they are shown to be little more than instruments of jihad, right down to the inculcation of Jew-hatred in the Muslim children in UN schools, and those children's early indoctrination into aspiring to be jihad mass murderers. A child in a UN school shares his endearing aspirations: "Stabbing and running over Jews brings dignity to the Palestinians. I'm going to run them over and stab them with knives." If The Palestinian Delusion has one loud and clear message, it is Get real!

The blatant, relentless and ritualistic discrimination against and legal abuse of Israel at the United Nations are also thoroughly treated, not least the outrageous "inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war," contrived especially for Israel after it drove Jordanian troops back out of Judea and Samaria, Egyptian troops back out of Gaza (and all the way across the Suez Canal) and Syrian troops off the Golan Heights, after these countries' aggressive war of 1967, intent on wiping out Israel.

It has been a basic principle ever since men made war, that if an aggressor loses a war, that aggressor loses such territory as the victim had managed to conquer from it. The book makes clear that it is the first time ever that it is demanded of a country attacked that it returns territory conquered from aggressors in self-defence. Of course, should Israel accept this ridiculous and suicidal principle, any of its many hostile neighbours will have every incentive to try again next year in the full knowledge that they will never lose territory, and the old Islamic pattern of annual jihad war will be restored. The Palestinian Delusion strengthens the view that the United Nations has outlived its original purpose. That is putting it mildly.

Pressuring Israel to agree to a cease fire that her enemies have no intention of honoring is a recipe for disaster and suffering, not a blueprint for peace. What is the solution? The solution is not a reality that Leftists want to face, but one that Israel's enemies fear: Israel fighting until complete victory is obtained, thus denying her enemies the opportunity to keep contesting limited liability wars in which Arab/Muslim conquests are permanent but Israeli victories are temporary advances immediately wiped out by international pressure or voluntary Israeli concessions. Israel has tried "Land for Peace" since the 1978 Camp David Accords, and the result has been that Israel gave up a lot of land but obtained very little peace.

Dr. Pandavar concludes:

The key to success of Israeli military force is permanent insecurity for Arab Muslims, the only condition that Islam recognises as a valid excuse for suspending jihad. The surest way of accomplishing such permanent insecurity is by Arab Muslims permanently losing territory every time they attack Israel. The entire point of jihad is the violent subjugation of the entire world "until all religion is for Allah." Every part of the earth that is now subjugated, or was once subjugated, is "Muslim land" and the greatest humiliation for those on jihad is to lose Muslim land. Humiliation equals defeat. This is why those advocating for Israel annexing and Jews closely settling Gaza and Judea and Samaria are correct.

Leftists will scream that this smacks of racism, nationalism, or some other "ism" that they have determined to be inimical to human progress--and Islamists will applaud the bleatings of their useful idiots--but decades of Mideast history have illustrated the key to success, if Israel is brave enough to take it. It is important to understand and acknowledge the extent to which the concepts of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-harb (see the fourth article in Further Reading for more details) drive the actions of Israel's enemies. "Land for Peace," "Two State Solution," and "Free Palestine" are propaganda slogans that have no relevance regarding the Mideast, because the root cause of the conflict is the fundamental Islamic precept that non-Muslims must be subjugated, driven out, or killed. That is a brutal reality that many people refuse to face, but refusing to face reality does not change reality.

Further Reading: 

Professor Louis Rene Beres Lucidly Explains Why Israel's Justified Military Responses Are Not Terrorism Even if Civilians Are Killed (September 21, 2024)

Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism (September 18, 2024)

Anti-Zionism is Indistinguishable From Antisemitism Because Israel is the Jewish Homeland (January 5, 2024)

Israel, Hamas, and the Islamic Concepts Dar al-Islam Versus Dar al-harb (October 11, 2023)

The Implications of Hamas' Surprise Attack Against Israel (October 7, 2023) 

Israel's Ongoing Oslo Accords Folly (September 28, 2023)

The Fear and Shame at the Heart of Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism (February 17, 2021)

Reflections on the 95th Anniversary of the San Remo Conference

In April 1920--95 years ago last month--representatives from Great Britain, Italy, France and Japan met in San Remo, Italy to finalize the boundaries of territories captured by the Allied forces in World War I. The United States attended the conference as a neutral observer. At the San Remo Conference, the Allies reaffirmed the promises made by Great Britain in the 1917 Balfour Declaration, namely that "a national home for the Jewish people" should be established in Palestine and that in doing so "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other county."

It is important to understand that the geographical entity Palestine--there was not then, nor has there ever been, a sovereign country with that name--consisted of the areas now known as Jordan, Israel, Judea/Samaria and Gaza. Palestine was largely uninhabited and almost completely undeveloped agriculturally, economically and industrially. The Jewish people were the last people to create an independent nation there, but that nation--like many others--was conquered by the Roman Empire and then subsequently ruled by a number of other empires. None of those conquerors valued the area for anything other than its strategic importance as a land bridge between Africa and Asia; no regional capitals or significant cities were established by anyone after Rome quelled the third and final Jewish Revolt (132-135 C.E.). For nearly two millenia, the Jewish people dreamed--and prayed daily--to return to their homeland and rebuild an independent state. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire during World War I made it possible to create several independent Arab states and one independent Jewish state in the Mideast.

Three delegations--two Arab and one Jewish (there was no "Palestinian" delegation because Palestine was a geographical designation only)--made presentations at the San Remo Conference. The two Arab delegations focused on the fates of the territories that ultimately became the nations of Syria and Lebanon, while the Jewish delegation wanted to ensure that the Balfour Declaration would be honored. No one objected to the idea of recreating a Jewish State in Palestine and so the San Remo Conference voted unanimously to do so, a decision that was also ratified by the 51 members of the League of Nations. Thus was created a binding obligation under international law.

The British Empire--which was granted trusteeship over the Palestine Mandate until such time as a Jewish State was created there--reneged on their promises and the terms ratified by the San Remo Conference. The British illegally partitioned the Palestine Mandate, slicing off 80% of the territory to create what later became known as Jordan. The remaining portion of Palestine was further partitioned by the United Nations in 1947 after the British abandoned the Palestine Mandate. The Jewish residents of Palestine accepted this partition and built the modern State of Israel, while the surrounding Arab nations--already granted independence--rejected the partition and vowed to destroy the young Jewish State. Israel survived the Arab attempt at genocide, committed in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust that decimated European Jewry, and to this day remains the only fully functioning democratic state in the region. The Arab nations could have taken in Arab refugees, much like Israel took in the Jewish refugees who were expelled from or fled Arab countries, but instead the Arab nations decided to keep the Arab refugees in camps to use as propaganda pawns, a practice that continues to this day.

Israel is the only Mideastern country where Arabs can vote in free elections, where women and minorities enjoy full rights and where the economy is not completely controlled by a dictatorship or monarchy. Israel made the desert bloom, Israel has made numerous contributions in the fields of science, medicine and technology and Israel has often extended her hand (and her resources) to help countries that are less fortunate and/or have been beset by natural disasters.

Israel was created under the tenets of international law (including the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo Conference), she has survived repeated attempts by her neighbors to annihilate her and she has made many positive contributions to the international community. Israel has repeatedly given up "land for peace" (including the Sinai Desert, Gaza and portions of Judea/Samaria) only to see those gestures answered by terrorist attacks and calls for Israel's destruction.

The terror and mayhem spreading throughout the Mideast now has nothing to do with Israel. If Israel disappeared today, the violence, death and destruction would continue tomorrow unabated. Yet, some people insist that all of the region's problems would be solved if Israel gave up more land and made herself more vulnerable. Look at a map of the Mideast. You need a magnifying glass to find Israel. Read the international law preceding Israel's creation. Read the long history of brutal Arab and Muslim attacks against Jews, Christians and other minorities in the region. Then ask yourself what really motivates those people who insist that the existence of one tiny, democratic, country within a region otherwise consisting of large, undemocratic Arab/Muslim countries is the main source of discontent, anger and violence?