Since October 7, 2023, there has been a significant increase in the number of people in the U.S. fighting for peace in the Middle East while actually contributing to the continuation of war. Demands for a cease-fire, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the creation of "two states for two peoples" are fueling, rather than extinguishing, conditions for war. Ceasefire and withdrawal mean the preservation of the Hamas terrorist organization and the perpetuation of the massacre, violence, and kidnapping of Jews. The demand for a Palestinian state means a military threat to Israel to its east, in addition to the threat to its existence from the south (Hamas) and the north (Hezb’allah). The October terror assault was made possible by the presence of heavily-armed terrorists near border towns and kibbutzim. The same proximity and the same danger will inevitably arise if a terrorist entity with the powers of a state emerges to the east of Israel. The Palestinian Authority breeds, nurtures, and supports anti-Israeli terrorists. Its transformation into a state would pose a threat to the citizens of Israel in its "border" cities with the Palestinian state, Netanya, Kfar Saba, Ra'anana, Afula and others. The carriers of "progressive" thinking consider a "humanitarian" cease-fire in Gaza far more important than ending Hamas' terror by destroying it. 

A growing number of Middle East "peacemakers" create mirages and encourage war under the slogans of making peace. Such mythologizing of reality, created according to the stereotypes of "progressive" thinking, is political self-deception. This approach to reality resembles the action of the poisonous tree Antiaris toxicaria, which poisons the air with its vapor, fatally intoxicating a person. Here is an example of such intoxication.

Before World War II, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, descending the ramp of a Munich-London plane on October 1, 1938, waved a precious paper cheerfully to the welcoming crowds. "I have brought peace for our generation." This historic paper, reflecting a phony peace treaty, was the agreement to give up Czechoslovakia to Hitler for the sake of a "lasting" peace in Europe. On October 5, 1938 Winston Churchill made a speech on this occasion in the House of Commons: "In essence, we were defeated without starting the war, and now the consequences of this defeat will long make themselves felt. [...] The whole former balance of power in Europe has been irreparably upset." The Munich Pact was a sham peace agreement that Britain and France sought at any cost, without considering the intentions of their negotiating partner.

After Chamberlain capitulated at Munich, influential voices called for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. On January 24, 1939, 12 members of the Swedish parliament nominated Chamberlain for the prize, asserting that Chamberlain "in these dangerous times has saved our part of the world from a terrible catastrophe." This was followed by a letter of support from the Nobel committee, signed by 18 officers of the U.S. Warriors Association in Chicago, saying Chamberlain was "the most outstanding statesman of modern times." Support for the nomination poured in from across the world: the Stockholm newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen (the Stockholm Times) wrote that awarding the Nobel to Chamberlain was warmly supported in all circles in Sweden and Norway; Le Figaro endorsed the idea and even suggested erecting a monument to honor "the modern savior of Europe"; and Mahmoud Pasha, prime minister of Egypt, wrote that Chamberlain, whose name "will go down in history as the statesman who saved civilization from destruction," was an ideal candidate for the prize.

Eleven months after the conclusion of the Munich Pact, Hitler launched World War II. The policy of "appeasement" pursued by the governments of England and France increased the appetite of the Nazis and encouraged them to make new conquests. Czechoslovakia fell due to the realization of the "right of self-determination" of the Sudeten Germans, which Hitler claimed was "the essence of the whole problem, of all European problems." The "problem" was not solved by the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia. Soon it took World War II, which included the realization of a plan to exterminate the Jewish people, to solve it.

The Palestinian movement for national self-determination, like that of the Sudeten Germans, is a movement that denies the right to self-determination of another people. It is a movement aimed at the destruction of the Jewish state. This thesis is the basis of the education of the young generation of Palestinian Arabs, in schools in which the territory of Palestine on educational geographical maps includes the entire territory of Israel, the land of Judenfrei (free of Jews).  A peace based on two states for two peoples cannot grow out of education in hatred of Israelis. The leitmotif of the Arab symphony of Jew-hatred is: one state for one people, a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people.

It is not the ratio of the number of states to the number of peoples that determines the peace and well-being of the region. Peace in the Middle East cannot prevail through political manipulation with the signing of agreements on the lawn of the White House without changing the hierarchy of moral values of the Arab side. Western politicians seek to solve Middle East conflicts lasting tens and hundreds of years in a businesslike and quick manner, through "negotiations" and "treaties." They act in the East as if they were in the West. Agatha Christie wrote in her memoirs, "In the Middle East, appearance and substance never coincide. Here habitual perceptions, rules of behavior, worldly wisdoms must be completely reconsidered and everything must be learned anew." Former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir formulated the conditions for peace:

"Peace in the Middle East will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews." The actions of Hamas, which has turned schools, kindergartens, mosques, and hospitals into terror centers and defends itself against the Israelis with human shields, show that peace in the Middle East is a myth. The myth of peace is coupled with the myth of the "Palestinian people."

The myth of the "Palestinian people" is functional and practical, as it is used for the operational purposes of destroying the Jewish state. In order to make the existence of the "Palestinian people" convincing, its representatives are given the mask of the Jewish people, "dispersed, persecuted, deprived of their homeland and exterminated" like the Jews. "Palestinians" are dressed up in the garb of persecuted Jews, and Jews are demonized as modern-day Nazis. The Holocaust is denied, and instead "Palestinians" are substituted for Jews in the propaganda formulas of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) borrowed from Holocaust history. Only Jewish involvement in the conflict guaranteed increased international attention and sympathy for the "suffering of the Palestinian people." This anti-Semitism has been skillfully used to fight Israel. Fighting the Zionists for the benefit of the "unfortunate Palestinian people" has elevated this "right-wing cause" to a high level of extremism that is less dangerously expressed toward Israelis than toward more popular nations.

In the words of the Roman historian Tacitus, "Bad peace is even worse than war." Feuds are no less rampant during phony peace than during real wars. The political myth of peace in the Middle East obscures the reality of the Palestinian terrorists' religious war against Israel and serves to manipulate mass consciousness. The claim that peace is possible between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs contradicts the reality of the religious war (jihad) that the Palestinian national movement has become. The massacre of October 7, dubbed the "Al-Aqsa Flood," betrays the religious nature of terror against Israel. According to American "progressives," achieving peace is real if you want it badly enough. However, in real life, in the words of Eric Cantor, "Peace at any price is not peace; it is surrender." The image of peace in Gaza as the highest value by "progressives" is the result of reflection in a crooked mirror.

Image: Apaimages