In the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, European countries cast aside Oslo Accords-era commitments to demand Palestinians cease terrorism as a precondition to independence. When Western diplomats condemned Israel for its counterterrorism operations against Hamas, they did not question what it meant that Hamas had siphoned off billions of dollars in assistance to build the world’s most extensive terrorist tunnel network or a military industry superior to countries many times its size.

Nor do polls give much hope for peace this generation as decades of U.N.-funded incitement in schoolbooks have increased Palestinian Jew hatred and rejectionism. By any measure, an independent Palestine would be a failed state on par with South Sudan, the world’s newest state, in terms of corruption and violence.