ED MORRISSEY: 19 Senate Dems: October 7 War a Perfect Moment for Palestinian Statehood.

This should surprise no one who actually pays attention to this conflict for more than a five-second attention span. The Palestinians have been offered this deal before, at least twice, and rejected it for the “armed struggle” instead. Bill Clinton gets a mention because he got Israel to go along with this same plan at Wye River, only to have Yasser Arafat throw it back in his face (and the Saudis, who helped push it) and declare an intifada instead.

The nineteen Senate Democrats offering this proposal operate in a fantasy world. The Palestinians don’t want two states. They want one state, “from the river to the sea,” and they want no Jews anywhere in it. They support Hamas because they believe Hamas will deliver that outcome.

That’s in large part because they think Hamas will win this war — and they’re basing that on past experience:

PCPSR director Khalil Shikaki attributed the support for Hamas’s control of Gaza after the war to a lack of viable alternatives, and noted that the responses appeared to dovetail with opinions on whether Hamas will win the war, which grew among  Gazans and fell among West Bank respondents.

Emphasis mine. Why do more Gazans now think Hamas will win? In part, because they see Israel’s allies attempting to force an outcome that will guarantee Hamas’ survival, but in larger part because those allies always force Israel to stop short of defeating Hamas. This isn’t irrational at all — this is a pattern over seventeen years, and it’s why Gazans can’t even consider alternatives to Hamas rule in Gaza. The West keeps protecting them in the end, which is a victory for Hamas, albeit Pyrrhic for the Gazans.

Read the whole thing.