Danger ahead: What the West Bank’s red signs say about peace

From murdered motorists in Huwara to the Palestinian Authority’s vow of a Jew-free state, the message is clear: Coexistence cannot begin where exclusion is policy.

Drive through Judea and Samaria, and you’ll see them everywhere: bright-red signs warning Israelis in three languages that entering a Palestinian Authority town is “forbidden, dangerous to your lives and against Israeli law.”

Imagine, for a moment, an American community posting a sign that says, “Italians entering do so at their own risk.” The outrage would be swift and universal. Yet in Israel’s biblical heartland, such warnings are a routine part of the landscape.

Wikimedia Commons

These signs exist because they must. They reflect a reality that no peace process slogan can obscure: Israelis who cross into P.A.-controlled areas risk their lives.

The danger isn’t theoretical. In August 2023, a father and son from Ashdod were murdered in Huwara while waiting for their car to be serviced. Hamas proudly claimed responsibility. Just months earlier, two brothers, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv were shot dead in the same town. Across Judea and Samaria, Israeli drivers are routinely pelted with rocks, concrete blocks and Molotov cocktails as they travel along Route 60, the region’s main north-south artery.

These attacks aren’t random crimes. They’re part of a pattern of tolerated violence, celebrated in Palestinian social media and rewarded by the P.A.’s “pay-for-slay” stipends—monthly salaries to terrorists and their families. When killers are glorified and subsidized, no one should be surprised that hatred thrives. The P.A.’s leaders have said openly what many of their supporters believe: a future Palestinian state should be Judenrein, or “free of Jews.”

In 2013, chief negotiator Saeb Erekat insisted that not a single Israeli would be permitted to live in a Palestinian state. In 2019, current P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas repeated that pledge, declaring that “not one Israeli” would remain.

In any other context, the promise of an ethnic-cleansing policy would trigger international condemnation. In the Palestinian context, it’s shrugged off as political rhetoric. Yet it explains why those red warning signs exist—not because Israelis want segregation but because Palestinian leadership embraces exclusion.

Meanwhile, the P.A.’s textbooks continue to erase Israel from maps and glorify “martyrs.” The result is a generation raised to believe that Jews are intruders to be resisted, not neighbors to be respected.

Israel’s critics call the current system unequal. They’re right, but they’re looking in the wrong direction.

Palestinians enter Israeli cities daily—for work, medical care, shopping—without fear. No Israeli town posts signs warning Arabs that their lives are in danger. And when extremists tried to put up such a sign in the Jewish community of Yitzhar in 2020, Israeli authorities removed it immediately, denouncing it as racist.

The contrast couldn’t be clearer: Jews who stray into Palestinian towns risk their lives. Palestinians who enter Jewish towns go home safely. That’s not a political imbalance. It’s a moral one.

The red signs at Palestinian town entrances are more than traffic warnings; they are monuments to a worldview that still defines peace as the absence of Jews.

For decades, Israel has been told that peace will come when the Palestinians achieve statehood. But what kind of state bars Jews by law? What message does it send when “coexistence” means Jews stay out—or else?

If Palestinian leaders truly sought peace, then they would prepare their people to live alongside Israelis, not without them. They would dismantle the culture of martyrdom, end the stipends to terrorists, and teach children that Jews are part of the region’s history and future.

Until then, those red signs will continue to mark more than borders. They mark a moral divide—between a society that protects its neighbors and one that glorifies their murder.

This post and others by Stephen M. Flatow can be read online here.

Manchester’s Yom Kippur Attack and Britain’s Dangerous Drift

The Manchester synagogue attack wasn’t random. Britain’s refusal to confront radicalization, unchecked migration, and antisemitic street culture has left its Jews vulnerable — and exposed the failure of moral clarity in its politics.

A Quiet Yom Kippur Shattered

There’s a particular stillness to Yom Kippur afternoon — a quiet so deep that even the air feels heavy. That stillness was broken in Manchester this year when a terrorist rammed his car into worshippers leaving the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, then attacked with a knife. Two Jews were murdered, several others were wounded, and an entire community was left shaken.

Basateen, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

For British Jews, it was a moment of horror — but for many, sadly, not of surprise. The attack was not a random act of hatred. It was the latest, most violent symptom of something Britain has refused to confront: the slow decay of moral boundaries, the normalization of antisemitism, and the political timidity that enables both.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s promise to “do everything in my power to guarantee you the security that you deserve” was sincere. But words, even well-intentioned ones, cannot undo years of policy failure.

When Multiculturalism Replaces Integration

Britain has prided itself on tolerance and diversity. Yet tolerance without integration breeds division, not harmony.

For decades, large waves of migration from Muslim-majority countries reshaped Britain’s social fabric. Most immigrants and their children have contributed positively to society. But the refusal to insist on shared civic values—respect for the law, rejection of violence, and commitment to democratic principles—has created pockets of alienation where extremism festers.

It’s not bigotry to say what’s evident: when integration fails, radicalization succeeds. British intelligence agencies have warned for years that disaffected youth are being drawn into extremist networks. Manchester’s tragedy is a product of that neglect.

Hatred in the Streets

London’s massive pro-Palestinian marches began as “peace protests.” Too many have morphed into open displays of antisemitism: chants of “intifada,” slogans calling for Israel’s destruction, and the casual demonization of Jews.

Police and politicians hesitate to act for fear of appearing “Islamophobic.” But this permissiveness is itself a form of cowardice. When hate speech is tolerated in public squares, it becomes ambient noise—and some will always take that noise as a call to violence.

Starmer’s Symbolic Misstep

Just weeks before the Manchester attack, Prime Minister Starmer recognized a Palestinian state. He did so without demanding that the Palestinians renounce terror, recognize Israel, or release the hostages still held in Gaza.

The decision was meant to show leadership. Instead, it signaled appeasement. At a time of rising antisemitism, Britain’s leaders chose symbolism over security. For extremists, the message was clear: violence can move governments.

Britain’s Jews Deserve Better

British Jews are among the most loyal, productive citizens in the nation’s history. Yet today, they walk to synagogue under police escort, cover their kippot in public, and wonder whether their country still sees them as part of its moral center.

Starmer’s vow to protect them must become policy, not platitude. That means:

•  Enforcing hate-crime laws against incitement.
• Restricting demonstrations that glorify terror.
•  Investing in integration that builds shared identity.
•  Reaffirming publicly that Jews are part of Britain’s story, not guests in it.

The Test of a Nation

The Manchester synagogue attack is a tragedy — but also a test. Britain can either rediscover the civic and moral clarity that once defined it, or continue down the path of fear, fragmentation, and appeasement.

If Britain cannot protect its Jews, it cannot protect itself.

Stephen M. Flatow

This post and others can also be seen at my Times of Israel Blog

 Recognition without reality

By rushing to recognize a Palestinian state, Western leaders embolden Hamas and delay the only real path to peace: disarmament, reform and negotiation.

Western recognition of Palestinian statehood without reform or disarmament is symbolism, not peace—and risks emboldening terror.

This past week, several Western governments—the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia—announced their recognition of a Palestinian state. At the United Nations, their diplomats framed the move as a bold step toward reviving the two-state solution.

 In reality, it is neither bold nor helpful. It is a symbolic gesture that will not bring peace to either Israelis or Palestinians. Worse, it risks encouraging further violence from Hamas and other terror groups who already view murder as the most effective tool in their arsenal.

 

Steve Cadman, CC BY-SA 2.0
via Wikimedia Commons

I understand the appeal of recognition from a distance. But it’s symbolism without substance. It costs nothing politically at home for Western leaders to talk about peace. It allows them to signal moral concern without having to grapple with the brutal reality of what Palestinians have built—or, more accurately, failed to build—in Gaza and the West Bank.

 But symbolism is not statecraft. Recognition does not create security forces, disarm terror groups, establish functioning institutions or teach accountability to a population fed a steady diet of anti-Israel propaganda.

 As The Wall Street Journal editorial page noted this week, recognition is detached from Middle East reality. It changes the diplomatic conversation in New York, not the facts on the ground in Nablus or Rafah. The New York Times, for its part, has carried sympathetic voices arguing that recognition is an overdue correction to decades of imbalance. But what these “pro” arguments overlook is crucial: Unless the underlying problems are addressed, this shortcut guarantees more bloodshed, not less.

Consider the timing. Hamas still controls Gaza. Its leaders openly promise more horrific days like Oct. 7. Hostages remain in captivity. Palestinian politics are fractured, elections are nonexistent, and corruption is rampant. To declare “Palestine is a state” in such conditions sends exactly the wrong message: Violence works, governance doesn’t matter, and the world will hand you rewards even if you refuse to disarm.

 Terror groups understand incentives. If recognition comes without demilitarization, then they will trumpet it as vindication of their strategy. For Israelis, this means living under the renewed threat of rockets, kidnappings and cross-border attacks—all justified in the name of a “recognized” cause. For Palestinians, it means another generation consigned to leadership by warlords instead of reformers.

Real peace requires sequencing, not shortcuts. First must come an end to terror, and the disarming of groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Second, there must be credible Palestinian governance reforms—transparent institutions, accountable security forces and leaders chosen in free elections. Third, the parties themselves must negotiate borders, security arrangements and the status of Jerusalem. Only after those steps are credibly underway does recognition become meaningful. Anything else is play-acting.

Imagine if Britain or France had recognized the Confederate States of America in 1862. Such a move would have legitimized a rebellion before the United States had resolved the fundamental questions of slavery and secession. That is exactly what today’s premature recognition of “Palestine” does; it cements dysfunction instead of curing it.

Supporters of recognition like to claim it “levels the playing field” between Israelis and Palestinians. But leveling the playing field while one side is armed to the teeth with Iranian missiles and the other is a democracy fighting for survival is not balance. It is folly. Others argue that recognition restores hope. Yet hollow hope is dangerous; it creates expectations that cannot be met, setting the stage for more disillusionment and more violence.

Even voices sympathetic to the Palestinian cause concede the point. Barbara Slavin, writing for the Stimson Center, described such recognition as “a largely symbolic gesture” that lacks real pressure or follow-through. Vox columnist Abdallah Fayyad likewise acknowledged that recognition by Western nations is “largely symbolic,” motivated by domestic politics more than a workable peace strategy. Pro-Palestinian legal scholar Noura Erakat noted in a piece published by L’Orient Today that recognition, unaccompanied by enforcement or reparations, remains symbolic at best.

 When your own advocates acknowledge that recognition does not change the reality on the ground, it should be a red flag.

 There’s a better path. Western leaders who genuinely care about Israeli-Palestinian peace should stop chasing headlines and start demanding accountability. Recognition should be tied to hard benchmarks: the disarmament of Hamas, the release of hostages, the creation of functioning Palestinian institutions and the holding of real elections. Without those steps, statehood is not a bridge to peace but a recipe for war.

 The Jewish people have always prayed for peace, and Israel has proven again and again its willingness to negotiate, compromise and sacrifice for the chance at a lasting settlement. But peace cannot be built on illusions. Recognizing a Palestinian state in today’s conditions does not hasten peace; it delays it. It does not empower moderates; it emboldens extremists.

 Those who care about a true two-state solution should be the loudest voices opposing this premature recognition. Otherwise, they will find themselves applauding a symbolic victory that becomes a practical tragedy for both Israelis and Palestinians.

 Eight Senate Democrats Support Palestinian Statehood — Here’s Why It’s Dangerous

At first glance, the surge of support by Democratic elected officials for recognizing Palestinian statehood seems an act of moral clarity: After decades of suffering, political displacement and human tragedy, isn’t it overdue for Palestinians to receive the diplomatic recognition so many world powers already afford them?

Beneath the veneer of humanitarian concern and lofty rhetoric, however, lies a host of practical, ethical and strategic problems that Democratic politicians seem to gloss over—and that deserve a harder look from voters and policymakers alike.

Here are the problems with the resolution:

• Recognizing a state of ‘Palestine’ rewards weak governance and terrorist complicity.

One of the central promises made by advocates of statehood is that recognition will help moderate and stabilize Palestinian governance, especially the Palestinian Authority. But much of the Palestinian territories, especially the Gaza Strip, is controlled by Hamas, a group many nations, including the United States, classify as a terrorist organization. How can recognition that bolsters a formal state apparatus avoid strengthening this group or enabling its influence?

U.S. Capitol, CC0 Public Domain

Demands for Palestinian recognition often come with conditions—elections, reform, demilitarization—but there is little credible mechanism or pressure to ensure these conditions are met. Without enforceable guarantees, what many Democratic endorsements risk doing is to reward organizations that have repeatedly undermined peace, nurtured extremism and violated human rights themselves.

• Ignoring the security realities for Israel.

Israel shares a border—and often shares the consequences—of policies in neighboring territories. Every recognition of Palestinian statehood must contend with the decades-long history of cross-border attacks, rocket fire, tunnels and incitement from factions that reject Israel’s right to exist. Democratic politicians who favor recognition as a fait accompli often underplay the real threats to Israel’s security and sovereignty.

To press forward without ensuring robust security arrangements, counterterrorism cooperation, border control and demilitarization is not just naive. It is reckless. The United States has long had an ally in Israel with deep existential concerns; those concerns don’t vanish simply because a political statement is made.

• Undermining peacemaking by preempting negotiation.

The soundest path to peace would seem to be direct negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians, including compromises from both sides. But unilateral recognition—without mutual agreement on borders, security guarantees, the status of Jerusalem, refugees and much else—is tantamount to picking winners before the peace process begins. Democratic support for statehood often reduces complex, bitter disputes into sloganeering. It signals to Israel that diplomatic recognition is the goalpost, not the long journey of compromise.

Meanwhile, Palestinians may be promised recognition without obtaining de facto sovereignty or stability in daily life. Symbolism, after all, does little for those without jobs, clean water or safety from rockets.

• Enter the Senate resolution.

This is no longer a fringe idea. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has introduced a non-binding resolution calling on the United States to recognize a demilitarized State of Palestine alongside Israel. He was joined by a list of co-sponsors: Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). These are not backbenchers; they include leading figures in foreign policy and national security committees.

Their proposal may be symbolic, but symbolism carries weight. A resolution like this signals to the world that swaths of the Democratic Party are willing to bypass negotiations, downplay terrorism and demand concessions from Israel without reciprocal demands of the Palestinians. It validates the long-standing Palestinian strategy of pursuing unilateral recognition in international bodies while avoiding the tough compromises needed for actual peace.

• Domestic accountability and hypocrisy.

Democratic politicians who push for Palestinian statehood tout their humanitarian values, the importance of international law and human rights. Yet many of these same leaders have been silent or weak when it comes to corruption, lack of democratic rule, suppression of dissent and the treatment of minorities within Palestinian governance. Worse, voters within the United States who raise concerns—about antisemitism, about Israel’s security, about inconsistent values—are too often dismissed as being “on the wrong side of history.”

The risk is a foreign policy based more on political identity and grandstanding than on careful, consistent principles. And in democratic systems, that kind of policy tends to produce backlash.

• Consequences: Not just diplomatic, but strategic.

Politically, this position risks alienating crucial allies and donors, both Jewish Americans and others who see Israel’s survival as non-negotiable. Strategically, it could weaken U.S. leverage: If recognition is given without a strong negotiating posture, the United States loses bargaining chips for insisting on peace, reforms or guarantees. It also risks emboldening regional actors who are less interested in peace than in confrontation.

• A call for humility and tough love.

Senators such as Merkley, Van Hollen, Kaine, Sanders, Peter Welch, Tina Smith, Baldwin and Hirono may believe that they are advancing peace by championing Palestinian statehood, but in reality, they are advancing instability. By pushing recognition without demanding disarmament, reform and accountability, they risk creating not a peaceful neighbor for Israel, but another failed state dominated by terror.

Voters should remember exactly who is willing to gamble with Israel’s security—and America’s credibility—in the name of symbolism.

* * *

This column and others by me can be read at JNS.ORG here. 

Stephen M. Flatow

Is the United Nations insane? Another declaration about Palestinian statehood

 As Einstein (or whomever) said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  If that's true, the UN is insane.

Another UN resolution, another exercise in futility

From 1947 to today, every chance for Palestinian statehood has been rejected. No declaration in New York will change that reality.

 

The U.N. General Assembly has once again stepped onto the stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with grand declarations and high-minded pronouncements. Just last week, it voted to endorse a seven-page declaration that outlines “tangible, timebound and irreversible steps” toward a two-state solution.

 The resolution was backed by Gulf Arab states and European powers, boycotted by the United States and Israel, and condemned by Jerusalem as a “publicity stunt.”

 And a stunt it is.

 

Seal of the United Nations

It is worth reminding ourselves—and the diplomats in New York—that this is hardly the first time that the United Nations has promised to deliver a Palestinian state. In fact, the very body that gathered this past Friday voted for just that in 1947. Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, proposed the division of British-ruled Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international control.

 The Jewish leadership reluctantly accepted the plan, understanding that it was far from perfect but represented a historic opportunity. The Arab world, on the other hand, rejected it outright and chose war instead.

 The Jewish state was born. The Arab state never was.

 Seventy-seven years later, that international body is still talking about creating one. What does that say about the seriousness of these resolutions?

 The fundamental fact that diplomats prefer to ignore is that the Palestinians have had multiple opportunities to establish their own state, and each time they have chosen rejectionism and violence. The 1947 partition plan. The 2000 Camp David talks, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat nearly everything he claimed to want. The 2008 Annapolis process, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went even further.

 In each case, the answer from the Palestinian leadership was “no”—or worse, a new wave of terrorism.

 The current resolution, like so many before it, tries to skirt this history. Instead, it pretends that peace is only a matter of more conferences, more paperwork and more signatures on symbolic declarations. But there is nothing tangible, time-bound or irreversible about demanding concessions from Israel while holding the Palestinians to no standard of accountability whatsoever.

 Consider the grotesque irony of the United Nations condemning both Hamas’s atrocities and Israel’s defensive actions in the same breath. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, massacring civilians, kidnapping children and burning entire families alive in their homes. Yet somehow, in the halls of Turtle Bay, Israel’s efforts to dismantle the Hamas terror organization are given equal moral standing with the terrorists’ crimes. That moral equivalence alone should disqualify the United Nations from being taken seriously as an arbiter of peace.

 The United States and Israel rightly boycotted the July conference that produced this declaration, co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and France. It was clear from the outset that it would be another round of diplomatic theater, aimed not at resolving the conflict but at isolating Israel. No one in Riyadh or Paris truly believes that a U.N. vote will erase decades of Palestinian rejectionism. But it plays well in Arab capitals and provides European leaders with a chance to posture as peacemakers without dealing with the hard truths.

 The hard truth is this: Palestinian statehood cannot be willed into existence by international resolutions. It can only come about through direct negotiations with Israel, based on recognition of the Jewish nation’s legitimacy and a commitment to peaceful coexistence.

 Neither of those preconditions exists today. The Palestinian Authority glorifies terrorists, pays stipends to murderers in Israeli jails and rejects recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad openly declare their goal to destroy Israel and its people. How, then, can any serious person talk about “irreversible steps” toward a two-state solution?

 U.N. diplomats love to use the language of inevitability. They speak as though history bends inexorably toward their preferred outcome. But history has already spoken. The Arabs could have had a state in 1947, but they chose war. They could have had a state in 2000 and 2008, but they chose terrorism. Even today, the Palestinian leadership refuses to make peace, preferring to keep its people in perpetual grievance.

 What the world body is really doing with resolutions like this one is perpetuating that grievance. Each new declaration tells the Palestinians that they don’t have to compromise, don’t have to reform, don’t have to recognize Israel. Just sit back, and the world will deliver you a state on a silver platter. That message is not just misguided. It is dangerous. It fuels more rejectionism, more extremism and more violence.

 Meanwhile, Israel continues to build a thriving, democratic society under constant threat. It has made peace with Egypt, with Jordan, and through the Abraham Accords, with several Arab states. Those breakthroughs happened not because of U.N. resolutions but because leaders in Cairo, Amman, Abu Dhabi and Manama decided that peace and progress were preferable to endless war.

 If Palestinian leaders ever make the same decision, peace with Israel will follow. Until then, the United Nations can churn out as many declarations as it likes. They will be as meaningless as the ones that came before.

 The United Nations loves words like “tangible,” “timebound” and “irreversible.” But for nearly eight decades, its resolutions on Israel and the Palestinians have been anything but. What is truly irreversible is the reality that Israel exists, will continue to exist and will defend itself against those who seek its destruction. That is the one fact the United Nations should accept—if it truly wishes to be relevant.

 (This column first appeared on jns.org.  To read it on line go here.)

Stephen M. Flatow