Independent 'Palestine' would be a disaster for 'Palestinians'

Michael Rubin | American Enterprise Institute

On July 24, 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize a Palestinian state. For proponents of Palestinian statehood, winning the endorsement of its first G7 member is a watershed. Macron may be endorsing a Palestinian state for the wrong reasons: He fears the restiveness of his own Arab population and wishes to appease a domestic Islamic bloc that cares little for French laicism. If it requires throwing Jews under the bus, Macron is happy to be the second coming of Marshal Philippe Petain, the head of Vichy France. It is easy to endorse Palestine. It may be much harder to stomach what comes next.

Nor is Macron alone. In foreign ministries from Europe to Australia and on American college campuses, pro-Palestinian advocacy focuses solely on independence. It is virtue signaling at its basest. There is little, if any, discussion about what might happen to an independent Palestine.

Palestinians have long been the world’s largest if undeserving welfare case, for decades sucking up more money per capita than any other humanitarian cause. Such short-sighted generosity has come at the expense of Palestinian agency.

Palestinian politicians knew naïve donors would always bail them out and so never developed functioning governance or services, preferring instead to embezzle money or funnel it into tunnels and terrorists.

As a result, there is only one certainty: An independent Palestine will be a disaster for Palestinians. Should the international community cudgel Israel into accepting a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, the result will be a morass of misery.

There is no shortage of examples of new states descending into failure. It has been almost 15 years, for example, since the world recognized South Sudan as its newest independent state. Today, South Sudan is a disaster. Freedom House ranks it as the world’s least free country, with less political freedom than even North Korea.

Transparency International ranks it as the world’s most corrupt country, worse even than Somalia. Its politicians, tribes, and militias quickly took up arms to use against rivals. More than 400,000 South Sudanese have died in the civil war that erupted two years after independence.

South Sudan has been the rule, not the exception. Consider other newly independent states: Kosovo has only now emerged from the political and economic instability that marked its first 15 years of independence, with organized criminal gangs taking advantage of its weak institutions.

Eritrea, which gained independence in 1991 after a 30-year war, enslaves its population with open-ended national service, rivals North Korea as a police state, and is the world’s leader in transnational repression. Even a so-called success story such as Timor-Leste remains weak. Its per capita income remains only one-quarter that of Indonesia, the state from which it won independence in 2002.

Women wave Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) flags during a rally in Qamishlo, Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), on December 23, 2024. The rally called on the Syria’s new Islamist rulers in Damascus to respect women’s rights and condemn Turkish-backed military campaigns in Kurdish regions of northern Syria, December 23, 2024. Photo: Reuters

Not every aspirant to independence would fail. Somaliland has demonstrated its capacity, resilience, and management despite a lack of international aid and recognition for almost 35 years. Prior to its ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan, Artsakh — the Kosovo of the Caucasus — had a functioning democracy with regular elections. Syrian Kurds have not explicitly sought independence, but their government and administration surpass Syria’s in every meaningful way.

The question today should not only be if rejectionist states such as Iran and Turkey would use a Palestinian state as a bridgehead to destabilize not only Israel, but also Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, but also whether Palestinian political factions would turn on each other in a desperate attempt to capture state resources.

If Palestine gets its independence today, the most optimistic scenario would be a South Sudan on the Mediterranean. In all likelihood, it could be far worse.

The article first published at aei.org

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.