MORE RAPE AND MURDER PLEASE: UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The world infantilizes Palestinians — and then acts like the worst parents imaginable.

The world parliament of bad parenting.

If terrorists infiltrate a democratic country, and then rape, immolate, behead, kidnap and mass murder hundreds of people, what should the world do?

Well, according to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, the answer is: Reward the rapists, beheaders, kidnappers and murderers by giving them whatever they demand.

In a vote yesterday, which passed 143 to 9, with 25 abstentions, the General Assembly stated that Palestinians qualify for full member status at the United Nations. This de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood is a mostly symbolic act. (But, then, isn’t much of what the UNGA does?)

To my country’s credit, Canada abstained from the vote. Well, I say this from a perspective of low expectations. Canada — and every other country that does not seek to reward and embolden mass-murdering terrorists — should have voted against the motion. At least Canada didn’t support this atrocious motion.

A statement from Global Affairs Canada (that’s how we’ve rebranded what most nations call a foreign office) made fairly anodyne but nonetheless appropriate noises.

“It is clear we must urgently build a credible path to achieving the two-state solution, one that gives hope to both Palestinians and Israelis that they may live side by side in peace, security and dignity,” the statement said. “That process cannot indefinitely delay the creation of a Palestinian state.”

Although it added rather cryptically: “Canada is prepared to recognize the state of Palestine at the time most conducive to lasting peace, not necessarily as the last step along that path.”

Seems awfully Canadian, actually. Maybe. Soon but not now. Perhaps. Sorry.

There are (at least) two different things happening here.

A two-state solution is the ideal endpoint for this conflict, of course. (Take six minutes to refresh yourself on the real reasons why a two-state solution is further away than ever by reading my post on the subject from a few days back.)

I’d love to see a two-state solution — with all the necessary caveats. Palestinians need to demonstrate to Israelis that they are willing to live in peaceful coexistence as peaceful neighbors and not perpetrate, as some overseas activists demand, 10,000 October 7s.

Until that distant day, there will not be a two-state solution. Nor should there be. Until Palestinians and their overseas mouthpieces commit to peace and coexistence, they can shut up about a “free Palestine.” Not gonna happen. No peace? No Palestine.

A two-state solution today would, probably, result in 10,000 October 7s. Maybe that’s why “moderate” activists demand a two-state solution now, while their more impolitic friends call for a Jewish genocide. Same same.

The larger point here is this: if we step back from all of the bafflegab, whataboutery, blahblah and residual nonsense and place what happened at the United Nations General Assembly yesterday in the context of October 7, what lesson should terrorist worldwide take?

Terrorism works. Rape, beheadings, immolations, kidnapping and mass murder will get you exactly what you demand.

That is the unequivocal message adopted 143 to 9 yesterday by the, ahem, world Parliament.

I get, in a convoluted intellectual way, the point these countries and those who support this vote are making. If we do not find some resolution to this decades-long conflict, we can only expect more death and destruction on both sides. Absolutely true.

But there could not be a more wrong way of going about seeking that end than endorsing Palestinian statehood right now.

There must be guardrails around Palestinian statehood to ensure, quite simply, that an independent Palestine will be a force for stability, peace and coexistence in the region, and not more instability, terrorism, violence, mayhem and war. There is not, and there has not been since September 28, 2000, effectively any evidence that this would be the case.

In two recent posts (about keffiyehs and about White Savior Complex) I made the case that Western activists treat Palestinians differently than they treat any other people on earth. One of the ways they do this is by infantalizing Palestinians — treating them as though they are immature children with no agency, developed human faculties or ability to restrain their impulses.

It is a wildly racist approach that is just one among many examples of self-declared progressive people betraying their own core values and approaches to the world when it comes to Palestine.

Yet this is part and parcel of the larger global narrative of Palestinians: the unsinkable idea that Palestinian leaders and populations are effectively toddlers whose behavior in the world is driven only by reaction to external stimuli.

It is one thing to infantalize a people, as the world has done with Palestinians. But, if we are going to go down that road, at the very least, shouldn’t we at least model good parenting?

Imagine this: Is your kid beating up his friend to get hold of the friend’s toy? Demand the friend surrender the toy. Is your kid engaging in a screaming tantrum because you are demanding they take their afternoon nap? Let them stay up and play Nintendo. Is your kid refusing to eat their vegetables? Let them go on that all-sugar diet they have been demanding.

This whole metaphor is ridiculous, of course. By applying the standards of bad parenting to something as serious as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I am diminishing the gravity of the situation.

But this, in a way, serves my larger point. The only thing more ridiculous than my extended metaphor is the reality it illustrates. More disgusting than creating a fictional scenario where Palestinians are toddlers and the world collectively are bad parents is a reality that infantalizes Palestinians while the world behaves like the worst parents imaginable.

In my experience, good parents who raise wonderful, successful young adult children can explain quite clearly and succinctly what they did right. A lot of parents who have raised the kinds of adults that they are, let’s say, not so proud of, will often, I find, throw up their hands and wonder, What went wrong!?

Sometimes, people are just going to turn out the way they’re going to turn out. Sometimes good parents raise problematic kids. This is not my area of expertise, by any measure. But there could not be any truism about parenting or any other facet of human endeavor truer than this: Rewarding bad behavior will result in more bad behavior.

The 143 representatives who yesterday rewarded rape, beheadings, immolations, kidnapping and mass murder may not care when those atrocities happen to Israelis.

They will take it a little more seriously when these acts happen to their own citizens, as they almost inevitably will now that the most violent forces in the world see yesterday’s vote for what it is: an enthusiastic endorsement of political violence.

More than this — and this is the scariest part — the message the world sent yesterday is not only to terrorists.

Groups and causes that have previously pursued peaceful means to their ends — national independence, social progress, environmental justice, economic equality, whatever — may see yesterday’s nearly unanimous endorsement of rape and murder and decide that democracy, advocacy and working peacefully within the system is for suckers.

Then, as citizens of the 143 countries who yesterday wholeheartedly rewarded October 7 are beheaded, immolated and kidnapped, like bad parents of self-centered, antisocial, destructive young adults, their leaders will throw up their hands and demand of everyone but themselves: What went wrong!?