In an interview with the Jewish Press, the Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens speaks about his recent book on American foreign policy, the ongoing negotiations with Iran, his support for Israel, and the recent European wave of “recognition” of Palestinian statehood (interview by Sara Lehmann):

I happen to believe in the two-state solution with a Palestinian state that has more in common with Canada than it does with Iran or Yemen or what the Palestinian state is shaping up to be. And the tragedy of this kind of recognition is that it tells the Palestinians that they can behave the way they have with the use of terrorism, aggression, missiles, and lawfare and get away with it. That’s astounding. The Kurds have been responsibly building up an autonomous region in northern Iraq for many years and yet they don’t get recognition. . . . There are many other stateless people who have a far stronger claim morally and historically to a state and yet they don’t get recognition. . . .

The alternative [to Palestinian statehood] is a situation which is in my view akin to diabetes. It’s a disease, but it’s a disease that can be managed. And the question for Israeli statesmen in our lifetime is how well they manage the disease with a view that in the very long term some other cure will arise. The word “solution” should never be used when it comes to politics. Solution is something that happens when it comes to math. Human beings don’t operate according to equations.

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.