Samizdata

Sir Keir Starmer has announced the UK’s recognition of a Palestinian state. Several other countries have done likewise.

I think the consequences of this will be very bad.

There will be even more Muslim terrorism worldwide. It evidently works.

There will be more use of tactics like taking hostages and livestreaming murders and torture for political effect by non-Muslim groups and states, too. These tactics evidently work.

Those people who think that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians still won’t get to see what actual genocide looks like, but Israel will be more willing than before to kill Palestinian civilians in order to destroy Hamas. Israel has lost a major motive for restraint.

The less likely it is that Israel will defeat Hamas, the more it is in its interests to use other, cruder methods to deter and/or physically prevent future attacks from Gaza. These methods could include annexing some or all of the territory and expelling the inhabitants, or finally flooding the entire network of tunnels with seawater, only this time with no concern for ecological damage. The ecological damage would be the point. It is hard to secretly build military infrastructure in a barren desert, or to hide among civilians in a depopulated land.

Contrary to Sir Keir’s main motive for doing it, his government’s recognition of Palestine will cause even more British Muslims to change their vote away from Labour in favour of Islamic identitarian parties. As Osama bin Laden said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

This formation of an explicitly Muslim power bloc will in turn cause even more non-Muslim British people to move from merely opposing further Muslim immigration to Britain (that sentiment is already practically universal) to wanting to get rid of the Muslims already here.

I do not wish for any of this. I just think it is what is likely to happen.