The ‘Palestinians’ Lost Their War. Get Over It.

Victoria Coates is a former Deputy National Security Adviser in the first Trump administration. Now she is the Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. She has an interesting take on what is not the “Palestinian problem” (with its implied “two-state solution”), but rather, the “Palestinians’ problem,” the problem, that is, of failing to recognize the significance of their repeated defeats. For nobody will tell it to them straight. She does. More of her discussion can be found here: “Victoria Coates: Palestinians lost battle with Israel – ‘someone has to tell them,'” by Maayan Hoffman, ILTV, December 3, 2024:

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict ended decades ago with the country’s founding and its victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, according to former U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates.

Speaking to ILTV on Monday at the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, she said the Palestinians were never told they lost. Instead, “they were encouraged, particularly after the Iranian Revolution, to continue this self-defeating, suicidal, genocidal [behavior] we saw on October 7.”

“Someone has to have the nerve to say to the Palestinians, we are not negotiating a ceasefire, we’re negotiating terms” to end the conflict, she added.

Coates, an evangelical Christian and staunch supporter of the Jewish state has visited Israel many times. She has held several key political leadership roles, including serving in the Department of Energy, where she advised Secretary Dan Brouillette on national security issues and acted as his representative in the Middle East and North Africa.

Today, she serves as Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. She recently published a book, The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel—and America—Can Win, which focuses on October 7 and why America must stand with Israel.

She said the possibilities for the Palestinians, if they were to disarm and accept defeat, are abundant….

What would that mean? It would mean they would have, as Prime Minister Netanyahu likes to say, “all the powers they need to govern themselves, and none of the powers to harm Israel.”

Coates told ILTV she believes Trump would act decisively to expand the Abraham Accords, including securing a Saudi deal….

Is an Israel-Saudi “normalization deal” even possible? The Saudis insist that first a Palestinian state must be created. The Israelis are not about to see themselves squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea, in order to accommodate a 23rd Arab state that would be used to launch future attacks on the single Jewish state. Let me repeat it one more time: As Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, Israel wants the Palestinian Arabs to have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to harm Israel.

Trump will likely operate with an “unabashedly pro-Israel stance” because he understands this approach is in America’s best interest.

“I’m a Christian … but that’s not why I am here and not why I wrote the book,” Coates emphasized. “I wrote the book because the United States, we need Israel in the region, we need Israel locally, to be a partner and ally to us.”

She highlighted Trump’s nomination of former Governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel as an example of his pro-Israel policies and his understanding of the evangelical community that played a significant role in his election.

“You would assume that Israel would want a Jewish ambassador. But I think the enthusiasm for Governor Mike Huckabee is palpable,” Coates said. “I think he can help bridge those two worlds and not make this a Jewish or Christian issue. This is an American issue. There are hundreds of millions of Americans who care deeply about Israel.”

Listen up, Palestinian Arabs. You lost. Get over it.