Man, T.S. Eliot wrote in Four Quartets, “cannot bear too much reality.” The philosopher David Hume identified the mechanism of evasion in 1739 in his Treatise of Human Nature. When we expound a system of morality, Hume wrote, the “copulations of propositions” that describe what is and is not tend to drift into describing what ought to be or ought not to be. The oughts accord to our personal preferences, so we are disinclined to prove if and how we derive them from the facts. The result is a gap between two kinds of knowledge, the descriptive and prescriptive. Bear that in mind, Hume wrote, and we can avoid falling into the “vulgar systems of morality.”
The vulgar system of morality in our place and time is that of humanitarianism. The prime and usually sole focus of its passion is concentrated on Israel, because some people think it ought to be. These people are a curious alliance of Islamists, Arab racists, upper-middle Western lefties, and, notably on the MAGA underbelly, lower-middle white racists. This is the descriptive bit. As for the prescriptive, they ought to be ashamed. As they have no shame, we should simply ignore them.
It is clear now that Israel did not, as almost all Western media told us, cause famine in Gaza while fighting Hamas. It was always clear that Israel was not perpetrating “genocide.” The Palestinians have been shouting this ever since they were invented and realized that they could manipulate Western European guilt about their genocide of the Jews. These claims were manufactured and endorsed by humanitarian agencies, and even the World Bank, because they thought they ought to be true, because they wanted them to be true. The media repeated them as fact because they felt the same way. Hence the absurdity of the Guardian constantly accusing Israel of “genocide” throughout the war, while also reporting that Gaza’s population in October 2025 was 2.3 million — the same as the Guardian had reported in October 2023.
President Donald Trump is a canny assessor of blunt realities. He is also a gifted artist of the deal. His extemporizing on a deal’s potential to reshape reality is as central to making it happen as his threats of blunt force. A ceasefire in Gaza would have happened sooner or later, because wars in the Middle East tend to be, at least to Western eyes, premodern affairs big on militias, massacres, and mutually agreed pauses while the parties prepare for another round. But the framework around the ceasefire, a diplomatic Rubik’s Cube of movable, interlocking parts, was a Trump deal.
Trump, being Trump, had to overdo it by promising a “shared vision for peace and prosperity” between Israelis and Palestinians and “peaceful coexistence” at their overlapping religious “heritage sites.” That is what ought to happen. We think this because we feel like humanitarians even when we think that we are not. But it is not what will happen. To think that Muslims anywhere are prepared to treat Jews and Christians, or Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, for that matter, as equals with coexistent rights at heritage sites, or even that Muslims recognize their shrines as “heritage sites” at all, is to leap into the abyss of delusion between the descriptive and prescriptive. Disney World and the Louvre are heritage sites. Al-Aqsa is a mosque for Muslims and no one else.
There is no excuse for self-delusion about the Palestinians. They are their own worst enemies, and also, when you look at what they actually think, our own worst enemies too. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research has just conducted a detailed poll of Palestinian political opinion. More than half (59%) believe that Hamas made the “correct” decision in attacking Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Asked if they believed the video footage of Hamas “killing women and children in their homes” (footage taken by Hamas members and other Gazans who just felt like a day out), 86% denied that Hamas had committed these atrocities.
DECLINE AND FALL OF TRANSGENDER AMERICA
Despite bringing catastrophe on their people, Hamas remains the most popular party among Palestinians. Despite the billions of dollars that America has dispensed over decades, the Palestinians prefer China (44%) and Russia (35%) to the United States (6%). A plurality of Palestinians (40%) still think armed struggle is the best way to secure statehood. The only glimmer of reality to have entered their darkly delusional minds is that the percentage who believe that Hamas will beat Israel has declined from 70% in December 2023 to 39% now.
This is not a people who want peaceful coexistence. This is a people who will go to war again as soon as they can and commit a real genocide if we give them the chance. Copulate all the propositions you like about peace and pieces of paper, international law, and humanitarian rights. Nothing will change until the prescription accepts the reality of the description.
Dominic Green is a Washington Examiner columnist and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Find him on X @drdominicgreen.