It is astonishing and difficult to comprehend how, after the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, the West has progressively adopted policies that support the terrorist organization Hamas and its influential backers, Qatar and Iran.

This policy is particularly perplexing given the violent nature of the attack and the well-documented connections, especially between Hamas and the Iranian regime, which has been a significant supporter of Hamas both financially and militarily. The West’s stance also raises questions about the strategic and ethical considerations behind such policies, considering the implications for regional stability and the ongoing threat posed by these groups.

Spain, Ireland and Norway recently formally recognized Palestinian statehood, a decision that comes just seven months after Hamas invaded Israel, and savagely raped, tortured, beheaded, immolated and kidnapped Israeli and Western civilians. It is unprecedented in world history for a terrorist group to attack another country, murder its people and take hostages, only to then be rewarded with a recognition of statehood – cordially facilitating its future actions, including against countries in Europe.

We have already seen this April “thousands of protestors” in Germany demanding a Caliphate with sharia law.

The West’s reward also sends a message that the West is fearful and willing to capitulate in the face of horrific acts. It suggests that instead of standing firm against terrorism and taking decisive action to hold perpetrators accountable, the West will eagerly accept any antisocial behavior rather than stand up for the values of civilization that have defined it for centuries. This perception can only torpedo West’s ability to contain terrorism inside its gates, and, as in Germany, can only have serious repercussions for domestic and global security.

The aim of anti-Israel protestors seems to be that stability can only be achieved after everyone has conceded to the terrorists’ demands. Sadly, many politicians, perhaps hoping for votes from wherever they can get them, might be only too happy to comply.

Perhaps Ireland, Norway and Spain would like to offer sanctuary to Gazans from Hamas?

The only reason countries are recognizing a Palestinian state is that they will not have to live next to it. As Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and former New York City Council president Andrew Stein recently pointed out:

“Consider the fact that no Arab or Muslim nation has been willing to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Perhaps these nations recall that anyone who has tried to help the Palestinians has lived to regret it. When Jordan took them in, the Palestinians tried to overthrow the government of King Hussein in 1970. The attempted coup, known as Black September, ended with the Palestinians being expelled to Lebanon. Once there, a civil war erupted between the Muslims, backed by the PLO, and the Christians, resulting in the PLO being expelled once again, this time to Tunisia in 1982. After Kuwait offered roughly 400,000 Palestinians visas and jobs, and Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990,the PLO sided with Iraq. After the liberation of Kuwait, an estimated 200,000 were expelled and another 200,000 were not allowed back.”

This short-sighted agenda of course requires isolating Israel, which has been fighting not only for its survival but also the survival of Europe and the West with these intended beneficiaries of such an enormous sacrifice, instead have been undermining and demonizing Israel every step of the way, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts “The Churchill of the Middle East,” who now finds himself, courtesy of the unlawful International Criminal Court, with an international warrant out for his arrest.

While the sanctimonious parliamentarians of Europe help Adolf Hitler finish what he started in the comfort of the volcanoes that have only intermittently blown under them so far – the Munich Olympics and the Berlin Christmas Market; the rapes in Cologne on New Year’s Eve; the slaughter of Theo van Gogh; riots in Sweden; Denmark’s Mohammad Cartoon furor and the murder at its Free Speech Society; London’s 7/7 Underground bombings and the London Bridge attacks, Manchester’s Ariana Grande Concert; the massacres at France’s satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Paris’s Bataclan theater, and the Bastille Day truck-ramming on Nice’s croisette, the shooting of schoolchildren in Toulouse, as well as murders of individuals too plentiful to count (for instance, here, here, here and here) — Iran and Hezbollah have been raining rockets down on the north of Israel, eager to go full bore on a country, smaller than New Jersey, by widening a second front.

The decision to recognize Palestinian statehood reassures the terrorists that the West is willing to overlook the ongoing threats and violent actions not only against Israel but against itself. Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah can clearly see that the longer they can keep their jihad on Israel going, the more the victim, Israel, will be demonized — not the terrorist perpetrators — and the better it will be for terrorism.

The more countries that will join Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in its assault by recognizing a Palestinian state, the more power and influence they will have in Europe to double their demands. Wait until Iran has its nuclear bombs and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. They will not even have to use them, only threaten to, as Putin is now doing in Ukraine so that US President Joe Biden will prevent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from winning.

Iran and Qatar have a long history of spreading Islamism and funding terrorist groups – Qatar through bankrolling terrorist groups and blanketing a good part of the globe with jihadi messages from Al Jazeera; and Iran by using its IRGC militia and proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — to take over more and more countries in the Middle East. So far, Iran had pocketed Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, as well as the Gaza Strip, and now appears to be eyeing the West Bank and Sudan.

Such actions jeopardize stability not only in the Middle East but even more in Europe. Ireland, Norway and Spain seem to be under the illusion that if they pet the kitty, the kitty will like them. Unfortunately, that is not always the way kitties work. All that cuddling up to terrorists and their promotors really achieves is to weaken the West’s credibility in defending its values, and the way of life we naïvely take for granted in the West.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu