US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday complained that no Arab country is going to invest in rebuilding Gaza only to have it destroyed again.

He seemed to be directing the remarks at Israel, in a class example of treating the symptom rather than the cause.

Israel is bombing Gaza because Hamas engaged over the past decade or more in incessant attacks on the Jewish state, culminating in the barbaric rampage of October 7.

And that behavior was the direct result of two things:

1. The existence of heavily-armed third parties in Palestinian society; and
2. The unrestrained brainwashing of Palestinians to hate the Jews and to see Israel as illegitimate.

Now, the Oslo Accords contain stipulations to prevent us from reaching the present situation over which Blinken is now so concerned.

The Oslo Accords insist that there be no other armed force besides the Palestinian Authority security forces, and that they be merely a policing force, not an army capable of offensive military action. In other words, the Palestinians aren’t supposed to have missiles and mortars.

The Oslo Accords also obligate the Palestinian Authority to educate its people for peace. It has instead done the opposite by engaging in systematic and institutionalized incitement against Israel.

Both of these violations have given rise to the likes Hamas.

So, back to the point. If Blinken and the Arab states he’s referencing are worried about having to constantly rebuild Gaza, they might want to try dealing with the root problem. They might want to try insisting that the Palestinians actually honor their peace commitments.

Had the Palestinian Authority educated its people for peace starting in 1995, and had it prevented the influx of illicit arms and their distribution among paramilitary terrorist organizations, Gaza would still be standing today.