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Anon, have you heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?

Needs must be met in order: physiological needs, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, and each level depends on the foundation of the level beneath it.

You can't have self-actualization without esteem, can't have esteem without belonging, can't have belonging without safety, and you can't have safety until physiological needs are met.

Now imagine a pyramid of problems Palestinians must face in order to create a state.

Whether or not such a state would be genuinely free is at the top of the pyramid. Your concern (while wholly valid) is wildly premature.

At the bottom of the pyramid (the foundation everything else rests on) is the most basic question: does a critical mass of Palestinian political culture actually want a state at peace with Israel, or will it stick with maximalism and eliminationism, demanding that Israel cease to exist? Until that's resolved, nothing above it is stable.

One tier up: Does that same political culture want a secular, pluralist state, or an Islamist one? You can want peace with Israel and still want a theocracy. I'd argue that not every Islamic theocracy is Islamist. You can want a democracy and still harbor eliminationist positions about your neighbor. So...these decisions have to be made and popularly embraced before a state can be planned.

Above that: Unified, competent, honest leadership. The Palestinian national movement is currently split between a corrupt, sclerotic PA that controls parts of the West Bank without popular support and a corrupt designated terrorist organization that controls Gaza and started the war that leveled it, actively seeking maximum death and destruction of Gaza's people and property.

A state requires a government which is capable of governing, controls corruption, and can gain the trust of at least a plurality of the people.

There isn't anything like that at the moment (and hasn't really ever been) - and such things are rarely built quickly.

Above that: Territorial continuity. Gaza and the West Bank don't share a border. Can a state in two non-contiguous pieces really be a state? Assume Israel agrees to land swaps to bridge the two with a corridor: how is that done with security for all involved?

Above that: Institutional capacity. Courts. Tax collection. Civil service. A currency or monetary framework. An economy not dependent on aid. The boring infrastructure of actually governing.

And at the top (tier six) is whether the state would be genuinely free.

The question of whether a Palestinian state would be genuinely free is worth asking - but it's tier six.

Perhaps Anon meant to ask something like:

"Do you believe Palestinians constitute a nation with a legitimate right to sovereignty over territory?"

But it's phrased as a yes-or-no question which itself (1) contains multiple assumptions and (2) collapses several distinct questions into one.

"Palestinians" Not just people who live somewhere, but a collective national subject. The question assumes Palestinians are a unified political nation rather than a population with varied terrotories, identities, histories, and political claims. The Arab peoples of Gaza and the West bank also have two (non-cooperating) governments, several security forces, dysfunctional civic infrastructure due to corruption regardless of how much money the international community pumps into it, and no elections. This isn't to say that Palestinians aren't a nation, but that the question presumes that they are without supporting that presumption. The logical fallacy here is Begging the Question.

"National claim" This question doesn't speak to humanitarian rights, civil rights, or individual property rights. It asks only about a collective, political, sovereignty-level claim...the kind of claim that justifies borders, statehood, and exclusive control. Again, the question presumes an answer without supporting its assumptions.

"Any land" This is the most slippery part. It seems perhaps intentionally vague. It could mean some land (West Bank, Gaza). It could mean Ottoman Palestine or Mandate Palestine. It could mean any land at all, including land currently inside Israel. It could mean all the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean This ambiguity would allow Anon to interpret the solicited yes-or-no answer any way they want.

This question collapses several distinct and complex issues into one, including all of these:

Do Palestinians exist as a people?

Do they have political self-determination rights?

Over which territory?

Based on what historical, legal, or moral framework?

It avoids specifying borders, timeframes, or legal standards.

It treats "national claims" as a moral absolute rather than something historically contingent, negotiated, and often conflicting.

So this question needs to be broken down into at least four questions:

"Do you believe Palestinians (defined as the Arab peoples of Gaza and the West Bank) have a right to an independent state?" If "right" means a universal moral entitlement independent of behavior, history, or political reality, then no. No group has that kind of right. If "right" means eligibility under international norms conditional on meeting certain criteria, then potentially yes, but only contingently. Any further discussion of this one must include the following topics: - What defines a "distinct people"? What differentiates West Bank Arabs from Jordanians, or Gazans from Egyptians, other than their shared rejection of a Jewish state in any borders? - Is the claim of national identity being defined positively, or almost entirely by negation of a neighboring state?

"If so, where?" Certainly not in the whole of British Mandate Palestine for two main reasons: First, ~75% of what was Mandate Palestine is now Jordan (yes, an Arab state was given of 75% of Mandate Palestine). Second, no "claim" that requires the elimination of an existing sovergein state can be called legitimate. In Gaza and West Bank? Theoretically, sure - but Israel has offered that at least five times and Palestinian leadership declined it all five times. Has the international community been given any reason to think that a sixth offer would be received differently? Not really, no. Palestinian leadership, whether Fatah in the West Bank or Hamas in Gaza, has consistently prioritized maximalist claims and the negation of Israel over building viable institutions or accepting a negotiated compromise. This isn't speculation or opinion, it's the historical record. The 2000 Camp David talks. The 2001 Taba talks. The 2008 Olmert proposal. The 2014 Kerry framework. Every time, the answer was no. Not "no, but here’s our counteroffer"....just no. So, in theory...? Yes - but only if/when Palestinians accept coexistence with Israel, renounce attempts to murder it's neighbors, and build the institutions neccessary for statehood. Is any of that happening right now? No.

"Do you support Palestinian self-determination alongside Israeli self-determination?" Yes, if it's reciprocal. Palestinian self-determination is legitimate if it exists alongside, not instead of, Jewish self-determination. The current demand from many quarters (especially on the activist left) is for a single Arab-majority state from the river to the sea. That's not peace, not justice, and not coexistence - it's theocratic ethno-nationalism...something they claim to hate when they falsely accuse Israel of it.

by Seth Mandel

That is why other Mideast states are balking. “The proposed deployment of an international force in Gaza, seen as a crucial feature of President Donald Trump’s plan to bring peace to the enclave, is struggling to get off the ground as countries considered likely to contribute soldiers have grown wary,” reports the Washington Post, naming Indonesia and Azerbaijan as two states whose leaders seem to have developed cold feet.

Why the sudden reluctance? “Concerns are mounting in foreign capitals over whether soldiers could be put in a position where they may be required to use force against Palestinians.”

What exactly did they picture when volunteering to man an international force whose mission is to police a war zone and disarm one of the belligerents? Here again, we have an almost pathological aversion to action. These same countries will grumble about America acting as the world’s police force and Israel clearing out terrorist enclaves in its neighborhood, yet it is crystal clear that they only signed on to an international stabilization force because they expected the U.S. and Israel to do all the actual policing and disarming.

By the same token, they don’t expect the Palestinians to build their own state. They expect America to make Israel do it.