The Palestinian Authority won't protect Israel from terrorism.

Neither will clichés .

Social Washington, D.C. runs on clichés. Propositions that “everyone knows to be true” are repeated over-and-over. Disagreeing with them shows you to be a fool — or even worse, a nobody.

In the current hyper-partisan environment, there is some competition among clichés. That’s an improvement, but not much of one.

For years, the reigning cliché about the Middle East was that “everyone knows the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.” That solution was “land-for-peace.” In other words, the creation of a Palestinian state in exchange for an end to Palestinian warfare against Israel.

But if everyone knew this to be the solution, why was it never agreed to? Why did the Palestinians definitively reject it in the last days of the Clinton presidency?

Apparently, the Palestinians didn’t “know” that land-for-peace was the solution. Therefore, it wasn’t.

David Ignatius, purveyor-in-chief of propositions about foreign affairs that everyone knows to be true, informs us that everyone knows the solution to the war in Gaza. According to Ignatius, “the way to end the Gaza war has been clear for nearly a year.”

Before describing the blindingly obvious solution, Ignatius writes:

Let’s pause to remember the way Israelis were butchered on Oct. 7, 2023, as Hamas attacked across the Gaza fence.

This sort of obligatory statement is recited in any D.C. discussion of the war. It is part of the cliché and often the prelude to describing the “solution” to the security concerns reinforced by the Oct. 7 butchering.

Here is Ignatius’ “solution.”

A plan for security “bubbles” that would contain the violence, starting in northern Gaza and moving south, backed by an international peacekeeping force that would include troops from European and moderate Arab countries.

In place of Hamas, a Palestinian government, backed by a reformed Palestinian Authority, would take political control.

Ignatius acknowledges that this may sound like a “pipe dream.” But it isn’t, he assures us:

Officials worked out a detailed road map. They began planning to train the Palestinian security force that would replace Hamas. This was, as golfers like to say, “a makeable putt.”

Maybe, but it’s a putt Israel ought not make.

The premise for the state of Israel is this lesson from thousands of years of history: Jews cannot rely on non-Jews to protect them. More to the present point, they cannot rely on “a Palestinian government, backed by a reformed Palestinian Authority.”

“Reformed Palestinian Authority.” Of all the clichés that plague Washington, this is the most annoying and probably the most ridiculous. Ignatius’ mindless recitation of it as the basis for his “clear” solution to the threat of more butchering of Jews reveals the bankruptcy of analysis.

The Palestinian Authority has had decades to reform. Why would anyone assume that suddenly, magically, it will reform now? Only because that assumption is essential to the view that Israel must entrust its security to its longtime sworn enemy.

Even if the PA wanted to keep Israel secure — which certainly is not the case — it wouldn’t be able to. Hamas would not sit by and let the PA keep it suppressed.

Nor would it be in the PA’s interest to collaborate with Israel. The PA cannot not retain credibility with Gazans if it’s viewed as Israel’s partner.

Israel does not entrust the security of Jews on the so-called West Bank to the PA. It relies on its own forces, placed strategically throughout that area — one in which Hamas has been far less influential than in Gaza. To adopt a different model in Gaza, where Hamas has reigned, seems like madness.

To me, the solution in Gaza is this. Kill more Hamas fighters, destroy more Hamas infrastructure, and then police Gaza along the lines used on the West Bank.

I don’t claim that this solution is obvious . But it does have the virtue of being one that not everyone knows.