There is something surreal about all the renewed talk of a Palestinian state.
Less than four months after Hamas launched a savage attack on Israel – killing 1,200 people, taking 240 people hostage, destroying communities, raping women, mutilating bodies, and sparking a significant war – news sites are reporting on the tension between Washington and Jerusalem over a two-state solution.
Suddenly, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is talking about a pathway toward two states as a condition for a broad, new Middle East structure that will have Saudi Arabia formalizing ties with Israel. Suddenly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after discussing the issue with US President Joe Biden, is saying a Palestinian state will never happen under his watch. Suddenly, five senators are announcing that they are in favor of conditioning emergency supplemental aid to Israel on Netanyahu, reaffirming support for a Palestinian state.
A war between Israel and the 'Palestinian State of Gaza'
A few weeks ago, former National Security Council head Giora Eiland said that one of Israel’s public diplomacy errors since October 7 was casting this war as one between Israel and Hamas.
Wrong, he said; this is a war between the State of Israel and the Palestinian State of Gaza. Since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, that strip of land has been under the Palestinians’ exclusive control, first by the Palestinian Authority and then, as a result of a bloody coup in 2007, by Hamas.
For nearly two decades, Israel has not controlled Gaza, has not ruled there, has had no say over the government that the Palestinians themselves voted in, and has been unable to prevent the build-up of a small army with significant capabilities.
The Palestinians had a mini-state in Gaza, and in Ariel Sharon’s original conception, when he prompted Israel’s withdrawal from the area, this was to be a test case as to whether that state could eventually extend to the West Bank as well.
On October 7, Israel saw how well that worked out, and what this mini-Palestinian state had wrought. Israelis saw what a Palestinian entity, fed on fanatical ideology, was able to accomplish. Israelis saw what this Palestinian entity was, what it sanctified, what it worked for, what it dreamed of, and what it was capable of carrying out.
And what they saw is not something that will encourage them to say in the future, “Hey, this worked great; let’s duplicate it elsewhere.”
Or, as no less a one-time two-state advocate than President Isaac Herzog said Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, “If you ask an average Israeli now about his or her mental state, nobody in his right mind is willing now to think about what will be the solution of the peace agreements.”
Israelis, he said, have “lost trust in the peace processes because they see that terror is glorified by our neighbors.”
In other words, for the vast majority of Israelis right now, talking about a two-state solution – while the hostages are still being held, while Israel is fighting on various fronts, and while Palestinian polls are giving Hamas a staggering amount of support in the West Bank – is just a pipe dream.
Elections in Israel, US dictating Palestinian state talk
SO WHY is all the Palestinian state talk re-percolating? Because of elections, both in Israel and the US.
In the US, Biden knows Israel, knows what Israel suffered on October 7, and knows that Israel is in no mood now for the creation of a Palestinian state. As Blinken himself said at Davos, “It’s hard to overstate the psychological impact on the country as a whole of what happened on that day.”
Yet Biden, Blinken, and the White House’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, continue to discuss it. Tellingly, however, they are not talking about it as something lurking just around the corner.
As Kirby said in a briefing on Friday, Biden, in conversation with Netanyahu the night before, “reiterated his strong conviction in the viability of a two-state solution – understanding, of course, that we’re not going to get there tomorrow, that there’s an active conflict going on, and that we want to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself.”
Biden himself said something telling over the weekend when quizzed about Netanyahu’s rejection of a two-state solution at a press conference Thursday night. Biden said that “there are a number of types of two-state solutions,” and that “there are a number of countries that are members of the UN that still do not have their own military.”
Back in 2009, when Netanyahu accepted the contours of a two-state solution in his famous Bar-Ilan speech, he stressed that this state must both recognize Israel as a Jewish state and be demilitarized. Over the years, this position morphed into talk about a “state-minus,” meaning the Palestinians will have all the powers to govern themselves and none of the powers to threaten Israel, and that security will have to remain in Israel’s hands.
By saying that “there are a number of types of two-state solutions,” and that not all countries need a military, Biden – knowingly or not – seemed to be inching in that direction.
But if this is something that is not going to happen any time soon, why is the Biden administration pushing the idea at all right now? The November elections play a role.
Remember when a few months ago, before October 7, there was a great deal of discussion about Biden brokering a major Mideast deal that would have the Saudis normalize ties with Israel? One of the explanations for the timing back then was that Biden hoped to pull off a major foreign policy coup before the November election that could assist him in securing a re-election.
Hamas tried to destroy that possibility with its October 7 attack, but the administration is now trying to revive it.
This explains all the recent chatter about Saudi Arabia’s willingness to still consider a deal with Israel if a Palestinian state is part of the package. And Biden’s political calculation remains the same: being able to revitalize the plan could help him in November, and dangling out the prospect of a Palestinian state could help him retain those in his party who are furious over his support of Israel during the war.
Likewise, the issue is being used for political gain in Israel as well.
This came out clearly at Netanyahu’s Thursday press conference when he said that only he could prevent the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state. “Those who speak of the day after Netanyahu are talking about the creation of a Palestinian state, led by the Palestinian Authority,” he warned.
“Israel needs security control [over] all territory west of the Jordan [River],” Netanyahu said. “This collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can you do?”
He said that Israel’s prime minister “needs to be capable of saying no to our friends,” leaving the impression that only he can do so.
NO NEW DATE has been given for early elections, but Netanyahu’s turning this into an issue – even publicly turning this into a point of contention with the White House – is an indication that he is getting ready for a campaign. If, in the past, one of Netanyahu’s tickets was presenting himself as Mr. Security, as the person that the country could rely on to keep it safe, after October 7, that argument has lost its resonance. He needs a new ticket, and preventing a Palestinian state is the one he seems to have chosen.