Netanyahu entered office in March 2009 just months after his predecessor Ehud Olmert had appeared to be on the cusp of a historic breakthrough to achieve a two-state resolution to the conflict based on the pre-1967 lines.
Israel was only four years out from the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, that including the destruction of 21 Israeli settlements there and four in northern Samaria.
The burning question at the time was how much territory would Israel lose in such a deal and which settlements would be evacuated next, not how much could it retain.
Netanyahu began on a high note, with an outstretched hand to the Palestinians to hold talks and affirming his support for a two-state solution, which he outlined in his Bar-Ilan speech in June 2009.
By the time he left office, on Sunday of this week, negotiations for a two-state resolution seemed so unfeasible that the best the international community and the United States said they could hope for, was to retain the status quo.
In 2010, 71% of Israelis polled and 57% of Palestinians backed two states compared to 44% and 43% in 2020. The data was collected by Dr. Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin of Tel Aviv University.
As a sign of how irrelevant the conflict seemed to Israelis, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in his swearing-in speech spoke of how Israel had been recently reminded “that the conflict with the Palestinians still exists,” as if it had been considered an incidental thing that had suddenly been brought to the foreground.
Netanyahu was not the only actor on stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during that period. Other players including former US presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. They all played a role in creating and reacting to unilateralism that changed the dialogue and the contour of the conflict.
Here are 13 ways the paradigm shifted as the Israelis moved Right and the Palestinians became more entrenched.
1. Israeli-Arab peace severed from Palestinian conflict
Netanyahu severed the link that had existed since 2002 between the normalization of Israeli ties with the Arab world and the realization of a two-state resolution to the conflict based on the pre-1967 lines. The 2002 Arab League plan offered Israel normalized ties with all its members if it accepted that vision. It was a move that effectively froze the advancement of Israeli-Arab ties for 18 years.
In 2020, Trump ended the Arab League’s stranglehold on Israeli-Arab ties and under the rubric of the Abraham Accords brokered four normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Additional deals are potentially in the works.
It was a crossroad moment that appeared to divorce Israeli-Arab relations from Israeli-Palestinian ones and allow Israeli regional ties to advance, regardless of the Palestinian issue.
2. Direct Israeli-Palestinian talks grind to a halt
No significant Israeli negotiation drives were executed under Netanyahu. Obama tried peace talks twice, once in 2010 and again in 2013. Netanyahu and PA head Abbas met only in the context of the former initiative, not the latter. Even then they spoke face-to-face only some four times. Neither drive had an actual name attached to the initiative and both failed.
Obama’s successor, Trump, launched his “peace to prosperity” plan in January 2020, but it was rebuffed immediately by the Palestinians and no talks ensued.
3. Settlement freeze demand normalized
Settlers built homes during Israeli-Palestinian talks under former US presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. The latter first opened the door to the idea of a freeze when he inserted that language into his 2002 Road Map, but Bush never forced Israel to comply.
Abbas in 2009 changed the formula and insisted that direct negotiations could only be held if Israel first froze construction in West Bank settlements and Jewish building in east Jerusalem. It was a precondition they held onto for most of the time Netanyahu was in office, thereby creating almost an immediate barrier to talks.
Obama largely accepted that concept, holding that settlements were a stumbling block to peace. It was a move that was rejected by Trump, but has now been picked up by US President Joe Biden, but with a new twist.
Based on the initial statement by his administration it appears that it views settlement building as a stumbling block to maintaining the status quo. Netanyahu has already warned that Biden is quietly calling for a freeze outside the context of peace talks.
From November 2009 to September 2010 Netanyahu imposed the most stringent crack-down on settler housing in the history of the settlement movement, imposing, at Obama's request, a ten-month moratorium on the construction of new housing starts in all West Bank settlements.
Netanyahu never again halted actual settlement building, but there were stretches of time in where a de-facto freeze in the advancement and approval of Jewish housing plans was in place, both in the West Bank and in east Jerusalem. This includes his final months in office. And, from the moment of Biden's inauguration, no plans were advanced or approved for settler homes.
4. ’67 lines replace settlement blocs
The phrase “settlement blocs” was dropped from the Israeli-Palestinian lexicon. Netanyahu refused to entertain the idea that Israel would retain only the high population settler communities in Area C of the West Bank – preferably those close to the Green Line – a concept accepted by his predecessors Ariel Sharon and Olmert. It was a move that would have meant the evacuation of isolated settlements.
Netanyahu insisted that there was no difference between isolated settlements and the blocs. That distinction was also meaningless to the Palestinians, the US and the international community, which held that a two-state solution should be based on the pre-1967 lines. Obama set the record straight on that from the start in his Cairo speech when he called for all settlement construction to stop.
The debate became more of an all-or-nothing one that centered on two states either based or not based on the pre-1967 lines, in which all settlements largely had equal standing irrespective of size or location.
5. West Bank gives way to Judea and Samaria
The term Judea and Samaria became an increasingly acceptable term for the West Bank, with the Trump administration giving that language and the settlements themselves a new found legitimacy.
Trump’s administration canceled the 1978 Hansell memo that declared settlement activity to be illegal. It recognized Israel’s legitimate and historic right to build settlements on that territory and said that such construction was not inconsistent with international law.
It’s a stance that has helped legitimize the settlements within the US, even as the Biden Administration is likely to return to an Obama-era understanding of settlements.
6. Battle for Area C goes into hyper-drive
The battle for Area C dates back to the Oslo Accords in the 1990s which divided the West Bank into three sections, gave the PA auspices over Areas A and B and left C under IDF control. The expectation was that Israel would withdraw from large portions of Area C, thereby setting the stage for an on-the-ground, day-to-day civic and violent battle over every rock and inch of territory.
Both Palestinians and Israelis hold that these land battles, safeguard their control of territory and will determine how much of Area C will become part of a Palestinian or Israeli state.
The pitch of the Area C battle increased during the Netanyahu years. Settlers renewed outpost construction. The Israeli Right pressed for the Civil Administration to increase its demotion of illegal Palestinian homes and pressured the government to legalize unauthorized settlement building.
The Right rejected past ideas of handing the bulk of Area C to the Palestinians and focused instead on Israeli retention of all of Area C within Israel’s final sovereign borders.
The UN, the European Union and individual European states for the first time entered the battle, by picking up the issue of Palestinian housing in Area C, particularly taking into account the lack of approvals granted for such construction. Under the argument that the provision of such housing was a human rights issue, the UN and the Europeans disregarded IDF building regulations in Area C and helped provide temporary housing and schools to the Palestinians. It was a move that increased tensions between them and Israel.
7. Annexation is legitimized
The peace talks freeze opened the door to what had been a fringe concept, the unilateral application of sovereignty over the West Bank settlements, if not over all of Area C itself.
Such annexation slowly received legitimacy during the Netanyahu years as almost all right-wing politicians picked up the call, with multiple attempts to pass legislation applying such sovereignty. By 2019, Netanyahu himself sanctioned the idea and pledged to annex the settlements.
The Trump administration gave annexation an added boost of legitimacy. The peace plan it unveiled in 2020 accepted Israel’s right to annex the settlements under certain conditions.
The plan was suspended by both Trump and Netanyahu, but it has remained a legitimate part of the discourse, with the Right simply waiting for the proper opportunity to execute it.
8. The US relocates embassy to Jerusalem
The status of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem was advanced under Netanyahu, with the US recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating its embassy there. Guatemala and Kosovo have also opened Jerusalem embassies. Malawi, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic and Serbia have all promised to do so, with the Czech Republic and Hungary opening branch offices in Jerusalem as a sign of intent.
The US also allowed Americans born in Jerusalem to register Israel as their country of birth, something which had previously been prohibited.
Many in the international community do not recognize that Jerusalem is part of Israel, nor that it is the capital. Among those who do, most reject Israeli sovereignty the eastern part of the city.
The Biden administration plans to keep its embassy in Jerusalem, a move which gives added weight to the Trump administration's policy changes.
9. Israel Right views Palestinian statehood as passé
Negotiations for a two-state solution necessitate future acceptance of a Palestinian state. In the absence of talks, Israeli politicians on the Right increasingly disavowed Palestinian statehood. Even Netanyahu, who as recently as last year still supported a demilitarized Palestinian state, ended his time in office speaking against it.
10. PA pushes for unilateral statehood
Early in Netanyahu’s tenure, the Palestinians rejected the idea that they would receive statehood recognition only upon completion of a two-state resolution to the conflict and instead embarked on a campaign for unilateral recognition regardless of the fate of any peace process.
Prior to the 1993 Oslo Accord that set in motion a two-state process, 98 countries had recognized Palestine as a state. From 1994-2008, that number went up by only an additional ten countries.
Since 2009, 29 countries have recognized Palestine as a state, including Sweden and Iceland.
Most Western countries, including the US and Canada, have not done so. The PA has pushed in particular for the UN, the European Union and western European countries to individually grant them such recognition.
11. De-facto Palestinian statehood status at the UN
The PA’s statehood drive was most successful at the UN, where the General Assembly upgraded its status from one of an observer mission to that of a non-member state. This has allowed it to operate as de facto state and join UN treaties and conventions, including in 2015 the Rome Statute which governs the International Criminal Court.
The US, however, blocked it persistently from becoming a member state at the UN. It is a move that would need the approval of the UN Security Council where the US has veto power.
12. Temple Mount status quo shaken
Tensions escalated under Netanyahu around the Temple Mount, also known as the al-Haram al-Sharif, with Palestinians and Jordan increasingly concerned that Israel was attempting to change the status quo which barred Jewish prayer at the site.
Despite warning from the PA and Jordan, which has a special custodial relationship to the Temple Mount, it became increasingly acceptable for politicians to speak of a new arrangement as right-wing activists pushed to allow Jewish prayer at the site.
13. Apartheid charges gain momentum
Discourse on the Israeli and the international Left was radicalized under Netanyahu with the call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel taking a back seat to a new initiative to label Israel as an apartheid state, including at the UN.