Emphasizing Israel’s peace and security can bridge the two-state gap

Four months into the Israel-Hamas war, U.S. engagement in the Middle East looks very different than it did three years ago, when newly inaugurated President Joe Biden came into office intending to put the region on the back burner.

The U.S. is deeply engaged in an array of military and diplomatic initiatives aimed at preventing a wider regional conflagration. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has embarked on his fifth wartime regional tour to secure an Israel-Hamas hostage-release deal. Special Envoy Amos Hochstein is constantly shuttling between Jerusalem and Beirut to advance a diplomatic solution that would prevent a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah. In parallel, the U.S. and its allies have stepped up against Iran-backed militants in Yemen, Iraq and Syria in response to ongoing provocations linked to the war in Gaza.

But it is increasingly clear that the administration is also now focused on the long game: using the upheaval of this moment as an opportunity to meaningfully advance a two-state outcome between Israelis and Palestinians. The emergence of a Palestinian state alongside Israel — or at least a credible path toward this goal — would fulfill the requirements for Israel’s regional integration and enable a tighter coalition of U.S. regional partners opposed to Iran’s malign activity. 

To advance this vision, the State Department is reportedly even reviewing options for diplomatic recognition of Palestinian statehood. United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Cameron publicly suggested his country could take a similar step.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is not playing along. Since the war began, he has consistently parrotted that only he can prevent Palestinian statehood and ensure Gaza becomes neither “Hamastan” nor “Fatahstan,” referencing the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah party. 

Last month, he reportedly rejected a Saudi offer, conveyed via Secretary Blinken, that Israel advance Palestinian statehood in exchange for normalization with Saudi Arabia. He has also rejected the more immediate priority of returning the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, suggesting instead that Israel must maintain “security control” over the entire territory.

But this disagreement runs deeper than Netanyahu and Biden. It is indicative of a discrepancy between political pressures in Israel and abroad — including the U.S., European Union and Arab states — on the day after in Gaza. But with the right approach, it may be possible to mobilize support among Israelis for a day-after plan consistent with eventual Palestinian statehood. Conversely, wrong steps will make reaching that goal more difficult.

Following the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7, Palestinian statehood is an unattractive policy platform for mainstream Israeli politicians. Many Israelis agree that Israel must indefinitely maintain security control over all the Palestinian territories.

Israelis are constantly reliving Oct. 7. They see how deep antisemitic sentiments and support for terrorism run in Palestinian society. Not all Palestinians who butchered, raped and kidnapped Israelis were Hamas members. But to many Israelis, the idea that it is now incumbent upon Israel to bolster Palestinian sovereignty on their doorstep seems absurd.

A survey taken in late October showed a decrease among Israeli Jews from 47.6 percent to 24.5 percent for support for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. These sentiments explain why center-left Israeli politicians, including some who theoretically support two states, have urged the Biden administration to stop talking about it so much. After visiting Israel in December and talking to many center-left Israelis, I can attest that most understandably see little else at the moment beyond their need for security.

That being said, the primary motivation for Netanyahu’s ongoing campaign against Palestinian statehood is not sensitivity to trauma. Rather, it is to preserve his government and keep the far right from outflanking him. 

No prime minister has ever been so reliant on those who seek to advance Jewish sovereignty over the entire land at the expense of Palestinian rights and Israeli democracy. This government has advanced West Bank annexation through administrative changes, whitewashing illegal settlement outposts, weakening the Palestinian Authority and abetting violent settler attacks against Palestinians.

Most Israelis pay scant attention to such developments, but that doesn’t make them popular. For months, even prior to the war, polls have consistently predicted a solid majority for the parties currently in the opposition and a significant setback for Netanyahu’s bloc. 

Back in 2020, when Netanyahu suspended West Bank annexation to advance normalization with the United Arab Emirates, 80 percent of Israelis supported it. A recent poll by Geneva Initiatives showed that a slim majority of Israelis — 51.3 percent — would support the very Saudi proposal Netanyahu rejected: normalization and freeing the hostages in exchange for Israel agreeing to an eventual demilitarized Palestinian state. 

When Palestinian statehood is clearly tied to normalization and framed as a long-term goal that won’t compromise Israeli security (“demilitarized” being the operative word), it is something many Israelis are willing to accept.

Israel’s Western allies need to be strategic in how they advocate for two states, with sensitivity to the political climate in Israel, to ensure that their entreaties don’t fall on deaf ears and to allow a hypothetically more amenable future Israeli leadership to mobilize support effectively. Final-status negotiations are not realistic for the foreseeable future, no matter who Israel’s prime minister is. 

According to a Dec. 5 survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, only 35 percent of Israeli Jews and 55 percent of Israeli Arabs, who make up about one-fifth of Israelis, believe Israel should pursue two states as a condition for continuing to receive U.S. assistance. Especially in a moment when Israelis have never felt more vulnerable, conditioning aid to Israel on its shifting course vis-à-vis the Palestinians is clearly a losing strategy that will merely exacerbate Israel’s sense of vulnerability and weaken U.S. leverage.

Instead, to an Israeli audience, the goal of two states needs to be framed as a long-term priority that will bolster Israel’s security and actively advance its geopolitical standing. Israelis have no desire to remain in Gaza and rule over Palestinians indefinitely. A public reckoning over the settlement movement and the security burden it poses is long overdue; over 70 percent of Israel Defense Forces troops were in the West Bank protecting settlements — not Israel’s borders — on Oct. 7.

A Palestinian state cannot materialize absent significant Palestinian Authority reforms and willing Palestinian leaders who have a popular mandate to pursue peace. While acknowledging that fact, Arab and Western partners need to emphasize that Israelis’ security nonetheless depends on advancing separation, curbing extremist settler activity, preventing indefinite occupation and resettlement of Gaza and demonstrating to Palestinians that statehood awaits should they choose it over violence. None of that requires premature territorial withdrawals that empower extremist groups.

A credible two-state horizon is a sine qua non for mobilizing Arab involvement in rebuilding Gaza, advancing Israel’s regional integration, providing Palestinians with an alternative to violence and preserving Israel’s Jewish and democratic character. But if the U.S. and its allies hope to get Israelis on board with this vision, they need to ensure that Israelis see Israeli-Palestinian separation — and eventual statehood — as a security asset rather than a liability.

Alex Lederman is the senior policy and communications associate at Israel Policy Forum, an organization dedicated to a two-state outcome to preserve Israel’s future as secure, Jewish and democratic.