Why US Calls for a Two-State Solution in the Middle East Face Bigger Doubts Than Ever

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined growing international demands for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this week with Washington's clearest call yet for long-term peace once the Israel-Hamas war is over.

When the fighting in Gaza ends, a diplomatic solution must include "a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity," Blinken said Wednesday at a meeting of foreign ministers in Tokyo. China, India, Russia and European Union countries are among other countries repeating the two-state solution mantra.

Blinken's remarks also echoed calls by President Joe Biden for an eventual resumption of talks leading to the creation of a Palestinian nation state alongside Israel. The proposals reflect hopes that Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel's response may somehow lead both sides to seek an end to one of the world's most intractable conflicts.

But the optimism stands in stark contrast to the national mood of anger and disillusion in Israel. There is no sign of any more positive sentiment from Palestinians.

Among Middle East analysts, there is widespread consensus that the latest war will only make it harder to reach a two-state solution that has eluded the region for decades.

"This moment underscores the case that the two-state model may be the only sustainable political end to this conflict," Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, director of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Program at the United States Institute for Peace, told Newsweek.

"But both sides are too far apart psychologically at this point to come to the table and negotiate towards that endgame," Kurtzer-Ellenbogen said.

At the moment, the debate about a long-term solution to the conflict is taking a backseat to the fighting in Gaza. More than 10,500 people in Gaza have died since the war started, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas killed 1,400 people in Israel in its Oct. 7 attack.

In Israel, the public remains focused on the war with Hamas and the roughly 240 hostages that the militant group abducted and is holding in Gaza, said Rona Yona, a historian at Tel Aviv University. Hamas is sworn to the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state. It also opposes Palestinian groups that have sought potential compromise with Israel on a two-state solution.

"Until the hostages are returned and until Hamas is defeated, I don't think anybody will seriously consider the day-after strategy," Yona told Newsweek.

The pessimism stems in large part from a lack of obvious answers to the complex, unresolved questions at the heart of the conflict — where to draw a border between future states, Israeli security concerns, the fate of the city of Jerusalem, the Israeli settlers living on West Bank land that Palestinians seek for a state and the 'right of return' demanded by Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from homes in what is now Israel in the 1948 war at its creation.

Israel has long maintained that a two-state solution must be predicated on an ironclad security guarantee that it won't be attacked by neighboring nation states or terrorist organizations.

Border Clashes

The concerns have been exacerbated in recent weeks as Israel has clashed on its northern border with Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group. Hamas and Hezbollah are designated as terrorist groups by the U.S., Israel and other countries. In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, it's unclear what security scenario would satisfy Israel's concerns.

"There's no conceivable two-state solution" right now, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Newsweek.

"The idea of handing over statehood to a Palestinian entity where Israel kind of ceases to have the kind of security control that it has now, I think that will be an existential risk to the State of Israel," said Friedman, who was appointed under former President Donald Trump and upset Palestinians by implementing the move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during his tenure.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled concerns earlier this week in an interview with ABC News. Netanyahu said once the war is over Israel will be responsible for security in Gaza for "an indefinite period."

Netanyahu stopped short of suggesting that Israel planned to take back full control of the Gaza Strip, which has been run by Hamas since 2007 after Israel had relinquished control to the more moderate Palestinian Authority two years earlier. Biden has said it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza after the war.

But Netanyahu's remarks indicated he doesn't trust others to ensure Israel's security. They also suggested Israel isn't interested at the moment in rushing toward a diplomatic solution once the fighting ends.

The idea of Jewish and Arab states alongside each other was proposed in a United Nations partition plan in 1947, but it was rejected by Arab countries that attacked Israel at its formation in 1948. Israel won the war and expanded its territory to include nearly 80 percent of what had been the former British mandate of Palestine. Of the remainder, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were taken by Jordan and the Gaza Strip by Egypt. Israel seized those territories in the 1967 Middle East war. Only with the Oslo Accords in 1993, which gave Palestinians limited self-governance, did major steps resume towards a possible two-state solution. Diplomacy stalled repeatedly ever since.

Apart from the questions surrounding Israel's future security concerns, there is also no clear path forward for establishing a Palestinian state.

Palestinian Authority Doubts

Blinken called for Gaza and the West Bank to be "unified" under the control of the Palestinian Authority, which administers some areas of the occupied West Bank. But analysts said there are serious doubts among both Israelis and Palestinians that the authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, who turns 88 on November 15, can manage control of both territories.

A poll conducted before the Hamas attacks showed only 35 percent of Israelis believed Israel and an independent Palestinian state could coexist peacefully, down from 50 percent in 2013. A different poll showed only 24 percent of Palestinians supported a two-state solution compared to 59 percent in 2012.

Any two-state solution would also have to resolve the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, but now house some half a million Israelis. Critics argue the Israeli settler movement is aimed at occupying enough land in the West Bank to preclude the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.

Hamas orchestrated the Oct. 7 attack in large part to put "the Palestinian issue back on the table," Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas leader, said Wednesday in an interview with the New York Times.

But the Hamas leader also called for a "permanent" state of war with Israel. Israel has long pointed to such threats as proof that it can't negotiate a peace agreement with adversaries who don't recognize Israel's right to exist.

Right now, support in Israel "is very low for the prospect of a two-state solution," Yona said.

Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and expert on terrorism and insurgency, said a two-state solution is still the best available option, even if it seems like a distant dream one month into the war between Israel and Hamas.

"Since no other option is very realistic, it's incumbent on people to think a lot more creatively than they have in recent years" to try and resolve the conflict, he said.

But he noted that the war is a major setback. "We're almost starting from zero," Hoffman said.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.