Europe recognises Palestine but two-state vision fades

Even before the war in Gaza, negotiations failed to produce peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians

By Aaron Boxerman

France, Britain and the other countries recognising a Palestinian state this week say they aim to salvage whatever hope remains for the internationally backed formula to end the half-century-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians: a Jewish state of Israel at peace with a neighbouring Palestinian one.

But nearly two years into the devastating war in the Gaza Strip, Israelis and Palestinians alike say the possibility of a two-state solution seems more remote than ever.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has devastated the enclave. Israeli settlements have become ever more entrenched in the West Bank. In opinion polls, Hamas still commands greater support among Palestinians than the more moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.

Many Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now dismiss the possibility of ever allowing Palestinian independence. In the absence of any other solution, that would leave Israel ruling over millions of Palestinians indefinitely.

“There will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River,” Netanyahu said Sunday. “For years, I have prevented the establishment of this terrorist state facing tremendous pressures at home and abroad.”

Partitioning the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea has long been a proposed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The idea has formed the basis of multiple rounds of Israeli-Arab peace talks and United Nations resolutions.

In a nutshell, most proposals say the Palestinian state would be established in the territory Israel occupied in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 — the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Palestinian-majority neighbourhoods of Jerusalem — while Israel would remain in its internationally recognised borders.

Israeli and Palestinian critics question the justice, wisdom and feasibility of that approach. Many on both sides demand full control of the whole land, ruling out granting their rivals a state; only a small minority support a single, democratic state in which Palestinians and Israelis would have equal rights. In the 1990s and 2000s, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held multiple rounds of talks that Palestinians hoped would lead to an independent state. As part of the Oslo Accords, they agreed to create the Palestinian Authority, which still administers some areas in the West Bank.

But the talks fell apart in the early 2000s, as Palestinian militant attacks against Israeli civilians surged. Israel responded with a major crackdown, sending tanks into larger Palestinian cities. The violence ultimately subsided, but the peace process was dealt a severe blow.

Israeli and Palestinian officials last held serious peace negotiations during the Obama administration. Those talks were overseen by the same leaders still in charge today: Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-ruling prime minister; and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.

The peace process was moribund for about a decade in the wake of those talks. Then came the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which set off the war in Gaza and plunged Israelis and Palestinians into one of the deadliest chapters in their history.

As Israel’s campaign in Gaza has razed swaths of the territory, the Israeli right has seized the opportunity to sharply expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank. About 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the territory alongside three million Palestinians.

Israeli settler leaders hope that, by deepening their hold in the West Bank, they can foreclose the possibility of a Palestinian state. The Israeli government advanced plans for more than 20,000 new housing units in the settlements in 2025 alone, according to Peace Now, a settlement watchdog.

Advocates for a two-state solution say that it would end Israel’s occupation, which subjects Palestinians to a harsh life of checkpoints and Israeli raids. West Bank Palestinians cannot vote in Israeli elections, even though the government wields broad control over their lives.

The creation of a Palestinian state would also benefit Israelis, they say, by preserving Israel’s character as a Jewish-majority democracy and putting an end to the cycle of violence that has dominated the region for decades.

But Israelis are sceptical that establishing such a state would end the conflict. After the 2023 attack, they often argue that any territorial withdrawal would invite further attacks on a smaller and weaker Israel.

They also point to the failure of previous talks, for which they blame Palestinian leaders. Palestinians argue that Israel was never serious about compromise.

In any case, Israeli leaders now freely assert that they will never allow a Palestinian state.