In a world reshaped by the trauma of October 7, some international diplomats seem determined to act as if nothing has changed.
On Tuesday, the United Nations convened yet another confab—this one in New York and sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia—aimed at revitalizing the decades-old push for a two-state solution. This came just days after French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize a Palestinian state in September.
Palestinian statehood, the participants to the conference declared, remains “the only viable path to peace.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres repeated the familiar formula: a state “based on the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
To Israeli ears, those words now ring hollow; worse, they sound tone-deaf.
Nearly 22 months after Hamas launched an invasion of Israel designed to trigger the beginning of the end of the Jewish state, the international community is dusting off the same talking points that dominated the diplomatic discourse before October 7.
But the ground has shifted and the assumptions that underpinned the two-state idea have eroded—swept away by the blood and horror of October 7, and the 20 years of Gaza-based terrorism that preceded it.
It’s one thing to promote Palestinian statehood in theory. It’s another to advocate for the creation of such a state within spitting distance of Tel Aviv, as memories of rockets fired toward Tel Aviv from Gaza are agonizingly fresh in Israeli minds. Israel has already lived through a version of this experiment, and it did not go well.
Twenty years ago next month, Israel withdrew entirely from Gaza. It uprooted 21 thriving Jewish communities, removed some 9,000 citizens from their homes, and handed the territory over to the Palestinians without preconditions.
The world applauded, at least briefly. The hope was that Gaza would become a pilot for Palestinian self-rule, a test case for a future state. Instead, it became a launchpad for Hamas, a haven for Islamic Jihad, and a base for Iranian proxies who want to destroy the Jewish state. On October 7 they tried to do just that.
How will this be different?
So when Israelis now hear foreign diplomats once again call for a Palestinian state, their first question is: based on what? On what precedent, on what evidence, on what assurances that this time will be any different? The two-state solution isn’t just an idea that has never materialized; it’s an idea that was partially implemented in Gaza and produced precisely the kind of nightmare it was supposed to avert.
That context was noticeably absent from the UN parley, and obviously did not make it into Guterres’ opening remarks when he said that “statehood for the Palestinians is a right, not a reward.”
Absent too were the necessary qualifiers. If there is to be a Palestinian state, how about a demilitarized one? One whose government does not pay terrorists after they murder Jews? One whose school system does not teach its children to glorify violence and dream of erasing Israel from the map? One, perhaps, that is deradicalized and stable, rather than yet another failed state ripe to be overtaken by Iran in an already tumultuous region?
Those issues weren’t raised. Instead, it was more sloganeering.
Previous blueprints for a Palestinian state, blueprints accepted by Israel and rejected by the Palestinians because they did not meet all of their maximalist demands, included a “safe passage” corridor linking Gaza with Hebron.
Today, can anyone imagine Israelis agreeing to allow Gazans to drive past the very communities they attacked and butchered? That moment has passed, and pretending otherwise won’t make it come back.
When US President Donald Trump floated his controversial idea in February of relocating Gazans elsewhere, it briefly seemed like the start of something different: an opening to think outside the box, to look for alternatives beyond the well-worn paths of failed diplomacy. But that window closed quickly. The UN parley shows that instead of imaginative thinking, we again get the old, tired default setting.
In theory, the world agrees that Israel’s security is paramount. In practice, the Palestinian state they are talking about at the UN would render that security impossible.
Creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank today—under the terms being discussed in the UN—would mean replicating the Gaza model on a much larger, more dangerous scale. Given recent history, there is no reason to believe that this would not lead to rockets within range of Ben-Gurion Airport, anti-tank missiles on the hills above Highway 6, and terror tunnels burrowing under the Green Line.
Is the two-state solution truly the only option?
Some Israeli analysts have suggested returning to a framework that predates the two-state mantra: expanded autonomy along the lines envisioned in the 1978 Camp David Accords. That approach would grant Palestinians civil governance and local control, but without the full apparatus of sovereign statehood—no army, no border control, no foreign policy.
Other ideas include one recently floated by sheikhs of the Hebron region for the creation of independent “emirates.” Another is a revisiting of the Jordanian federation plan. And a third calls for a creative redrawing of the regional map with Jordan, Egypt and Israel all swapping land to create a more viable Palestinian state than one in the West Bank and Gaza.
None of these may be perfect or even workable solutions. But at least they acknowledge the reality on the ground: the absence of Palestinian political leadership capable of delivering peace, the enduring appeal of Hamas-style violence in large parts of Palestinian society, and the simple, tragic, enduring fact that what many Palestinians want is not a state next to Israel in teh West Bank and Gaza, but one instead of it.
And yet, international diplomacy keeps circling back to the same place, as if sheer repetition will yield different results.
Worse, the timing of this latest diplomatic initiative shows just how disconnected much of the world remains from Israel’s lived reality.
August marks two decades since the disengagement from Gaza—the closest Israel ever came to granting full-fledged independence to a Palestinian territory. That bold gamble ended in disaster, not because Israel didn’t go far enough, but because its gesture was met with rockets, tunnels, kidnappings, and mass murder.
The trauma of that mistake is not theoretical. It is seared into the consciousness of a nation still burying its dead, still fighting a war, still trying to bring its hostages home.
The following poll results show the degree to which the trauma is not theoretical. An Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) poll in March found that support for a two-state solution declined to 24% among the general public, down from 38% in September 2024. Ten years ago, by comparison, a similar INSS poll found that 60% of the public supported the idea. In the March poll, only 15% of Jewish Israelis favored a two-state solution, a decline from 31% in September.
If the world wants to be helpful, it could start by listening. It could start by acknowledging the failure of past frameworks and helping to craft new ones grounded in present realities, not past fantasies.
It could press the Palestinians to reform their institutions, end incitement, stop paying for the slaying of Jews, stop teaching their children that Jews have no place in this region, stop glorifying terrorist murderers, and start building something resembling a credible political system. And it could make clear that any future arrangement must include ironclad guarantees for Israeli security—such as demilitarization and deradicalization—not just vague promises and recycled resolutions.
Until then, Israelis will continue to view talk of Palestinian statehood not as a path to peace, but as a dangerous delusion. One they’ve already lived through once before and have no interest in going through again.