The two-state solution, the gold standard of Western Middle East policy for decades, was predicated on two foundational pillars. One related to the “state,” and the other to the “solution.” Both pillars collapsed over the last year.
End of the ‘state’ part (2023)
In most variations of the two-state solution, the Palestinian state was demilitarized, with various restrictions to accommodate Israel’s existential security needs, such as Israel retaining the airspace and keeping control of border crossings. This became known as a “state-minus.”
October 7 ended the template, not due to Hamas atrocities, as much as due to the Western reaction to it. While Israel fully withdrew from Gaza back in 2005, over the last year, Western public opinion was shaped to believe that “October 7 did not happen in a vacuum,” to use UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s words.
Gaza was under “occupation,” “blockade,” or “siege,” pundits explain in Western media since Israel controlled what could go into the Strip.
If Gaza was considered under occupation a day before October 7, certainly the state of Palestine would be considered under occupation on day one.
Western public opinion of 2025 no longer tolerates a “state-minus.” Moreover, as discussed in last week’s column, the Palestinian issue has shifted in recent years from being viewed in the context of problem-solving to that of “rights” and, since October 7, “inalienable rights.”
Those Palestinian rights include the right to their airspace, control of their borders, and building their own military – rights given to any other nation, the Western logic goes. Indeed, the topic of Palestine is no longer about peace-making; it is about “justice.”
Therefore, unlike two years ago, the Western mindset would passionately and aggressively reject the two-state solution: a secured Jewish state living next to an “occupied” Palestinian state.
Given that a full-fledged Palestinian state is out of the question and viewed as suicidal for Israel, the two-state solution template became a self-contradictory farce.
End of the ‘solution’ part (2024)
The second pillar was about the “solution” – a durable arrangement that will stand the test of time. Indeed, the two-state solution assumed a stable macro-environment – in Jordan, Syria, and, in particular, in the new state of Palestine.
If the Assad regime, in place for fifty years and supported by Iran and Russia, can topple in two days, the same can happen to a nascent Palestinian state.
This is in particular since, unlike Assad, who enjoyed a steady support base of the Alawites, the Palestinian Authority, which is the nucleus of the Palestinian state, has no domestic base of support and is viewed by many Palestinians as a corrupt and detached entity.
The mere thought of an ISIS, Hamas, al-Qaeda, or Hezbollah-like affiliate taking over a Palestinian state sometime after it was established, turned the idea of the two-state solution from a template for peace to a strategic threat to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the West, and certainly to Israel.
With no state and no solution, the “two-state solution” came to its final end. A sad event for peace-making? On the contrary.
Removing an obstacle to peace
The two-state solution dominated peace-making to such an extent that it was taboo to explore other frameworks.
For example, the UN’s Guterres stated: “The two-state solution is the only viable path for achieving peace between Palestine and Israel.” Western leaders echoed similar messages of exclusivity over the years.
The Biden Administration even went as far as to include undermining “the foreign policy objectives of the United States, including the viability of a two-state solution,” as a supportive reason to impose sanctions.
At the same time, proponents of the template acknowledged that the two-state solution is mostly a “horizon” – a slogan that gives hope. This perhaps was reflected in former president Joe Biden’s remarks upon landing in Israel in July 2022.
Right before affirming his commitment to the two-state solution, he deviated from the speech and qualified: “even though I know it’s not in the near term.”
And still, the two-state solution, rejected by Israelis on the Left and Right, by most Palestinians, as well as many experts such as Henry Kissinger, remained sacrosanct in Western policy circles – in the State Department, the EU, the UN, and various European-sponsored NGOs: “In the two-state solution we trust.”
So much so, that when then-US secretary of state Antony Blinken was asked in July 2024 if the two-state solution is dead, he responded: “Not only is it not dead – it can’t be [dead].”
And so, with such a dogmatic, zealous self-preserving mindset, the two-state solution itself became a primary hurdle to peace in the Middle East.
The Trump administration pronouncing it dead could open opportunities for frameworks that are based on organic Middle East realities. Indeed, the last time there was Middle East peace, in 1920, it was predicated on the natural mutual interests of Arabs and Jews.
Back then, Arabs in Palestine and throughout the Middle East began expressing their nascent national sentiments through the Arab Kingdom of Syria. The Kingdom was led by King Faisal, who was pro-Zionist and supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (today’s Israel, West Bank, and parts of Jordan).
This organic version of the “two-state solution” ended abruptly when France invaded Syria, deposed the king, and jumpstarted a century of disruptive European intervention in the Middle East.
While we cannot go back to 1920, we can go back to the mindset of the time: truth-based peace built on organic Middle East realities, as opposed to slogan-based peace built on Western-imposed frameworks.
The Abraham Accords, just like the accords signed by King Faisal and Zionist leadership a century prior, are based on such an organic principle: Arabs in the Middle East want to partner with the Jewish state and benefit from its tremendous advancements. Let us not have outdated Western frameworks stand in the way of peace.
The writer is the author of a new book, The Assault on Judaism: The Existential Threat Is Coming from the West. He is chairman of the Judaism 3.0 Think Tank and author of Judaism 3.0: Judaism’s Transformation to Zionism (Judaism-Zionism.com). His geopolitical articles can be accessed on the website: EuropeAndJerusalem.com.