The harsh reality is, prospects for peaceful resolution are less likely to be advanced by recognition than by the actions of three protagonists in this agonising script: Israel, the US and the Palestinians.
Herein lies the rub: In all three cases, domestic forces have conspired to prevent the reconsideration of strategies, reconfiguration of policies and reassessment of roles necessary to change the realities on the ground in Palestine.
In the case of Israel, diplomatic pressure is having the reverse effect of hardening the resolve of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In an angry address at the UN General Assembly last week, Mr Netanyahu vowed to block a Palestinian state and to “finish the job against” Hamas for its Oct 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Since then, Israel’s military response has left much of Gaza in ruins and tens of thousands dead.
“Israel will not allow you to shove a terrorist state down our throats,” Mr Netanyahu said, in his pushback at the UN against the recent flurry of diplomatic moves. “We will not commit national suicide because you don’t have the guts to face down the hostile media and anti-Semitic mobs demanding Israel’s blood.”
What’s notable in this show of defiance by Mr Netanyahu is that despite growing global condemnation, he continues to enjoy the support of the Trump administration.
American support is crucial. The US is not only Israel’s main weapons supplier and source of economic aid but also provides diplomatic cover. Critically, while a growing number of countries have declared support for recognition of a Palestinian state, the effect is essentially symbolic. Full UN membership would still need to be approved by the United Nations Security Council. And there the US has a veto.
On the Palestinian side, no doubt Hamas is under severe military and political pressure, yet it remains stubbornly belligerent. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, Hamas’ arch-rival in Palestine, has diminished considerably in Palestinian eyes over the years, raising doubts whether they present a credible option for its future government.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing the UN General Assembly in New York on Sept 26. In the case of Israel, diplomatic pressure is having the reverse effect of hardening the resolve of his government, says the writer. PHOTO: DAVE SANDERS/NYTIMES
Unravelling of the Two-State Solution
Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the international community has held out hope that the arc of Middle Eastern history would bend gradually towards a negotiated two-state solution, which would pave the way for the creation of a Palestinian state that can co-exist with Israel in peace and security.
Fast forward 30 years, and we have never been further from that prospect.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose first term in office began in 1996, a year after the assassination of Mr Yitzhak Rabin, one of the architects of Oslo, has himself never been a supporter of the two-state solution, even if he had in the past reluctantly expressed that he was willing to countenance it with conditions.
But now at the head of a governing coalition including several far-right parties, Mr Netanyahu has hardened his views. In the face of reservations from his military commanders, he has sanctioned a full-scale invasion and occupation of Gaza.
Meanwhile, plans to annex more territory in the West Bank are in advanced stages. Far-right coalition partners, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, have been pushing the government to accelerate the expansion of Jewish settlements.
Most controversial is the so-called E1 resettlement plan, which involves the construction of 3,400 homes that will effectively cut off the West Bank from Jerusalem. Dormant for several years, the plan was revived and subsequently approved by the Israeli government in August.
Justifying the move, Mr Smotrich has painted a vivid picture of the fate of Palestine once things are set in motion: “The Palestinian state is being erased from the table, not with slogans but with actions… Every settlement, every neighbourhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”
Israel’s uncompromising approach on Gaza should be understood not only in light of the 2023 attack by Hamas but also the dramatic changes in the regional geopolitical landscape since then.
Two years on, Israel has re-established deterrence after the shock of the Hamas assault. Not only that, it has used its military superiority to change geopolitical facts on the ground in its neighbourhood: Aside from severely weakening Hamas, Israel has also crippled Hezbollah in Lebanon, degraded Iranian nuclear facilities, struck pre-emptively into Syria, attacked Houthi targets in Yemen, and bombed Qatar in its hunt for Hamas leaders.
More On This Topic
Weakening of UN would be dire for small states like Singapore, says Vivian Balakrishnan
S’pore will reconsider position on Palestine if situation deteriorates: Vivian
This is not to say that there is national consensus in Israel on the policies of the Netanyahu administration. Quite the contrary. Heated domestic debate continues over issues such as the rescue of remaining hostages, the conduct of the war in Gaza, annexation plans in the West Bank, and the damage that Israel’s military operations have done to its international standing.
Opposition voices have also criticised the outsized influence of far-right politicians in the ruling coalition and denounced the Prime Minister for prolonging the Gaza war for self-interested reasons. In response to Mr Netanyahu’s UN speech, Mr Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party in Israel and a retired major-general, criticised it for displaying “only victimhood, sanctimoniousness and complete blindness to the suffering of the hostages and the sacrifice of the fighters”.
Notwithstanding these debates, the domestic political situation does not yet appear to have any moderating effect on the current government’s actions in Gaza.
The US role
The intransigence of the Netanyahu government has doubtless been buttressed by support from the Trump administration in Washington.
While there is evidence that the mood on the American ground is starting to shift because of shocking images of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Gaza, this trend is unlikely to change under President Donald Trump, who has described the recent wave of Palestinian recognition as “rewarding” the atrocities committed by Hamas.
Even if Mr Trump has given assurances to Arab leaders that he would block Israeli annexation of West Bank territories, as he apparently did on the sidelines of last week’s UN meetings, given the many abrupt changes he has made on Ukraine, tariffs and other matters, one would be well advised to take anything he says with a grain of salt.
At any rate, the larger point is this: While the US may well be finding itself isolated internationally for its position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is hardly cause for concern for an iconoclastic president.
The search for Palestinian leadership
Following the resounding 42-10 vote (with 12 abstentions) on Palestine at the UN on Sept 12, there is now practically a global consensus that Hamas, which governs Gaza, must have no stake in the future of Palestine.
But Hamas appears not to have got the memo. There is no sign it is going away any time soon or willing to accept the existence of Israel, a necessary condition for the two-state solution.
In an interview with CNN a day before Mr Netanyahu spoke at the UN, Hamas senior official Ghazi Hamad said: “You know what is the benefit of Oct 7 now? If you look to the General Assembly yesterday, when about 194 people opened their eyes and looked to the atrocity, to (the) brutality of Israel, and all of them, they condemned Israel. We waited for this moment for 77 years.”
If not for the utter brutality of Oct 7, Mr Ghazi’s statement seems almost reasonable.
Meanwhile, protests in Gaza against Hamas earlier this year have been met with suppression. Palestinian protester Uday Rabie was reportedly tortured to death in April by the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, for his criticism of the militants and involvement in such protests.
More On This Topic
Explainer: What would wider recognition of Palestine mean for Palestinians and Israel?
Could Tony Blair run Gaza?
Is there an alternative to Hamas? At present, the only realistic option is Fatah, the centre-left party that currently administers the Palestinian Territories in the West Bank.
The hostility between Fatah and Hamas is well known. In 2006, Hamas defeated Fatah and several other secular parties to dominate the Palestinian National Authority, a presumptive legislature for Palestine, after which it promptly proceeded to execute or imprison scores of Fatah leaders in Gaza.
One of the reasons accounting for the rise of Hamas – it managed to even win Palestinian Christian votes in 2006 – was the abysmal unpopularity of Fatah.
By most accounts, Fatah’s legitimacy deficit has only worsened since. As a political entity and governing authority, Fatah remains wracked by factionalism, corruption and incompetence.
The party remains dominated by ageing veterans and hence has struggled to capture the imagination of a new generation of Palestinians.
All this is to say that while the latest round of “recognition diplomacy” at the UN has dominated headlines and caused ripples, the reality is that this sound and fury will signify little because the primary parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict – the parties whose actions matter more than most on this issue – remain locked in old patterns of action and cycles of retaliation.
When it comes to Israel and Palestine, optimism has always been a rare and precious commodity. Sadly, the state of affairs today renders it a near impossibility.
Professor Joseph Chinyong Liow is chairman of the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore, and Tan Kah Kee chair in comparative and international politics and former dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University.
