Stop Pressuring Israel for a Two-State ‘Solution’

Soldiers stand at the entrance of a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing, in Gaza, on Dec. 15, 2023. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Despite demands from the United States and the United Nations, the two-state “solution” for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is arguably dead. It never appears to have been very lively.

When Palestinian leaders misled their people, as early as the 1920s, to reject Jewish people in Israel, violent anti-semitism arose. Continued such violence, most recently by Hamas, makes a two-state solution within the former British mandate Palestine untenable. Since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, there has always been a two- or even five-state solution: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq for Arabs, and a diverse Palestine, which is now Israel, for both Arabs and Jews.

The violent rejection of this reasonable approach by Palestinians and other Arabs is what led to the Independence of Israel and the Nakba of 1948. Continued Palestinian rejection of Israel fostered continued wars and Palestinian land loss. Hamas and its supporters now perpetuate this self-defeating “Palestinian” strategy.

As Israel learned over the years, Hamas is undeterrable because it does not really care about Palestinians. It cares about the material support it gets from Iran. The Palestinian Authority, in which the Biden administration puts so much hope, is likewise problematic. It “glorified” the Oct. 7 massacre, according to The Wall Street Journal, and is close to paying the families of Hamas “martyrs.” The Journal noted on Jan. 15 that the administration is, therefore, premature to discuss a “two-state solution.”

The solution for Palestinians today—the true path to peace and health—is not two states. Neither is “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians to nearby Arab states acceptable, as promoted by some far-right Israelis. The former would submit to terrorism, and the latter is genocide.

The better approach is what the current Israeli government is doing, minus the civilian casualties and creeping land theft. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is securing the borders of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and subduing terrorists that attack these territories.

Along with this strategy comes responsibility for protecting civilians within those borders, including Palestinians. Saving more lives of innocent Palestinians should be the focus of U.S. diplomacy with Israel, not pressure for two states that would empower Hamas. What children in Gaza need now is food and health care. Providing this within a secure perimeter controlled by the Israel Defense Forces would be an effective platform for both the delivery of humanity to humanity and targeted counterterrorism operations against Hamas that minimize civilian casualties. This is more secure and long-term sustainable than two states, which would provide Hamas with more weapons and diplomatic strength for its undeterrable violence.

Two-states would only make the situation worse as long as Hamas and its supporters—the mullahs in Iran and the Saudis, who support two-states—fail to change their minds about terrorism as an acceptable means. The Biden administration, unfortunately, is desperate for any solution, and so staked out a middle ground of political expediency between regional powers rather than a principled position of the right of Jews and Arabs to live side by side in the Middle East in peace.

The Biden administration follows its voters, biased by their leftist understanding of history that sees Jews in Israel as instituting “white settler colonialism,” “apartheid,” or “genocide” rather than as a minority religion hanging on for dear life in the only territory it has, and surrounded by hostile and aggressive states and proxies.

Yes, Israel went too far by killing so many civilians. The latest figure from Gaza health authorities is over 25,000 Palestinian deaths, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel’s war of self-defense should have been slower and more targeted against Hamas from the start. As a humane approach, Israel should have facilitated water, food, fuel, and health services to civilians rather than impeding them. This is what the United States and allies did in Afghanistan across two decades of fighting Taliban terrorism.

But the mistake in Afghanistan was to build a corrupt government of Afghans, who took drug money from the Taliban and caved to them as soon as we left. The Kabul government did not prioritize democracy or peace, and Afghan civilians paid the price.

Hamas and, arguably, the Palestinian Authority are likewise motivated by money and power rather than justice. Jerusalem is now rightly more careful about establishing quasi-governmental authoritarians to rule over and influence Palestinian civilians. Another approach entirely, which Mr. Netanyahu supports, is therefore reasonable: long-term Israeli control of the borders.

But this puts the responsibility for Palestinians within those borders on Israel. This should be welcomed by Jerusalem as a way to both demonstrate Israel’s humanitarian commitment to Arabs within its borders and to conduct counterterrorism against Hamas and any other terror group that might emerge in the future.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.