The Two-State Solution Is Dead
Netanyahu wants to kill it, Trump wants to let it die
Terrorist organization HAMAS cancelled all further hostage releases on Monday, having released just 21 hostages in 25 days under the terms of the ceasefire that took effect on 15 January. Seventy-five hostages remain in Gaza. With only three months’ worth of bargaining collateral left, HAMAS appears to have chosen a strategy of denial and delay. They are playing with fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with a threat to resume the destruction of HAMAS unless they resume releasing hostages by Saturday afternoon. His cabinet declared their unanimous support on Tuesday. President Donald Trump seemed to raise the stakes by demanding all the hostages be released “by Saturday at 12:00” or else “all bets are off. Let hell break out … all hell is going to break out.”
Trump also repeated his intentions to “build safe communities, a little bit away from” Gaza, “where all of this danger is.” Deeming the Gaza strip “not habitable,” the president said that the United States will assume control and construct a “permanent place” for Arab refugees from Gaza.
Outrage was swift. The Guardian denounced Trump’s intentions as an “effective endorsement of ethnic cleansing.” Turkish president-for-life Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called Trump’s proposal “nothing worth considering or discussing” and blamed it on “the Zionist lobby” in Washington. Erdoğan will never agree to take in Palestinians; Turkey already hosts too many Syrian refugees.
In a meeting with Trump yesterday, King Abdullah II demurred on the proposal, pointing instead to an Egyptian-led effort by Arab states as an alternative. He refused to allow new refugee cities to be built in Jordan, offering to take in just “two thousand” children, preferably sick ones. Abdullah II was turning eight years old in 1970 when the Palestinian Liberation Organization came out of their Jordanian refugee camps and tried to overthrow his father. His intransigence is understandable.
Lebanon, which welcomed the PLO in a similar fashion and dissolved into civil war as a result in 1975, would be even worse as a destination for Gaza refugees. Syria and Iraq and Saudi Arabia have plenty of land, but not for refugees from Gaza.
Egypt, which has suffered from terrorism by the Muslim Brotherhood for decades and overthrew a Muslim Brotherhood government after the Arab Spring, is not about to take in HAMAS, which sprang from the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood. Cairo wants them to stay in Gaza so much that their Gaza border wall is far more elaborate than Israel’s. Their plan involves the reconstruction of Gaza without removing the population.
The Arab states which did the most to promote Palestinian identity, support Palestinian ‘resistance,’ and radicalize Palestinian society are the least willing to share their land with their own creation. Nobody wants a million Palestinian Arabs. ‘Palestine’ was always meant to be a problem for the Israelis. Egypt is trying to keep it that way.
More to the point, Abdullah’s government felt the need to emphasize opposition to any Israeli “settlement expansion,” rejecting “any attempts to annex land and displace the Palestinians.” Erdoğan and Egypt are also deeply opposed to Israeli resettlement of Gaza.
Even Israelis, who removed their settlements from Gaza in 2005, have little desire to resettle the land. Netanyahu’s chief barrier to peace in Gaza is the absence of any authority that can both govern the Strip and shake hands with him. Mahmoud Abbas, nominal head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is turning 90 years old; his organization has already proven they cannot run Gaza.
Enter Trump, who now offers to create “stability in the Middle East for the first time” by taking “control of that piece of land, a fairly large piece of land” for demolition, clearing, and reconstruction into a “Riviera of the Middle East.” While this vision for Gaza does not involve any Israeli settlers, even Trump supporters are confused just how he intends to take possession of Gaza, let alone keep it.
But pay attention to what Trump is doing here, not the words he says. Think of him as a developer intent on tearing down a condemned building, and the tenants will simply have to find new places to live. In this scenario, the IDF are merely the demolition crew.
It is hard to see an American flag waving over Gaza anytime soon. However, it is possible to envision an American economic zone under Israeli military occupation. Call it a “special district,” something like the arrangement that Disney World has in Florida.
Whatever Trump has in mind, it does not involve the Israeli re-settlement of Gaza, which is something absolutely nobody wants. Perhaps he does not expect to ever actually fulfill this vision, and merely intends to nullify this point of resistance among Israel’s neighbors. Maybe it is a bluff.
Trump threatened to withhold foreign aid from Egypt and Jordan on Monday, but then backed off that threat with Abdullah II yesterday. Much like the Trump tariffs that he dropped almost immediately when the presidents of Canada and Mexico agreed to beef up border security, the president’s public statements this week are consistent with his Art of the Deal negotiating style. Trump is trying to get Arab states to take in Palestinian refugees they adamantly do not want. He is failing, so far, but he is in fact trying.
This will matter most if HAMAS provokes another battle on Saturday. For unlike Joe Biden, Trump will not harangue Netanyahu in public, or undermine his position in any negotiations for a new ceasefire. Trump will not care about HAMAS propaganda or insist that UNRWA remain involved. This time will be different.
HAMAS has always used civilians as both shield and sword. On 7 October 2023, they made a bad bet that the United States of America would always flinch at the level of destruction necessary to destroy them, and stop Israel short of finishing the job. This time will be different, Trump indicates. Netanyahu will have a free hand and unreserved support.
He has been accused of daydreaming in Gaza, but in fact Donald Trump is planning for the end of the dream of Palestinian statehood. Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to this ceasefire because Trump wanted it. HAMAS immediately declared victory, put their uniforms back on, and resumed murdering Gazans who criticize them. If Trump wants him to remove HAMAS now, Netanyahu will do that. Neither of them will care that they get called names for it. Trump has everyone imagining a future without a Palestine.
All those wars and intifadas have failed to destroy the Israeli state, and this war may yet finally kill the ‘two-state solution’ that has so long denied a future for the region. What makes Trump different from his predecessors in the White House is that he is willing to let the dream die. He imagines a future without it. Netanyahu has always wanted to kill the dream of a Palestinian state and he might just live long enough to realize his dream.
"Erdoğan will never agree to take in Palestinians; Turkey already hosts too many Syrian refugees."
Even without the Syrian refugees, Turkey still won't take Palestinians - no Middle Eastern country wants them and they use them as political pawns to dunk on Israel.
"All those wars and intifadas have failed to destroy the Israeli state, and this war may yet finally kill the ‘two-state solution’ that has so long denied a future for the region."
That died on October 7. Nobody is going to give statehood to a group of medieval monsters.