Tel Aviv's isolation: A two-state solution remains the global consensus

This represents a major shift in attitudes in the West, and is a reflection of the increasing isolation on the international stage being endured by Tel Aviv following its continuing war on Gaza Strip

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, on Sunday announced that his country would confer diplomatic recognition on the state of Palestine. His Commonwealth counterparts — from Australia and Canada — also declared that their nations would take a similar step. This is part of an effort that appears to be coordinated primarily by President Emmanuel Macron of France, who this week will announce at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly that his country too is recognising the Palestinian state; two other European nations, Portugal and Belgium, will do so too. Mr Macron is due to co-host a summit with Saudi Arabia on the subject of Palestinian statehood. This represents a major shift in attitudes in the West, and is a reflection of the increasing isolation on the international stage being endured by Tel Aviv following its continuing war on the population of the Gaza Strip. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to these developments by declaring them “a huge reward for terrorism”, and adding that “a Palestinian state will not be established west of the Jordan River”. 

It is worth noting that the European nations and their Anglosphere allies are not outliers at this point; if anything, Mr Netanyahu’s response is revealing of how far the Israeli leadership has drifted from the global consensus on this issue. The first European nation to recognise Palestine was Sweden, in 2014; since then, multiple other Western nations, including Spain, have done so. Three-fourths of UN member states have done so, and most of the others are also committed to a two-state solution. It is Mr Netanyahu who, through his statement, has revealed a difficult truth; the Israeli establishment is now determined that a two-state solution is impossible. This is a shift from the basic assumptions that have guided the global outreach to Israel since the Oslo Accords in the 1990s. Those assumptions are that, first, the Palestinian authority will rise to the level of a putative state; second, that the areas under Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, give or take a little, will serve as the core of that state. To rule out a Palestinian state that occupies even a fraction of those lands — both of which are “west of the Jordan river” — clearly violates those foundational assumptions. The Israeli Knesset also passed a resolution last year against a two-state solution, saying that any Palestinian state would pose “an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the conflict, and destabilise the region”. 

It is unclear what actual shifts on the ground, particularly in the prosecution of Tel Aviv’s brutal war against Gaza, such recognition would deliver. But the Israeli leadership would be wise to understand that this is not an expression of support for Islamism or Hamas; it is a reminder that Israel’s leaders have a duty to return to the positions that they occupied in the past, on which their country’s current acceptability in the comity of nations is based. They retain, of course, the support of the United States (US). But as any ally of the US now knows, such support cannot be counted upon. India recognised Palestine decades ago, but has a close strategic partnership with Israel. Tel Aviv must understand the latter grew out of the former, not independently of it — and this is the case for most of the world.