White House push for two-state solution highlights gaps between US and Israel

A statement backed by the majority of US House Democrats on Wednesday in support of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict showed a growing gap between Israel and the US.

Forty-nine of the 51 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus supported an amendment backing a negotiated solution to the decades-old conflict that will end with an Israeli and a Palestinian state living side by side. The amendment called for ensuring Israel’s survival as a secure, democratic, Jewish state while fulfilling the Palestinians’ “legitimate aspirations” for their own state.

A solution that sees the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel has been widely accepted by the international community as the answer to the long and bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For decades, the Palestinians have sought to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

“The current administration has been consistent in its support for the two-state solution,” said Col. (res.) Eldad Shavit, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and a former senior intelligence officer. “But it now sees an opportunity for new regional architecture. This will be a long and complicated process, but the base of this is a settlement of the Gaza issue, linked to the Palestinian Authority (PA) that will result in the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

The new architecture includes normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Before the current war in Gaza, this was at the top of the American foreign policy agenda. It was also an Israeli and Saudi interest that was thought to have been cut short due to the Hamas offensive that began the war.

“Biden sees the current crisis as an opportunity to create something new, a new regional alliance against Iran,” Dr. Shay Har-Zvi, head of the International and Middle Eastern Arenas at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Reichman University, told The Media Line. According to Shavit, support for the amendment in the Senate was aimed at the US administration, led by President Joe Biden, as it faces the Israeli government.

The White House has been speaking about a “revamped and revitalized PA,” attuned to Israel's outright rejection of the option that it will rule in the Gaza Strip once Israel withdraws.

“In Biden’s eyes, the war only highlights the need for a long-term solution,” Har-Zvi said. “Biden understands that a lot of changes will be needed for the PA to rule, but he believes this is the best solution for Israel to remain a democratic and Jewish state.”

Statehood is a complex issue that goes back decades

Israel captured the West Bank during the Six-Day War in 1967, and since then, more than 700,000 Jewish residents have settled in the territory, including in East Jerusalem. The international community generally views the West Bank as occupied and Israeli settlements as illegal.

The PA, dominated by the Fatah party and led by President Mahmoud Abbas, has full control of part of the West Bank, referred to as Area A, and partial control over Area B. Meanwhile, Area C is fully administered by Israel.

In 2007, the armed Islamist movement Hamas forcibly seized control of the Gaza Strip following a violent conflict with Fatah. This takeover occurred after a brief period of a Palestinian unity government, effectively splitting the governance of the Palestinian territories, with Fatah retaining control of the West Bank.

The split between Hamas and the Fatah-ruled PA has further distanced the Palestinians from statehood, as consecutive right-wing Israeli governments insisted the rift made statehood unfeasible. 

Abbas was elected to the presidency for a four-year term in 2005 but has managed to postpone elections since then, significantly damaging his standing among Palestinians. His lack of legitimacy is only one of the hurdles the American plan must overcome.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel will not be able to secure itself without a “pathway to a Palestinian state.”

US support for Israel since the beginning of the war has come in many forms, including continuous weapon replenishment, support in international forums, and the deployment of American forces in the region to serve as a deterrent for other actors who may want to attack Israel. None of these are indispensable to Israel.

For years, Netanyahu has maintained a tricky act of telling his voters he is against a Palestinian state while telling the US and other countries he does not rule one out. “Netanyahu knows he has to make concessions in order to meet American interests,” Shavit told The Media Line. “Until now, Netanyahu has led moves that converge with those interests.”

Last week, Israel allowed for the entrance of a substantial amount of flour into Gaza as part of the American push for increased humanitarian aid into the territory. The move was highly unpopular among many Israelis who want to see the release of hostages from Hamas captivity before any aid was given to Gaza.

“The American vision is dependent on removing Hamas from power,” said Har-Zvi. “There is a direct connection between the broad legitimacy the US is currently giving Israel to its view on how it sees the postwar solution to the conflict and the day after in Gaza.”  

According to a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute last month, the majority of Israeli Jews do not agree on the pursuit of the two-state solution in return for continued American assistance. The numbers are even more clear-cut when looking at only right-wing.

Voters, of whom just 21% think Israel should appease the US on this matter. Netanyahu, who leads Israel’s most-right wing government to ever govern, has his own political considerations to make.

Unfortunately for Netanyahu, the war highlighted what he was so desperate to avoid. Through his strengthening of Hamas during the years at the expense of the PA, he managed to sideline the two-state solution, rendering it unsolvable. The Israeli leader, along with many in the defense and political echelons, thought that stabilizing Palestinian lives would rid them of their national aspirations.

“If until the war began, the Palestinian issue could have been fogged, it is now clear that it will be a major issue in any future and cannot be circumvented in any regional settlement,” said Har-Zvi.

In just under a year from now, Americans will head to the ballots. While traditionally foreign policy issues are not what the American public votes on, the war in Gaza and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could easily become another thorny issue in an already polarized presidential campaign.

Former US President Donald Trump, who looks to be on the path to becoming the Republican presidential candidate, saw eye to eye with Netanyahu on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Trump will want to portray Biden as weak and say that what Biden is doing is anti-Israeli,” said Shavit.

Traditionally, the majority of American Jews vote for the Democratic party. But for Israel, which has always sought to portray American support for it as unwavering bipartisan, being an issue in the election campaign is less desirable.

“Israel is very concerned about being in the midst of a struggle between Democrats and Republicans,” Har-Zvi said.

Amid a war and with the constant need for American support, Israel would rather be drawing less attention in the domestic arena of US politics.