During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House, he made it clear that there would be no Palestinian state.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press
R. David Harden is a former USAID assistant administrator and mission director to the West Bank and Gaza, and senior adviser to president Barack Obama’s special envoy for Middle East peace.
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House last night for a post-Iranian victory dinner. The tête-à-tête focused on Gaza, with the President publicly urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire that would include the release of hostages, a pause in fighting and a significant increase in humanitarian aid.
Momentum is building for a potential 60-day ceasefire. Iran has been effectively neutralized, Syria is free of the Assad regime, Hezbollah has suffered a historic defeat, and Hamas faces mounting pressure from armed clans within Gaza. With rising domestic approval after Israel’s successful dismantling of much of Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities during the recent 12-day war, Mr. Netanyahu may now be positioned to secure a deal largely on Israeli terms.
And yet, Mr. Netanyahu’s vision for Gaza and the West Bank effectively forecloses Palestinian aspirations for statehood, autonomy and independence. The long-held but now moribund dream of a two-state solution has come to an end.
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At the White House, Mr. Netanyahu made clear that there would be no Palestinian state. “We’ll work out a peace with our Palestinian neighbours – those who don’t want to destroy us, and we’ll work out a peace in which our security, the sovereign power of security, always remains in our hands,” he said. “Now, people will say it’s not a complete state. ‘It’s not a state. It’s not that.’ We don’t care.” He also recently rejected any substantive governing role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, stating bluntly that he was “not prepared to give [Gaza] to the PA.”
In Mr. Netanyahu’s view, “Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten us.” On its face, this may sound reasonable – particularly in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack – but in practice, his government’s approach aims to balkanize both Gaza and the West Bank into fragmented Palestinian enclaves with limited self-rule over essentially municipal affairs. These Palestinian bantustans serve Israeli strategic interests by entrenching Israeli settlements and effectively extending Israel’s control from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
Two recent developments have accelerated the emergence of a new geopolitical map.
First, cloaked as an innovative relief effort to stop Hamas from looting food assistance and to deliver life-saving aid to innocent Gazan victims of war, the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has effectively concentrated Palestinians into camps near the Egyptian border, on the ruins of Rafah. Since the GHF began operating in late May, more than 500 Palestinians have reportedly been killed while seeking aid. The GHF has also been linked to a broader plan to construct large-scale encampments, known as “Humanitarian Transit Areas,” both inside – and potentially outside – Gaza, to house the Palestinian population. The GHF, however, denies being involved in housing or relocation plans.
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On Monday, as Mr. Netanyahu travelled to Washington, Israel’s Defence Minister instructed the IDF to prepare plans for a so-called “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, intended to concentrate the entire population of Gaza near the Egyptian border. More than 170 of the world’s most respected NGOs have called for the dissolution of the GHF, charging that it has abandoned the fundamental principles of humanitarian aid – humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence. The GHF instead functions as a mechanism to force the relocation of Gaza’s entire population.
Second, in the southern West Bank, five prominent sheikhs from Hebron sent a letter to Israeli officials earlier this month, pledging peace and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. In the letter, the sheikhs proposed splitting from the Palestinian Authority, establishing an independent Emirate of Hebron, and joining the Abraham Accords.
The world is not likely to welcome the Emirate of Hebron into the community of nations any time soon, but the sheiks of Hebron signal a foundational weakness with the Palestinian Authority. If, as Mr. Netanyahu declared in Washington yesterday, there will be no Palestinian state, then the rationale for maintaining a Palestinian Authority begins to erode. Mr. Netanyahu faces pressure to annex the West Bank, and carve out Palestinian enclaves, whether in Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus or Jenin, advancing the Israeli march toward full annexation of the West Bank.
Make no mistake, Mr. Netanyahu’s vision of Palestinian bantustans in Gaza and the West Bank is unsustainable for both Israelis and Palestinians. Without a genuine solution that aligns Palestinian aspirations for statehood with Israel’s legitimate security needs, his postwar blueprint risks becoming yet another chapter in the long and painful saga of conflict and despair, and another missed opportunity between the two peoples.