Herb Keinon
Jerusalem Post, Jan. 21, 2024
“… for the vast majority of Israelis right now, talking about a two-state solution – while the hostages are still being held, while Israel is fighting on various fronts, and while Palestinian polls are giving Hamas a staggering amount of support in the West Bank – is just a pipe dream.”
There is something surreal about all the renewed talk of a Palestinian state.
Less than four months after Hamas launched a savage attack on Israel – killing 1,200 people, taking 240 people hostage, destroying communities, raping women, mutilating bodies, and sparking a significant war – news sites are reporting on the tension between Washington and Jerusalem over a two-state solution.
Suddenly, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is talking about a pathway toward two states as a condition for a broad, new Middle East structure that will have Saudi Arabia formalizing ties with Israel. Suddenly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after discussing the issue with US President Joe Biden, is saying a Palestinian state will never happen under his watch. Suddenly, five senators are announcing that they are in favor of conditioning emergency supplemental aid to Israel on Netanyahu, reaffirming support for a Palestinian state.
A war between Israel and the ‘Palestinian State of Gaza’
A few weeks ago, former National Security Council head Giora Eiland said that one of Israel’s public diplomacy errors since October 7 was casting this war as one between Israel and Hamas.
Wrong, he said; this is a war between the State of Israel and the Palestinian State of Gaza. Since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, that strip of land has been under the Palestinians’ exclusive control, first by the Palestinian Authority and then, as a result of a bloody coup in 2007, by Hamas.
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