Abstract 

    There is no doubt that the current international movement to recognize the State of Palestine, implement the two-state solution, and make it a reality on the ground, even if it appears to be for the sake of the Palestinians’national interest, it simultaneously serves a primary Israeli interest. It is the only means to extricate Israel from the international isolation that has begun to tighten around it, and to achieve security, peace, and normalization with its neighboring countries. It also leads to a reduction in the growing hatred and animosity throughout the world against Israelis and Jews, transcending the traditional boundaries of what is known as anti-Semitism. This is all due to the crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank, which the world, especially the youth, have grown weary of.

Introduction

    While international voices are rising in condemnation of the Israeli genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, and its parallel war of displacement, ethnic cleansing, and settler terrorism in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel continues in its defiance of the international community, to further escalate the genocide war on the Gaza Strip and settlers’ terrorism in the West Bank, accompanied by grabbing more Palestinian land, uprooting trees and displacing Palestinians from their lands. The frequency of Israeli official and non-official racist statements inciting against Palestinians and threats of further killing and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank is increasing, encouraged by statements of senior U.S. administration officials backing the Israeli war on Gaza which aims to expel more than two million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to other countries.

    Bezalel Smotrich, head of the extremist Religious Zionist Party, who is in charge of COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) — which is responsible both for the settlements and the Palestinians in the West Bank, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the racist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) Party who is in charge of the police in the West Bank, believe that they can do the same against Palestinians in the West Bank as well. 

The Importance of the Saudi-French Initiative

    In light of the Israeli escalation of the war and practices against unarmed civilians and calls for displacement and ethnic cleansing, the world has become convinced that the only path to peace and stability in the Middle East lies solely through the recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and their exercise of this right by establishing an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. This is the essence of the Saudi-French initiative, which called for the international two-state solution conference in New York at the UN General Assembly meeting in September 2025, for the declaration recognition of the State of Palestine by a number of European and other countries, to keep the two-state solution alive. Belgium and several other Western countries historically aligned with Israel have pledged in recent days to recognize Palestinian statehood, including France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. While such recognition is largely symbolic unless translated to action on the ground, it adds to Israel’s isolation on the world stage. As the number of countries announcing their recognition of the State of Palestine or their intention to recognize it increases, American steps and measures against the Palestinian people and their leadership increase. Pressure is mounting on countries under U.S. influence to prevent them from recognizing the State of Palestine or to compel them to retract this recognition, if they have already done so or wish to do so. The latest of these U.S. actions was the decision to revoke the visas of the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations, including preventing President Abbas from entering the United States and delivering his annual speech before the UN General Assembly, and preventing him from attending the international conference on the two-state solution. The U.S. State Department issued instructions to its embassies around the world to generally not issue visitor visas to Palestinians, and imposed sanctions against three major Palestinian human rights organizations on the grounds that they support the cases brought against Israel before the International Criminal Court.

The U.S. has been an Active Partner in the War

    The war on Gaza is not an Israeli-Palestinian war, but rather a war of an American-Israeli alliance against the Palestinian people and their national project, seeking to obliterate and eliminate the Palestinian cause once and forever.

     The U.S. has been an active partner in the war on Gaza since its f irst days, providing Israel with arms shipments, military technology, intelligence information, and billions of dollars. In addition to providing Israel with political cover in international forums, which has thwarted and obstructed the work of international institutions such as the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice.  This has prevented condemnation of the genocide war, and the passing of resolutions by the UNSC to stop the war, and entering into a political process to resolve the decades-long conflict and occupation.

    Although the current war was launched in response and retaliation for the horrific bloody attack launched by a number of Palestinian organizations led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, it has gone beyond being a response to the October 7 attack and has turned into a war of extermination and liquidation of the Palestinian people and their national cause.

    Israel exploited international sympathy for Israeli victims as a result of the terrifying images promoted by the Israeli media connected to the October 7th attack, and portrayed this war as being against an extremist Islamist ISIS like movement, Hamas. This was helped by the collusion of a number of Arab countries that have scores to settle with the Muslim Brotherhood who view Hamas as the last remaining stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is after the movement was defeated in a number of Arab countries, the most recent of which was the overthrow of the government of President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt who had come to power through the ballot box. These countries made the mistake of believing that Israel was waging a proxy war against the Muslim Brotherhood. 

    Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza has killed over 63,000 Palestinians in Gaza in addition to the tens of thousands whose bodies are still under the rubble while its blockade on the territory has led to widespread starvation and famine. It has also increased its violence and land grabs in the occupied West Bank.

Israel Is Losing International Sympathy

    The countries that sympathized with Israel at the beginning of the war, or were deceived into misunderstanding the war’s objectives, have begun to withdraw their sympathy. This has led to a new reality of international isolation of Israel and a significant increase in sympathy for the Palestinian victims, and the realization that the solution cannot be through the extermination of the Palestinian people or their displacement and deportation to other countries, but rather through recognizing their right to independence and freedom. Israeli plans for mass killing and displacement will not succeed in eliminating the will of resistance or the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinian people, who have continued to resist attempts to liquidate them and obliterate their existence for more than a century.

     In a televised recording circulated on social media, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 attack, who was killed by Israel on October 16, 2024, a year after the war began, said that his expectations from the war were to thwart normalization plans between Israel and some Arab countries, and force Israel to choose either accepting and implementing international legitimacy resolutions regarding a solution to the conflict, or f inding itself in complete international isolation.

    While we categorically reject attacks against Israeli civilians as much as we reject attacks against Palestinian civilians, it must be acknowledged that the October 7 attack helped send a message to the international community that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since June 5, 1967, and the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since June 2007, cannot continue, and that resistance against this occupation will continue until it ends with a just solution that restores the Palestinians’ legitimate rights and enables them to live in security and peace in their independent, sovereign state. The international community, which is supposed to be committed to the principles of justice, peace, and democracy, must push for justice and peace in the region, based on the premise that peace cannot be achieved for the Israelis unless it is achieved for the Palestinians, given that peace is a right and a mutual need for both parties. 

    It must be noted that the ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip and the covert war raging in the West Bank do not reflect the true will of the majority of Israelis and Palestinians.

The War Was Imposed on the Palestinians

    This war was imposed on the Palestinians as a result of the 1948 Nakba, and the failure to address the Palestinian cause since then, and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories which followed in 1967, without Israel making any real and sincere effort to resolve the conflict. A resolution which requires Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories in 1967, and the acceptance of the establishment of a Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967, borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a fair and just resolution of the Palestinian refugees from 1948, as proposed by the Arab Peace Initiative of March 2002, which was endorsed by 56 Islamic countries including 22 Arab countries members of the Arab League.

    The current war was also imposed on the Palestinians as a result of Hamas’s monopoly on decision-making and its launch of the October 7, 2023, attack, without consultation with other national factions, led by Fatah, the largest Palestinian faction who definitely would have opposed that attack.

    On the other hand, the war was imposed on the Israeli people as a result of the failure of their successive governments since 1967, through October 2023 to achieve peace with the Palestinians, and as a result of the desire to avenge the October 7 attack, which struck at the core of Israeli military and political pride. This war then deviated from its objectives and became a tool in the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who used it to guarantee maintaining his government coalition while succumbing to blackmail by his partners in government, the extreme religious messianic right and the racist Kahanist right. This war is being used by the religious extremists and the racist Kahanists to strengthen their grip on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and to practice ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Their racist, fascist aspirations coincided with the support of the evangelical Christian right in America, which has proven to be more extreme and racist than the most extremist Jewish fanatics in Israel.

    Thus, the Palestinians face an American administration that submits to the control of the evangelicals and the right-wing Jewish lobby represented by AIPAC, and they face an extremist Israeli administration that submits to the religious Zionist right, led by Smotrich, and the Kahanist right, led by Ben-Gvir. The Israeli government could have responded to the massive Israeli popular demonstrations demanding an end to the war and the release of all Israeli hostages since last March, but it has continued to stall and thwart all chances for a solution solely to preserve the ruling coalition and because it enjoys the support of the evangelical U.S. administration.

    Although Hamas has repeatedly stated that it is willing to stop the war and release all hostages if Israel agrees to a ceasefire and to end the war, Netanyahu has continued to claim that the goal is to eliminate Hamas and to prevent it from any future role in governing the Gaza Strip. Hamas recently announced that it is willing to relinquish any future role in governing the Gaza Strip and is prepared to hand over power to a non-Hamas technocratic government — a declaration that appears to be a response to Netanyahu’s condition. However, Netanyahu has ignored this and insists on continuing the war and occupying what remains of Gaza City, which will put the lives of the Israeli hostages at risk, contrary to Netanyahu’s claim that the goal of the war is to free the hostages.

    Continuing the war on the Gaza Strip, even if it leads to the occupation of the entire Strip by Israel, will not bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Those steeped in Presbyterian and Talmudic delusions must understand, before it’s too late, that the illusions of expansion and the establishment of theological kingdoms will not come true and will not bring security and peace to anyone. Rather, they will only mean the continuation of the conflict and bloodshed on both sides.

The Israelis and Palestinians Have Reached a Critical Point

    It’s true that the level of hatred, suspicion, and mistrust between the Israelis and Palestinians has reached unprecedented levels, but the two sides have now reached a critical point: either enter into an eternal, bloody religious conflict or begin to let off steam from the pressure cooker through reciprocal steps by both sides, beginning with an immediate cessation of hostilities, the release of Israeli and Palestinian prisoners, ending the war in Gaza and the West Bank and entering into negotiations to initiate a political solution process that goes hand in hand with the start of the reconstruction of Gaza. This cannot happen without the support of an American Administration liberated from the pressure of the Evangelists, and interested in resolving the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, this seems a wish but it still may happen.

    This process should be based on halting incitement campaigns on both sides against each other, including in the media and school curricula. The aim should be reducing the level of incitement on both sides, and restoring positive role of media and education to become a tool of building bridges of understanding and trust, and promoting culture of peace, reconciliation, and transitional justice.

    It is also necessary to re-institutionalize the institutions of the Palestinian Authority on democratic foundations based on electoral legitimacy and the participation of all segments of the Palestinian political spectrum that support a political solution leading to the realization of a two state solution. And on the Israeli side, halting the process of undermining democracy undertaken by the current Israeli government attempts to implement a legal, sectarian coup under the slogan of “legal reform.”

    Changing the atmosphere in relations between the two parties must occur alongside international recognition of the State of Palestine as a complementary component to the principle of the two-state solution, whose legitimacy is based on Partition Resolution 181 adopted by the UN General Assembly in Nov. 29, 1947.

International Recognition, Leverage for a Two-State Solution
 

    International recognition must also be used as leverage to bring an end to the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel on the June 4th 1967 lines.

    There is no doubt that the current international movement to recognize the State of Palestine, implement the two-state solution, and make it a reality on the ground, even if it appears to be for the sake of the Palestinians’ national interest, it simultaneously serves a primary Israeli interest. It is the only means to extricate Israel from the international isolation that has begun to tighten around it, and to achieve security, peace, and normalization with its neighboring countries. It also leads to a reduction in the growing hatred and animosity throughout the world against Israelis and Jews, transcending the traditional boundaries of what is known as anti-Semitism. This is all due to the crimes committed in Gaza and the West Bank, which the world, especially the youth, have grown weary of.

         Achieving peace and establishing a Palestinian state remains a dream until the desired change occurs in both the American and Israeli administrations, and the extremists, immersed in messianic fantasies, are removed from power through democratic means, replaced by leaders who believe in justice, peace, and coexistence.