The two-state solution is dead

As the new Trump administration engages with the situation in the Middle East, it is time for some new thinking. On Jan. 25, 2025, President Trump stirred the pot with some bold comments about Jordan and Egypt taking refugees from Gaza. He pointed out that Gaza is “a demolition site” and said: “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say, ‘You know, it’s over.’”

For 60 years the most widely accepted proposition concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict was that the only possible solution would be a Palestinian state carved out of the West Bank and Gaza, which would supposedly live peacefully beside Israel on the basis of a negotiated peace settlement. Spain, Ireland, and Norway have gone so far as to recognize a Palestinian state that doesn’t exist.

But the events of the last 15 months mean that there will never be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in East Jerusalem because such a state would lead to a catastrophic war that would make the Gaza War look like a picnic.

It is now clear to anyone willing to face facts that if an autonomous Palestinian state had emerged from the Oslo Accords, it would have been taken over by Hamas and made into a terror camp, full of weapons and tunnels, with an army poised to invade Israel. This happened in Gaza and there is absolutely no reason to think it would have been any different in the West Bank.

Israel has been fighting for over a year on seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, and the West Bank. What if an armed terror state had existed in the West Bank like the one in Gaza? What if thousands of short-range rockets were raining down on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv from close range? What if the massacres of Jews had happened in the old city of Jerusalem?

If the invasion of Oct. 7, 2023, had been launched from both the West Bank and Gaza in coordination with an all-out missile assault from the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Iran before Israel had a chance to mobilize its reserves, Israel could have been overwhelmed. The Israeli public now understands that this cannot be allowed to happen, even if the rest of the world is stuck in 1993.

Bill Clinton says that when he tells young people today what Arafat walked away from, they can’t believe it. But Arafat knew that any Arab leader who agreed to peace with Israel would be assassinated in short order. In her book, The War of Return, Einat Wulf explains that the strategy for a Palestinian state entails millions of descendants of refugees from the 1948 war returning to settle all over Israel and thus swamping the Jewish population. This would ensure a state dominated by Arab Muslims from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The Jews would be reduced to the minority status they had in the various countries of the Middle East. Jews have fled these states (Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, etc.) for sanctuary in Israel. The real goal is not to coexist, but to make Palestine Judenfrei (free of Jews).

The Hamas Charter of 2017 states the matter clearly: “There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Whatever has befallen the land of Palestine in terms of occupation, settlement building, judaisation or changes to its features or falsification of facts is illegitimate.” 

Hamas totally rejects a permanent “two-state solution.” The only way they would accept a state in Gaza and the West Bank would be as a temporary step. They say very clearly they will never give up their claim on the whole land that is today Israel. There is no use pretending this is just a negotiating ploy. This is what they want and nothing prevents them from taking what they want except force.

For decades Hamas used the time, money, and freedom it was given to build terror tunnels, acquire arms, brainwash children to hate the Jews, and prepare to invade Israel to commit genocide. Then, on Oct. 7, 2023, they attempted genocide. Only the IDF stopped them. It would be the height of irresponsibility for world leaders to hand the keys to a sovereign state to the Arab Palestinian people when it is clear that they intend to do it again and again.

How can anyone now think that putting a terror state in the suburbs of Jerusalem is really the best way to bring peace to the Middle East? How on earth do Spain, Ireland, Norway, and all those who naively call for a “two-state solution” expect rational people to take them seriously? The “two-state solution” is dead because it would solve nothing.