As US President Donald Trump struggles to keep control of his brokered Gaza ceasefire, Israel is insisting that ensuing negotiations with Hamas must not be aimed at the one topic long considered key to ending Middle East warfare: the creation of a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.
US Vice President JD Vance, one of a quartet of US officials visiting Israel on behalf of Trump, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday. During their meeting, Netanyahu, declined to label this week’s US-led diplomacy as peace talks, referring to them instead as an “implementation process.”
The Israeli leader has publicly asserted that Palestinian statehood would reward Hamas for triggering the Gaza war, which started on October 7, 2023, when the Islamic group raided southern Israel and killed around 1,200 Israelis.
An official in Tel Aviv said that even speaking of the so-called “two-state solution” would sink Netanyahu’s hopes of staying in power. “Elections will probably be held next year. Netanyahu’s political future depends on being able to declare the Gaza war a success.
“That means an end to Hamas and getting some Arab countries to police Gaza. Nothing more, and certainly not a Palestinian state.”
Late last month, Trump offered a 21-point plan to end the Gaza war. But outbreaks of violence in the desolate war-ruined enclave since Hamas released its hostages already threaten to derail ongoing negotiations, which Trump has portrayed as a triumph even though the plan is in its earliest stages.
If the Gaza effort collapses, it would dent Trump’s self-promoted image as an expert peacemaker, including his public campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize. He’s just come off a failed on-again, off-again effort to get Russian leader Vladimir Putin to meet him in Hungary to talk about ending Russia’s war on Ukraine.
There are rising signs of political trouble at home for Netanyahu. His government, composed largely of far-right nationalists, is wary that American pressure might force Netanyahu to accept compromises with Palestinians that could led to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Some of the six-time prime minister’s supporters in Israel’s parliament issued a veiled warning to him Thursday through the passage of a pair of preliminary motions that called for Israel to annex the West Bank.
With Vance in town and members of his own cabinet in revolt, Netanyahu couldn’t have any of his own Likud party vote for annexation, so he pulled them from the parliamentary chamber.
Netanyahu has long favored annexation and has championed the construction of settlements in the West Bank that house thousands of settlers to help Israel stake its claim to the territory.
A two-state solution is a long-time, if moribund, American policy. The current Israeli-Hamas agreement is limited to the ceasefire, not even to a second phase of getting some foreign army to police Gaza.
In remarks to reporters Thursday, Vance went no further than talking about disarming Hamas, the creation of an international stabilization force and reconstruction.
“You’re going to have first some people, and then more, and then hopefully in a couple years, a half a million people living in security, living in comfort, and also living in a situation where they’re not threatening their Israeli neighbors,” he said.
“Our hope in the administration is that the International Security Force is going to now take the lead in disarming Hamas,” he said. “That’s going to take some time, and it’s going to depend a lot on the composition of that force.”
He dismissed violence that has marred the ceasefire as “little breakouts” and called the parliamentary vote “a very stupid political stunt.” Vance exited Thursday and was quickly replaced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He seconded Vance’s criticism of the parliamentary vote as “threatening for the peace deal.”
A State Department statement said Rubio was in Israel to reaffirm “America’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s security.” Meanwhile, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and special envoy Steve Witcoff, a real estate developer and long-time friend of Trump, were visiting wealthy Persian Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to drum up reconstruction financing.
