Perched on the fault lines of the Middle East, Lebanon is rarely the main battlefield yet remains central to the region’s wars and peace processes. Its crises, often sparked by external shocks, inevitably reverberate beyond its borders, making the country both a mirror of regional conflict and a testing ground for fragile peace.

Today, Lebanon again stands at such a juncture. The war in Gaza has reshaped regional dynamics, leaving Lebanon hovering between the risks of renewed escalation and the faint promise of political reordering. The election of a president after over two years of vacancy, and the formation of a government with a more reformist profile than its predecessors, has revived a sense that a new political era may be emerging. The mere return of functioning institutions after prolonged paralysis carries symbolic weight, even if their capacity is limited.

Yet, this opening remains constrained. Externally, by the confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, Iran’s role, and the fatigue of international partners. Internally, by elites who resist economic reform and by a culture of impunity stretching from financial crimes to political assassinations. Without addressing both dimensions, new leadership will remain symbolic rather than transformative.

Lebanon and the Gaza War Contagion

Since October 2023, Lebanon has been drawn into the Gaza war in ways both predictable and unprecedented. Israel’s campaign has extended well beyond the border, reaching deep into Lebanese territory through sustained airstrikes on Hezbollah’s positions, the systematic targeting of senior commanders, and the revelation of extensive military networks that the organization had long claimed were concealed from surveillance.

The events of the past two years have profoundly undermined Hezbollah’s doctrine of “deterrence”. Its long-standing claim—that the group’s arsenal could prevent Israel from attacking Lebanon—has been discredited by Israel’s ability to strike with precision and continuity. Hezbollah has replied with limited rocket and drone attacks that have displaced residents in northern Israel but failed to restore the image of deterrence it once projected.

For civilians in southern Lebanon and beyond, the confrontation has become a grinding war of attrition. Since October 2024, entire communities have lived under the constant threat of Israeli bombardment. The displacement of more than one million Lebanese, coupled with widespread destruction of infrastructure and the collapse of already fragile livelihoods, has deepened the humanitarian crisis.

A turning point came with the cessation-of-hostilities agreement of November 2024, followed by the U.S. plan endorsed by the Lebanese cabinet on August 5 and 7, 2025. For the first time in years, the cabinet’s endorsement of such a plan signaled that the Lebanese state, rather than Hezbollah alone, was formally involved in decisions about war and peace. The framework envisions security guarantees along the border, a phased redeployment of the Lebanese Army, Hezbollah’s disarmament, and renewed international monitoring. If implemented, the plan could either consolidate stability or expose Lebanon to fresh internal tensions, depending on how Hezbollah and its allies respond.

Lebanon’s state and military institutions, however, remain chronically underfunded and constrained by political fragmentation. The Lebanese Armed Forces struggle to maintain operational readiness and autonomy amid competing partisan pressures, while civilian oversight remains weak. Diplomacy, likewise, is divided among rival power centers and burdened by the absence of a coherent national strategy. UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force deployed since 1978, functions primarily as a stabilizing buffer aimed at preventing escalation rather than as an instrument for lasting peace. These limitations leave Lebanon on the threshold of consequential scenarios it does not fully control—a fragile equilibrium shaped as much by external actors as by the country’s own unresolved contradictions.

A New Political Era

Against this backdrop, the election of a president and the formation of a new government mark more than a procedural milestone. After years of institutional vacuum and caretaker arrangements, the restoration of functioning authorities represents a symbolic break with paralysis.

President Joseph Aoun, who commanded the Lebanese Armed Forces from March 2017 to his election in January 2025, is less entangled in the sectarian bargaining that constrained several predecessors. His public signals have stressed the primacy of institutions and procedural regularity, even within severe resource limits. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s cabinet, while not revolutionary, brings profiles associated with competence and pragmatism rather than overt clientelism.

Lebanon has not overcome its entrenched dysfunction, but the new political era still matters. Internationally, a functioning presidency and government restore diplomatic credibility by giving partners an interlocutor after years of vacuum. Domestically, they rekindle cautious faith that state institutions can still act—however imperfectly—in the public interest.

Still, the promise of this new era cannot be measured in symbols alone. Its durability depends on whether the leadership is willing and able to confront the structural patterns of impunity that have long undermined the Lebanese state.

The Weight of Impunity: From Banking Elites to Political Assassinations

The most visible expression of Lebanon’s crisis of accountability lies in the economic collapse that began in 2019. The destruction of the national currency, evaporation of savings, and erosion of the middle class produced one of the most severe financial implosions in modern history. The burden fell almost entirely on ordinary citizens, while political and financial elites shielded themselves from responsibility by transferring funds abroad before capital controls were imposed, obstructing any audit of the banking sector, and ensuring that the costs of the collapse were borne through inflation rather than through losses to their own wealth.

Efforts to secure an agreement with the International Monetary Fund have collapsed. Not for lack of solutions, but because Lebanon’s powerful banking elite rejected any reform that would force them to absorb losses. Proposals for capital controls, debt restructuring, and equitable loss-sharing were systematically blocked. The same actors who profited from Lebanon’s financial model became the gatekeepers preventing its repair.

This resistance is not a clash of economic viewpoints; it is a systemic failure of accountability that extends far beyond finance. The obstruction of reform follows the same logic that has long undermined justice in cases of political violence. Investigations into the August 2020 Beirut port explosion were repeatedly suspended through the replacement of judges and the filing of politically motivated lawsuits, while the assassinations of political figures and intellectuals, over the past two decades, remain unresolved. For years, such crimes lay beyond judicial reach, as Hezbollah and its allies were able to exert influence over the courts and discourage those pursuing accountability.

Today, a fragile opening has emerged. The weakening of Hezbollah after its setback in the September-November 2024 war has reduced its ability to dictate political outcomes. The group, widely suspected of involvement in several assassinations and in the port explosion, now faces diminished capacity to obstruct judicial and institutional processes. The election of Aoun, the cabinet’s policy statement, and its endorsement of the U.S. plan would have been unthinkable under Hezbollah’s former dominance. In a further sign of this shift, the Minister of Justice’s October 2025 decision to appoint judges to reopen and investigate a long-dormant series of political assassination cases marked the first official move toward accountability in years. For the first time, this concept has moved from aspiration to faint possibility.

Accountability as the Missing Link

For Lebanon’s new leadership, this is the crux of the challenge. No amount of external balancing or diplomatic engagement will matter if internal impunity remains unbroken. True sovereignty requires not only secure borders and a state monopoly over weapons, but institutions capable of holding domestic actors accountable.

The Taif Agreement of 1989 ended Lebanon’s civil war, but it embedded sectarian power-sharing without creating mechanisms of responsibility. Corruption flourished, militias morphed into political actors, and impunity became systemic. The state became sovereign in name, but hollow in practice.

Today, the danger is in repeating the same pattern. A focus on external sovereignty—calibrating Hezbollah’s role, negotiating with donors, restoring foreign aid—is fundamental and unavoidable. However, if this leads to leaving financial and political impunity intact, it will reproduce the same fragile order. Conversely, even modest steps toward accountability could restore trust between citizens and institutions. Whether in the judiciary, financial regulation, or the investigation of political crimes, visible consequences for those who wield power with impunity would mark a break from decades of erosion.

Accountability is not a cure-all, however. External risks remain high, and regional dynamics are volatile. But without accountability, every reform is destined to collapse under the weight of corruption and mistrust.

Lebanon as a Laboratory of Futures

Lebanon is thus more than a victim of its geography; it has long functioned as a laboratory for political and civic experimentation in the Middle East. The collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria, the recalibration of Gulf-Iran relations, and the renewed U.S. engagement all frame Lebanon’s options and expose it to overlapping regional realignments. Yet, what makes Lebanon distinctive is the persistence of social and civic forces that refuse to vanish even when institutions collapse.

Independent media, some syndicates, civil society organizations, student movements, reform-minded entrepreneurs, and the diaspora continue to carve out spaces of accountability, even as national institutions flounder. These resources are fragile, but they suggest that political imagination has not been extinguished. If the new presidency, government, and emerging political forces can link state institutions with these civic energies, they may begin to build a political order grounded in responsibility and competence.

The stakes go beyond Lebanon. In a region where authoritarian regimes present themselves as guarantors of stability while crushing dissent, Lebanon offers a different question: can accountability, however fragile, be the foundation of peace and nation-building?

Two Futures

Lebanon today is suspended between two futures. One is escalation: a deeper war with Israel, continued financial collapse, and the entrenchment of impunity. The other is reordering: fragile, incomplete, but rooted in the possibility that a new political era can begin to challenge patterns of corruption and violence that have long gone unpunished.

Lebanon cannot fully detach its future from the broader postwar order that will emerge around Gaza. Israel’s security posture, Iran’s recalibrations, and the shifting legitimacy of armed movements across the region will influence Lebanon’s internal balance. Yet, these dynamics only reinforce the urgency for Lebanon to consolidate a state capable of surviving regional turbulence rather than absorbing it.

The new political leadership in the country provides a symbolic opening, but symbolism will not suffice. This leadership will be judged by whether it can extend state sovereignty across the territory, confront the entrenched banking sector, allow judicial processes to proceed, and create consequences for political crimes.

Whether this opening becomes the seed of renewal or another missed opportunity will depend on the courage of Lebanon’s own institutions to finally confront the culture of impunity.

U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed a twenty-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza, which calls for the release of all remaining living and deceased hostages, the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and an interim governance plan for the Strip involving Palestinian and international actors with no Hamas presence. As Trump has presented it, the plan was not negotiated with Hamas and does not require Hamas’ approval, but it does assume Hamas’ cooperation; once Israel agrees, Hamas is expected to lay down its arms and release the hostages within 72 hours. 

The plan covers a wide range of issues, including the future government of Gaza (a reformed Palestinian Authority), the replacement of Israeli military presence with Arab security forces, and proposes a “credible pathway to Palestinian blairstatehood”. The interim government will include a “Board of Peace” to be chaired by Trump and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. 

In a significant development, Hamas has issued its first official response stating that they are prepared to release all Israeli hostages—both living and deceased—according to the exchange formula contained in Trump’s plan, provided “field conditions” for the exchange are met. This would mean the release of all surviving hostages within 72 hours in exchange for hundreds of detained Palestinians. While Hamas also signaled openness to the proposal that Gaza’s governance be handed to Palestinian technocrats, it omitted any commitment to disarmament—one of the plan’s most contentious demands. Israeli officials are now scrutinizing Hamas’s statement, weighing whether it reflects genuine engagement or a tactical move to buy time.

The response to the plan from the Arab side has been generally positive; Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Egypt all expressed support. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has also supported the plan, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained that the PA should not control the Strip. 

Critics have pointed out that while some aspects of the plan are clear, like the release of the hostages, several important components are cloudy. For instance, the plan calls for a pathway to statehood, but Netanyahu and the majority of the Knesset have publicly disavowed this option for years. Additionally, the plan foresees the PA playing an important role in the Strip, but it offers little clarity on what reforms are needed and whether Israel will be compelled to allow it to have real influence in Gaza. 

To understand more about the nuances of the plan and its prognosis, the Cairo Review asked its contributors for their brief thoughts on the viability of Trump’s most recent peace venture. 

Ramzy Baroud

Journalist, author, and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle

To begin with, Palestinians have no reason to trust U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal, especially since it has already been amended by Israel and endorsed by such untrustworthy figures as Jared Kushner and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Essentially, this plan is a rehash of ideas put forth by the previous Biden administration. Its goal is to secure an Israeli victory in exchange for slowing down the pace of the genocide, without offering a single guarantee that Israel would honor its commitments.

Hamas and other resistance groups have the right to maneuver and negotiate on matters directly related to captives and other specific issues. However, they have no right to make decisions concerning the national cause of the Palestinian people. Allowing international forces into Gaza, agreeing to a ceasefire that enables the United States and Israel to administer Gaza as if it were separate from the West Bank, and other critical matters lie beyond the mandate of any single Palestinian group, regardless of their sacrifices and credibility among a large sector of Palestinian society.

Grace Wermenbol

Former Middle East specialist at the Department of State, and adjunct professor at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service

Almost two years after the Hamas-led attack on Israel’s southern communities and Israel’s devastating retaliatory military offensive in Gaza, it is high time for the Israel-Hamas war to come to an end. Without outside pressure, this will not happen. Under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Gaza war has become an end in itself, devoid of real objectives or clear off-ramps. Indeed, despite the near-total destruction of Gaza and with unfathomable disregard for Palestinian civilian life there, Israel has failed to secure the release of all Israeli-held hostages through military pressure. Meanwhile, Hamas’ embrace of low-level guerilla tactics and military persistence demonstrates that any military eradication is unlikely.

In this context, U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan is a welcome endeavor to halt the fighting and to present a more pragmatic vision for Gaza’s future—one that avoids the forced displacement of its people or U.S. support for Israeli resettlement and annexation of the strip. Among its more lucid features, the plan foresees a military decommissioning of Hamas and the establishment of a transitional technocratic governance structure inside Gaza. In the shorter term, the plan calls for the release of Israeli hostages, alive and deceased, within 72 hours and the entry of critically-needed aid in the Gaza Strip that affirms the importance of the United Nations as a facilitation and distribution mechanism.

And yet, the choreographed, sequential nature of the published plan—promoting ‘peaceful and prosperous co-existence’—belies a complicated reality that has too often faltered under the weight of ambiguity and the stark asymmetry of Israeli and Palestinian power. U.S. official recognition of Palestinian statehood aspirations, for one, is not tantamount to credible steps toward their realization. Even ‘PA reform’, as past efforts have shown, depends largely on the eye of the beholder. Future reform attempts also cannot be disentangled from Israeli actions that seek to undermine the Palestinian Authority’s governance and influence in the West Bank; meaningful reform under continued occupation is a tall order.

The full and successful execution of the Trump plan—even if accepted by both Hamas and Israel—will hinge on making sure that fulfillment mechanisms are clear to all parties, agreed upon by them, and monitored and enforced by third-party guarantors. The acceptance of this plan would merely constitute the first step toward creating a ‘Day After’, but it is a necessary one. 

Kourosh Ziabari

Journalist and media studies researcher

The contours of the White House plan aren’t unrealistic, and the announcement of its conditional acceptance by Hamas could herald a new beginning in the region, starting with the discontinuation of the mass killing of Palestinians. But what matters is not what the Trump administration, the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, or experts think. Instead, the traumatized and dehumanized people of Gaza are the ones who should be given the agency to determine their future. They must have the chance to decide on a future in which their current authorities don’t play a role, and one in which they can live in safety and dignity without fear of occupation and daily bombardments.

Throwing around words like peace in press conferences while inordinate amounts of American taxpayer money have been squandered to energize Israel’s war machinery isn’t a consistent, honest approach to statecraft. It is positive that the plan has been premised on the cessation of hostilities, provides for the release of Israeli and Palestinian captives, and commits to humanitarian rehabilitation and economic recovery in the Gaza Strip. Still, it is more than fair to ask why six UN-mandated ceasefire resolutions had to be vetoed over the past two years before an almost similar initiative was put forward by the U.S. president. 

The ideal of regional stability shouldn’t be pursued solely for the sake of having the name of the current U.S. president marketed as a historic dealmaker. The personal element of the deal is much more pronounced than its specifics and durability. Also, to save the basis of international law from eroding further, the Trump administration must outline how it will facilitate the judicial proceedings that will lead to the arrest and indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the International Criminal Court for the commission of crimes against humanity. 

Sean Lee

Assistant professor of political science at The American University in Cairo

If the British colonial conquest and rule of Palestine under a League of Nations Mandate was history as tragedy, a colonial government of Gaza presided over by U.S. President Donald Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is history as farce. Besides the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already publicly stated (in Hebrew) that Israel plans to remain in the Gaza Strip, the so-called peace plan is essentially an internationalization of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and an inversion of the values that the so-called international community claims to represent. 

Instead of punishing Israel for committing genocide, the plan rewards Israel with more territory in the form of a “buffer zone” that entirely surrounds the Gaza Strip. Instead of an international force whose purpose is to protect Palestinians from Israeli mass violence, Palestinians are being offered a force whose purpose is to legitimize and subcontract Israel’s brutal occupation. Instead of insisting that those who are currently committing genocide in Gaza be disarmed and deradicalized, it is rather the victims of that genocide who are meant to be disarmed and deradicalized. In short, instead of self-determination for the people of Palestine after a century of colonial rule, Palestinians in Gaza are being forced to choose between further indefinite colonial subjugation or continued, unrelenting genocidal violence. That is no choice at all.

Ola El-Taliawi

Tenured assistant professor of public administration and policy science at the University of Twente, The Netherlands

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan reads less like a pathway to justice than a return to colonial trusteeship. The proposal to install a technocratic authority under international supervision, with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at its helm, evokes the long and painful history of Western overseers in the Middle East. Blair’s record in Iraq, deeply tarnished by his role in legitimizing the 2003 invasion and its devastating aftermath, makes his nomination especially provocative. 

The plan also contains a troubling loophole: while it promises that no one will be “forced” to leave Gaza, it simultaneously opens the door for those who “wish” to depart. In contexts of blockade, bombardment, and livelihood collapse, the line between choice and coercion is meaningless, effectively rebranding forced displacement as voluntary exit and normalizing coerced departure under the guise of voluntariness. Most troubling of all, the plan is silent on accountability for Israel’s genocide, illegal settlement expansion, and decades of violations of Palestinian rights and international law. By externalizing Palestinian self-determination to yet another foreign overseer, disguising coerced displacement as voluntariness, and absolving Israel of responsibility, the plan entrenches a system that privileges Israeli control while marginalizing Palestinian rights; recasting imperial management as peacebuilding.

Omar Shaban

Founder and director of the Gaza-based PalThink for Strategic Studies

A quick review of social media indicates that a majority of Gazans, who have for two years suffered Israel’s onslaught, now support the Trump plan for many reasons, but primarily because it promises to end the horrible war.  

They realize that Trump’s plan may not be the best; however, they also understand that negotiations and agreements are the result of the balance of power between negotiating parties, and that there is a difference between what is most desirable to achieve and what is most possible to achieve. 

The current 20-point Trump plan, which came on the heels of the United Nations General Assembly, actually walks back from his initial Gaza Riviera initiative, which lacked any political dimensions, would have ignored the rights of the Palestinian residents and “voluntarily” displaced them. Most disturbingly, it realized Israeli right-wing aims of resolving the conflict through displacement, and then permanent Jewish settlement, and turning the Strip into an empty plot of land intended for investment.

Not surprisingly, the Riviera Gaza plan was praised by the Israeli right-wing, especially Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who demanded that it be the Israeli government’s action plan.

But the Gaza Riviera plan was strongly opposed by many around the world, who even committed—through an unprecedented demonstration of international will at the United Nations—to the two-state solution by recognizing Palestinian statehood.

From a Palestinian perspective, the plan has the potential to stabilize and strengthen their presence on their own land. For their part, Hamas realizes that the plan is supported by key Arab and Muslim countries, namely Qatar and Turkey, which have hosted its leadership over the years. 

Hamas can’t reject the plan. Although it stated it didn’t receive an official document of the plan, it pledged to study it in good faith.

An affirmative response from Hamas was to be expected. In Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority (PA) welcomed Trump’s plan as it breaches Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s red line not to work with the PA to govern Gaza. 

Both  Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions are aware of the magnitude of the people’s tragedy in Gaza, and at the same time, they understand the strategic trap that Trump set for them: that their rejection of the plan would make the Palestinian people lose their most important achievement in this war, which is gaining official and popular international sympathy and exposing Israel as a colonial, settler-occupation entity led by a group of extremists. 

Therefore, they are required to think rationally about the balance of power and not be driven solely by the emotions of national aspirations, even if these are legitimate and just. Consequently, Hamas will be accepting the general principles called for by the plan: namely, halting the war, arranging Gaza’s reconstruction and keeping its residents there, and establishing stability in the region, which does not conflict with Palestinian interests. This should be accompanied by a regional push to quickly negotiate the plan’s details, its timeline, and practical next steps, while maintaining international support for ending the war.

Richard Silverstein

Freelance journalist and independent researcher

The recent “peace plan” devised by U.S. President Donald Trump has offered Israel a golden opportunity to further advance its interests regarding Gaza. It envisions an end to the war on Israel’s terms, with Hamas achieving almost nothing.  

Originally, the U.S. president presented the plan to a group of Arab leaders who responded positively to its provisions. Unfortunately, he then presented the document to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who spent six hours ‘revising’ it. He removed or softened many of the points to which he objected and added demands that he had voiced for the past two years (and which Hamas had already summarily rejected). The Arab leaders, when they approved the original document, were not aware that Netanyahu had been given effective veto power. When they later learned of the substantial revisions, they were furious. This, in turn, has colored the largely skeptical response to the plan.

Nevertheless, the prime minister returned home trumpeting his success in “turning the tables” against Hamas, by achieving all his own objectives and denying the Palestinian side their own aspirations.

Ibrahim Awad

Research professor in global affairs and director of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies in the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo

The Trump plan saves Israel from pursuing the genocidal war it has been waging for the last two years without reaching its declared goals. The plan also aims to save Israel from its increasing isolation in the international system and from the pariah status in which it is now. The plan is blatantly pro-Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu introduced significant edits in the version that was announced publicly by President Trump; this version differed from the one presented to the Arab and Islamic partners, who are supposed to ensure that Hamas complies with its obligations, and who were not informed of these last-minute edits. The Foreign Minister of Pakistan, one of the partners, has called it a unilateral plan.   

That plan also puts its implementation in Israel’s hands. Once Israel agrees to it, Hamas must release the captives and the remains it holds, regardless of whether Hamas accepts the plan or not. In negotiations between the Israeli army, the International Stabilization Force (ISF), the Arab and Islamic partners, and the United States, Israel will practically decide whether Gaza has become secure or not. A secure Gaza, as determined by Israel, is a condition for Israel to progressively hand over the territory it occupies to the ISF. The ISF will be established as a long-term security force in Gaza. Israel will also determine whether the conditions for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood are met or not.  In the plan, the Palestinian state is not a given, agreed-upon outcome.

In the meantime, if the plan gets implemented, a new two-level mandate system, reminiscent of the League of Nations’ mandate, will be put in place. Some “apolitical” Palestinians will be appointed to the lower-level organs. But they will not be alone. Several international experts will accompany them in this organization.  The higher body is the ultimate supervisory body. This is the Board of Peace that will be chaired by the President and obviously managed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 1922, the League of Nations mandate for Palestine was a class A mandate, meaning that the country was close to independence and its population qualified to govern it. Over a century later, the Trump plan downgrades Gaza’s status to that of a territory needing close control and guidance. The plan does not make any mention of the West Bank. 

Additionally, doubt may be cast on the implementation of the plan. Hamas’ obligations are to put down their arms and to give up all forms of participation in Gaza’s governance. It is hard to imagine how the regional partners will ensure and guarantee that Hamas has been disarmed. The plan pits Arabs against Arabs. It seeks to transfer the problem Israel created for itself to the Arab countries. Despite their declared support for the plan, when it comes to its implementation, they are not likely to fall into this pitfall.

Michael Reimer

Professor of history in the Sultan Al-Qasimi Department of History at the American University in Cairo

U.S. President Donald Trump seems to prefer to negotiate peace deals with aggressors rather than their victims. When he wanted to end Russia’s war of conquest in Ukraine, he met first with the Russians. Now, to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza, he formulates a plan in coordination with the Israelis, without consulting Palestinians (though there was consultation with several Arab and Muslim states). This is a backward approach to peacemaking and doubts about implementing the plan are intensified when Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has in theory agreed to it, tells us that he interprets the agreement to mean that IDF forces will not withdraw fully from Gaza, and that establishment of a Palestinian state is not the goal of the peace process. And where in this plan is Israel required to accept responsibility for the genocide it has committed in Gaza? So it’s a virtual certainty that implementation of the plan will stall, sooner rather than later, even if it’s accepted, rhetorically, by both sides. At the same time, I see two overriding reasons for Hamas to accept the plan, despite its many shortcomings. One, it may give the Palestinian people in Gaza a respite after two years of relentless bombardment and multiple forced displacements. Two, the creation of a transitional governing body with internationally recognized authority, would prevent, or at least deter, a renewed invasion or annexation of Gaza, and the plan seems to guarantee the Palestinian people a right to remain in Gaza. These are, in my view, the most constructive features of the plan.

Gedaliah Afterman

Head of the Asia Policy Program at Reichman University’s Abba Eban Institute and Fellow at the University of Bonn’s CASSIS; former Australian diplomat in Beijing

U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan, while far from perfect, has nonetheless shifted the regional equation. Its endorsement by Israel, alongside Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, places the pressure squarely on Hamas. The plan offers the clearest opening yet to end the war, secure the release of hostages, and begin not only the rebuilding of Gaza and Israel but also the shaping of a broader regional vision. It will inevitably face attempts at alteration or spoiling in the days and weeks ahead, yet even in its imperfect form, it creates a framework to move the parties from conflict toward a fragile but real political pathway. To seize this moment, the United States and the key Arab states must press ahead with determination, linking ceasefire and hostage release to a credible process of reconstruction and a clear pathway toward Palestinian statehood and regional cooperation. More broadly, this could be the moment for Asian and European powers, from Delhi to Berlin, to step in and help materialise cross-regional connectivity initiatives such as the India—Middle East—Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), incorporating both Israel and the Palestinians into the region and anchoring an economic base for the future of regional stability and integration.

Ending one of the bloodiest and most complex conflicts in modern history and installing peace is not a quick fix. It does not resemble a short sprint, but an exhausting marathon. Achieving it requires foresight, resilience, determination, and concessions. Two good starting points are the 2000 Clinton Parameters (on the creation of a Palestinian state over most of the West Bank and all of Gaza) and the 2003 Geneva Accords (on a comprehensive two-state solution), both of which lay out frameworks for addressing the core issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

It has been persuasively argued that a sustainable and just peace can only emerge under a unique alignment of conditions. Each condition is necessary; each is insufficient on its own. These include:

1. The rise of an Israeli leader genuinely committed to peace and willing to bear the political and strategic costs of achieving it.
2. A Palestinian leader with equivalent resolve, prepared to make difficult compromises.
3. Both leaders’ ability to persuade their societies of the urgency of peace, fostering public support, and cultivating a shared vision of coexistence.
4. A recognition by both that the moment is ripe for resolution and that delaying agreement harms their long-term national interests.

The absence of any one of these factors risks prolonging the conflict and deferring hope. Only when all conditions align can a genuine breakthrough occur, offering both people a horizon of reconciliation.

Demographic and International Considerations

French philosopher and mathematician Auguste Comte famously said, “Demography is destiny”. While not the sole determinant, demographics undeniably shape societies’ trajectories. Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, Jews and Palestinians are today nearly equal in number. As of September 2025, Israel’s population was 10,148,000: 78.5% Jewish (7,758,000) and 21% Arab (2,130,000). In addition, 260,000 are citizens of foreign nationality. The State of Palestine’s 2025 population is estimated at 5.6 million.      

This conflict is about two national movements, Zionist and Palestinian. Their ideological, religious, and cultural differences are striking, and they both have deep historical claims to the same narrow strip of land. Their relationship is asymmetrical as Israel is the dominant party. Israel occupies the West Bank and is now in the process of reoccupying the Gaza Strip. Prolonged occupation harms not only Palestinians but also the State of Israel. The United Nations has passed dozens of resolutions declaring Israeli West Bank settlements illegal, calling for Palestinian self-determination, and reaffirming that land cannot be acquired by force.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 called for an end to the Israeli occupation of “territories” taken in the 1967 war. UN Resolution 338 demanded the establishment of a durable peace in the Middle East. Both provide a broad diplomatic framework. Other UN resolutions—including 252, 267, and 476 on Jerusalem, 465 on settlements, 607 and 608 on deportations, and 3236 on Palestinian sovereignty—reinforce the principle that Israeli expropriations and unilateral changes to Jerusalem’s status are invalid. Resolution 2334 reaffirmed that the borders of a future Palestinian state must be based on the 1967 lines and that settlements cannot dictate territorial outcomes. These resolutions highlight the international consensus: Palestinians have a right to self-determination and Israel carries obligations as an occupying power.

Gaza

Since Hamas seized Gaza in 2007, proposals to treat Gaza and the West Bank as a single entity have been unrealistic. The territories differ geographically, politically, and socially. Hamas and the PA are bitter rivals, with Hamas violently ousting Fatah (the PA’s majority political party) during its takeover. Unlike the PA, Hamas has never abandoned its commitment to Israel’s destruction and has consistently chosen violence over reconciliation.

As long as Hamas ruled Gaza, it was impossible to connect it safely to the West Bank through any tunnel or corridor. Doing so would have effectively created two separate Palestinian entities: a PA-led state in the West Bank and a Hamas-controlled ministate in Gaza. Yet, the West Bank and Gaza cannot simply be separated. Despite political rivalries, strong emotional, cultural, and family ties bind Palestinians in both regions. A final peace must include Gaza. If and when Gazans participate in the peace process, a secure corridor linking the territories should be created, with Palestinians responsible for ensuring it is not misused for violence, possibly with the help of other countries. Tranquility is a sine qua non for sustained coexistence.

The October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack was a turning point. The unprecedented scale and brutality shocked Israeli society to its core and deeply traumatized its sense of security. Hamas created an ocean of hatred and animosity that is deep and irreconcilable, forcing Israel into massive retaliation and drawing the region into a devastating war. Hatred and revenge are terrible guides for any action, Palestinian or Israeli. By August 2025, more than 60,000 people were killed, including more than 17,000 children. Over 87,000 received critical care. Israel’s bombing campaign in this war is one of the most extensive in the history of warfare. 

Hamas set for Israel an ‘ethical trap’. Its initial attack was ethically obnoxious and was roundly condemned by the international community, yet it succeeded in provoking Israel into a counterattack that appears to know no ethical boundaries. It moved Israel from being seen by the international community as the victim of an unethical attack to being seen as the perpetrator of much worse ethical wrongs.  Evidence for this is in the number of people killed by either side. 

This tragedy underscores two lessons. First, Israel’s strategy of playing Hamas against the PA to weaken the latter has failed; divide-and-rule only entrenched extremism. Second, the root causes of the conflict cannot be ignored. At issue are two national movements, Jewish and Arab, that have justified claims over the same small piece of land. Both Arabs and Jews perceive that land as their national home. Israel should not reoccupy Gaza, and the vacuum left by Hamas must be filled by a governing body that is acceptable to the Palestinians and committed to the Oslo Accords.

A broad coalition—Israel, the United States, Arab states, the United Nations, and the wider international community—must establish a humanitarian framework to care for Gazans and begin reconstruction. With over 80% of the population displaced, infrastructure destroyed, and 42 million tons of rubble littering the territory, the scale of reconstruction is enormous. Clearing debris alone could take decades and cost $80 billion. Over half of the water and sanitation facilities have been destroyed. In the short term, there is a need to rebuild Gaza from the ashes and rehabilitate the lives of its people. This will require a complete overhaul of its physical infrastructure. The Palestinians are unable to do this on their own. Israel should not ignore its responsibility, and it is in its best interest, as well, to see that this is done. 

In February 2025, President Trump proposed relocating Gaza’s population to safer and more beautiful communities in the region, citing Egypt and Jordan as potential hosts. Crucially, the plan made no mention of consent—neither from the Gazan population nor from Egypt and Jordan as prospective recipients. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned the idea as a violation of international law, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres denounced “any form of ethnic cleansing.”

If Trump is serious about executing his idea, rather than sweeping declarations, what’s needed is a phased, consensual approach grounded in humanitarian principles. Stage one should focus on family reunification: Egypt, Jordan, and the United States would agree on a capped number of voluntary immigrants with familial ties in host countries. Applications would follow standard immigration procedures, with careful vetting to exclude extremists who might destabilise host regimes. Temporary residency could be granted, with pathways to citizenship determined by each country.

After evaluating the first phase, a second round could be offered under similar terms. If Trump is committed, the United States must fund and coordinate the initiative in full partnership with Egypt and Jordan. Legitimacy hinges on consent—not coercion. A May 2025 survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 49% of Gazans may be willing to apply to leave, if supported by Israel.

Trump’s remarks sparked immediate debate. Indonesia offered to accept 1,000 refugees. In March, the Arab League convened in Cairo and countered with a $53 billion plan to rebuild Gaza by 2030 under a reformed Palestinian Authority. The proposal includes infrastructure development and a transition of power from Hamas to an interim administration of independents, with Egypt offering to train Palestinian police. While Hamas and the UN backed the plan, Israel rejected it, opposing any PA involvement.

Trump reiterated his vision of resettlement and reconstruction, while the White House emphasised openness to Arab input, claiming the proposal had catalysed regional engagement. The White House remarked: “While the President stands by his bold vision for a post-war Gaza, he welcomes input from our Arab partners in the region. It’s clear his proposals have driven the region to come to the table rather than allow this issue to devolve into further crisis.”

The West Bank

Resolving the conflict requires a cooperative framework in which Israel and the PA engage seriously with each other. Despite its flaws, the PA is still a preferable partner to more radical Palestinian factions. Strategically, preserving the PA is in Israel’s interest; its collapse would likely empower groups far less moderate and far more destabilising.

Over the years, Israel and the PA have managed pragmatic cooperation in areas such as security, health, and infrastructure, proving that functional engagement is possible and mutually beneficial. These mechanisms should be expanded. Israel should actively strengthen frameworks with Palestinian actors committed to non-violence and negotiation. Such cooperation contributes not only to stability but also to gradually rebuilding trust.

Israel and the PA need each other. Both remain committed to the Oslo Accords. The PA’s disintegration would be disastrous. It would remove the only semi-structured authority able to engage diplomatically and govern effectively, plunging the conflict back into volatility. To avoid this, constructive forces within both societies must break the recurring cycle of violence. Dialogue, mutual recognition, and non-violence must be the foundation.

An important step is promoting democratic processes in Palestinian politics, particularly free elections in the West Bank—limited to parties that recognise Israel, renounce violence, and respect democratic governance. Strengthening democratic accountability would empower moderates and create a legitimate negotiating partner. Similarly, Israel should reaffirm its commitment to democratic procedure and acknowledge Palestinian self-determination. Both sides must engage their own societies to ensure that reconciliation, once achieved, is durable and inclusive.

As long as the Gaza government remains hostile and terroristic, the border with Israel will remain sealed. If relationships improve and the government is willing to establish relations with Israel, the three parties—Gaza, Palestine and Israel—can work together to establish a tunnel connecting the West Bank and Gaza. 

Reconstruction

There is a need to rebuild Gaza and to install a new order. It is a delicate task to re-establish Gaza from the ashes. This is also in Israel’s interest and responsibility, which it should not ignore. It must be part of the solution, but it cannot do it on its own. It must have partners: the PA, the UN, Egypt, and other countries that have the goodwill and interest to re-establish Gaza. Rich countries that are said to have a dedicated interest in resolving the Palestinian problem, like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, with financial resources and experience, should play a leading role in Gaza’s recovery. Alternatively, if Trump’s “ownership” proposal over Gaza of February 2025 holds water, then the United States will have to clear tens of millions of tons of debris and make Gaza, as Trump suggested, into the ”Riviera of the Middle East”.

Israel has a responsibility, both moral and strategic, to ensure Gazans do not see militancy as their only future. Innovative proposals, such as building artificial islands off Gaza’s coast, could expand living space, support infrastructure, and create economic hubs. Artificial islands offer a viable means of territorial expansion, can alleviate overcrowding in Gaza’s densely populated urban centres, and support long-term socio-economic growth. They can facilitate urban planning by creating new space for housing, office complexes, and recreational facilities, while also serving as platforms for essential infrastructures. They can function as integrated transportation hubs, hosting airports, seaports, or nodes within larger systems of connectivity through bridges and tunnels. They would significantly enhance Gaza’s regional mobility and economic integration. Moreover, when designed with environmental considerations, artificial islands can help mitigate ecological degradation by diverting human activity away from sensitive terrestrial habitats. If implemented with sustainable planning and international oversight, artificial islands could serve as a model for innovative and ecologically responsible urban development in resource-constrained environments like Gaza. I develop these ideas further in my book Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Critical Study of Peace Negotiations, Mediation and, Facilitation between Israel and the PLO (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 

Israel rightly insists that Hamas should not be involved in the reconstruction of Gaza. Hamas does not show willingness to change its ideology and violent conduct and Israel cannot risk another major terror attack on its territory. Israel is wrong in rejecting the PA’s involvement. If the PA, with a new president, were to be proactive in fostering peace and clearly reject violence as a solution, then it should be involved in the Gaza reconstruction, together with the United States, the United Nations and other countries of goodwill that care about the future of Gaza. Israel should not reoccupy Gaza because it does not wish to care for more than 2 million Gazans. In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to disengage from Gaza in order to reduce friction between Israelis and Palestinians, enhance Israel’s security, and stabilise Israel’s political and economic landscape. As the toll—in blood and money—was too high for Israel, Sharon made a strategic decision that Israel could no longer support the Gaza Jewish settlements. The extreme elements in the current Israeli government who wish to make Gaza Jewish again should learn recent history. 

The Path Forward

Peace requires trust, goodwill, and security. But the path is long and fraught with setbacks. Public mistrust remains a major obstacle. In March 2024, 71% of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank thought that the Hamas October 7 attack was correct. Sixty-four per cent of West Bankers and 59% of Gazans preferred to see Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip. Seventy-five per cent of West Bankers and 62% of the Gazans were satisfied with the performance of Hamas in the war. The majority of Palestinians perceived violence as the right course of action. As long as this is the case, ripeness for peace is questionable. 

The situation is in flux, however, because people reflect, contemplate, and may be undecided. This is manifested in a September 2024 poll in the West Bank and Gaza, where, for the first time since October 2023, findings show a significant drop in the favorability of the October 7 terror attack and expectations that Hamas will win the current war, and a moderate drop in the level of support for Hamas. In the Gaza Strip, findings also show a drop in preference for continued Hamas control over that area and a rise in preference for PA control. In May 2025, 48% of Palestinians in Gaza supported the anti-Hamas demonstrations in Gaza, compared to only 14% of Palestinians in the West Bank who supported those demonstrations. Findings also show a significant rise in support for the two-state solution, accompanied by a drop in preference for armed struggle, and an increase in preference for negotiations as the best means of ending the Israeli occupation. 

As for Israel, a poll conducted in March-April 2024 shows that only 26% of respondents believed a way can be found for Israel and a Palestinian state “to coexist peacefully”. Fifty percent said they did not believe it was possible at all, with 20 percent saying it depends on future developments. In January 2025, over 60% of the Jewish public agreed with the claim that Israel’s security needs necessitate both security and civilian control over Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The grieving and traumatized Israeli population is preoccupied with the fate of the 48 hostages that are still held by Hamas in Gaza, and by the prospects of more military casualties as the IDF is deepening its fighting into Gaza. Most Israelis have little concern for the suffering Gazans as they believe they brought the disastrous war on themselves by electing Hamas to power in 2006 and supporting its violent actions and terrorist conduct, including the October 7 brutal attack on Israel.

The road to peace is neither short nor straightforward. It requires:

• Zero tolerance of violence.
• Building trust and improving daily life for Palestinians.
• Stopping settlement expansion and evacuating isolated outposts.
• Dismantling unnecessary checkpoints in the West Bank to ease civilian hardship.
• Empowering Palestinian moderates through elections.
• Engaging the international community in reconstruction and trust-building.
• Addressing regional challenges, especially Iran, which remains hostile and committed to Israel’s destruction.

As of August 2025, both Israelis and Palestinians are battered and traumatized, but shifting attitudes suggest that opportunities may eventually emerge. We should not fall into the fallacy of thinking that the future is bound to be similar to the present situation, and whatever situation we are in is here to stay. Peace will not come quickly, but its potential rewards—security, prosperity, and justice for both peoples—justify the immense effort required.

Not since the Roman conquest of the Middle East has any power imposed itself so thoroughly through military dominance as Israel has in the past three years. It has, during that period, achieved sweeping regional hegemony over virtually all of its neighbors. 

This is the realization of a decades-old objective Israeli leaders have long coveted, but never dared imagine. Even amidst multi-state wars with its Arab frontline neighbors in 1956 and 1973, it only sought limited objectives (the 1948 and 1967 wars may be seen as exceptions).

After multiple attacks over the past year on Iran and its regional Axis of Resistance, Israel has in effect redrawn the geo-strategic map. When Syrian rebels toppled Bashar al Assad and cut off Iranian weapons transshipments to Hezbollah, Israel exploited this opportunity to degrade the latter through repeated attacks against it. First, it severely wounded thousands of Hezbollah’s fighters through pager mass explosions. Then it wiped out its long-time leader and an icon of resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, along with his named successor and others in senior leadership. More recently, it invaded Lebanon and now occupies a considerable portion of the south. In addition, the IDF has eradicated many of the villages and destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure there, rendering it virtually uninhabitable. Hezbollah seems, at least for the time being, to be a spent force.

Unlike Israel’s past invasions of Lebanon and its 20-year (1982-2002) occupation of Hezbollah’s southern strongholds, which were met with fierce resistance, its more recent incursion has generated little conflict. 

The War Against Hezbollah and Iran

The more recent 12-day war against Iran which wiped out much of the Revolutionary Guard senior command, along with a number of its leading nuclear scientists, significantly reduced that country’s capabilities as well. Furthermore, Israel’s obliteration of the country’s air defenses, and thorough infiltration of its security apparatus to mount devastating attacks on some of its most valuable military assets, exposed both Iran’s weaknesses and Israel’s military dominance. Its chief regional rival was transformed from a significant threat to an also-ran in a matter of weeks.

Meanwhile, the Syrian uprising eliminated another capable Israeli foe—its long-time dictator and firm Iranian ally, al-Assad. In one swift stroke, Iran’s weapons distribution system to its regional proxies was eliminated. Through a series of opportune developments, some created by Israel and others dropped in its lap, the elimination of Hezbollah, Assad and Iran, has made Israel the dominant hegemon.  

It has now imposed the latter-day equivalent of the Pax Romana. Of course, this Pax Israeliana is not a “peace” at all. Rather it is a brutal imposition of colonial power on a network of captive, subdued peoples. In historian Flavius Josephus’ terms it is Bellum Iudaicum (a “Judean War”).

Israel’s campaign for geo-strategic dominance follows a classic pattern of European colonization—using overwhelming military force combined with a determination to impose control over a colonized people. This also includes mass violence amounting to genocide and a willingness to ethnically cleanse restive populations. In this pattern, the colonizers also ruthlessly appropriate natural resources such as land, water, and natural resources for their own gain; the wealth is stolen from the victims and transferred to the foreign occupier. Another aspect of European colonialism is the reckless impunity with which the colonizer pursues its interests. It brooks no criticism or resistance to its absolute power.

October 7 and the Campaign to Dismantle Hamas

Israel’s scorched earth response to Hamas’ October 7 attack has reduced the latter to a ragged insurgent force. Its entire senior command was wiped out. Recently, Israel launched a failed assassination attempt against its sole remaining senior leader, Khaled Meshal. Some 9,000 of an estimated 30,000 fighters have been killed. What is even more devastating is the siege that has been imposed for the past two years. Now, 600,000 Gazans face famine and hundreds are dying of starvation, especially the most vulnerable: children.

Despite mass protests on Israeli streets led by the families of Israeli hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a devastating invasion of Gaza City, where 800,000 Palestinians took shelter.  He wages war relentlessly. As long as it continues, he is politically impregnable. 

More recently, his defense minister proposed establishing concentration camps (what he calls a “humanitarian city”) into which 600,000 Gazans would be herded, “voluntarily” of course. Once imprisoned, they would remain confined there indefinitely. Both Israeli and U.S. leaders are now advocating explicitly for the forced mass expulsion of much of Gaza’s population. 

We are fast approaching the equivalent of Hitler’s Final Solution to the Jewish Problem. Even the use of mass extermination in camps like Auschwitz is mirrored by estimates that 25% of Gaza’s overall population may have been murdered by Israeli carpet bombing, which has also eradicated almost all of its homes, schools, hospitals and other vital infrastructure. This figure also includes deaths from accompanying impacts of the war including starvation, disease, lack of medical care, and unrecovered bodies.

“… The world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population—close to half- a million human beings—dying within a year,” says Professor Devi Sridhar, Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh.

Ethnic Cleansing

For decades, Hamas has been the most persistent and capable enemy Israel has faced. Its geographical proximity and steadfastness in confronting its colonial occupier made it an implacable foe. It alone raised the banner of Palestinian resistance. It has conducted numerous successful attacks on Israeli forces within Gaza and Israel itself.

Though Hamas is by no means a spent force, its capabilities have been severely reduced and Israel and much of the world envision no future role for it in Gaza. However, Netanyahu has offered no substitute plan for governance of Gaza, leaving Hamas as the only viable option.

Yet, Israel isn’t satisfied with this outcome. It foresees no Palestinian population remaining in Gaza. Its wild-eyed extremists relish the prospect of a new Greater Israel outpost there, filled with settlements, or as President Trump put it: a “Riviera of the Middle East.”  

Gaza’s ethnic cleansing will reverse the old Zionist saying: a people without a land for a land without its people.

Through sweeping violence and mass expulsions, the settler colonists have depopulated scores of West Bank Palestinian villages. Thousands have been displaced and their homes and property stolen by Israelis. The latter undoubtedly have a plan to reduce or eliminate the Palestinian presence there as soon as global anger subsides over the Gaza genocide.

There is only one Arab group which has not been cowed by Israeli force: the Houthis in Yemen.  Though their distance from Israel reduces their capability to inflict damage, they remain a capable adversary: unbowed and unbeaten despite repeated attacks by Israel on their military leadership and weapons sites.

How Empires Fall: Rome, Nazi Germany, and Israel

While Netanyahu and his messianist-fanatical allies revel in their strategic achievements, history offers a corrective. Rome’s empire eventually fell. It imploded under the weight of greed, economic disruption, territorial overextension, and decline of its military capabilities. Hitler’s dream of a Thousand Year Reich collapsed in twelve years, after he too was swept up in a grandiose vision of Aryan supremacy. Empires rise and fall. Nothing is forever. 

The fever dream of the most extreme elements of Israeli society calls for a return to some imagined ancient greatness: The Kingdoms of David and Solomon in the eras of the First and Second Temple; the Hasmonean dynasty of the Maccabees which overthrew Greek rule; and the grandeur of Herod’s era. Ultimately, the true believers are seized by a messianic fervor in which a return to this so-called ancient historical greatness will summon ultimate redemption. Such are Zionist dreams of an eternal homeland basking in divine favor.

However, no enemy, no matter how weakened, can be entirely eliminated. The tools historically employed by the more successful colonial powers to obtain the tacit consent of the colonized—diplomacy and collaboration—have been rejected by Israel. Compromise only shows weakness, says the triumphalist vision of colonial power and dominance.

This can succeed as long as Israel’s enemies are beaten down and—critically—its allies maintain support for its raging ambition. Thus far, its chief ally, the United States, has stood firm providing $20 billion in weapons to enable the genocide.  

But world opinion is slowly turning against it and the slaughter it has perpetrated. Support for Israel, historically far exceeding the support for Palestinians, is now reversed. The latest US polls show, for the first time ever, more support for the latter than for the former. A report by Gallup research firm shows that 60% of Americans disapprove of the Israeli action in Gaza, with only 32% supporting it. The support for Gaza increased ever since September 2024. A majority of Americans consider Gaza a genocide. A plurality support cutting military aid. These are unprecedented developments previously considered taboo in U.S. politics, thanks to the massive political impact of the Israel lobby. That taboo has been broken.

It is not a question of if Israel’s colonial dominance will decline, but when. An empire built on cohesion, unity, shared prosperity, technological innovation, and collaboration can survive over long historical periods. But a society riven by dissent, dysfunction, corruption, wealth inequities, and mass violence, will always be unstable and prone to dissolution.

Israel has made fateful errors in declaring its enemies defeated. You cannot eliminate an enemy solely by brute force. The urge to resist and rebel has historically always been an animating force in human affairs. Eventually, either Israel declines through its own internal dysfunction; or its enemies regain their power and renew their challenge.  The tide will inevitably turn. Its colonial power and dominance will dissipate. At that point, its hubris will be its ultimate downfall.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas massacred over 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 251 hostages. Twenty remaining hostages are still alive in Gaza, 148 have been rescued or released, and 75 died or were murdered by Hamas. Hostages who have been released have reported torture, beatings, and murder during their time in captivity.  

In its original charter, Hamas openly declared its intent to destroy the nation of Israel. While Hamas removed this outright declaration of its genocidal intent from its revised 2017 charter, Hamas still declares that it is at war against all Zionists. The revision in Hamas’ charter is belied by Hamas’ continuing attacks on Israel. Statements from Hamas’ leadership, its unrelenting missile strikes on Israel, and the October 7 massacre prove that Hamas is still a genocidal terrorist organization that must be defeated.

Claiming its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Israel justifies its invasions in Gaza and Lebanon as intended to destroy the bases of Hamas and Hezbollah before they could be used for more attacks on Israel. Israel also justifies its invasion of Gaza as necessary to free Israeli citizens who are being held hostage. This right to protect national citizens has long been a doctrine of international law.

Israel’s military retaliation against Hamas would be justified as self-defense if it were proportionate and based on distinguishing Hamas combatants from Palestinian civilians. However, Israel’s continuous bombing and destruction of all of Gaza and its starvation of Palestinians make no distinctions between combatants and civilians. Bombing hospitals and shooting civilians are war crimes. Forced deportation and starvation are crimes against humanity.

Defeating Hamas’ genocidal terrorists does not justify committing genocide against Palestinian civilians. 

Is Israel also Committing the Crime of Genocide?

To prove that Israel is committing genocide, three elements must be conclusively proven: destruction of a protected group; acts of genocide; and intent.

1. Are Palestinians a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group?

The existence of a group is proven from the point of view of the perpetrator. Israel’s leaders themselves recognize that Palestinians are a national and ethnic group. In October 2023, Israeli President Herzog stated, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible”. In Israel and worldwide, Palestinians are considered a national and ethnic group with their own language and culture. Palestine is increasingly recognized as a state in international law and institutions.

2. Has Israel committed acts of genocide?

The crime of genocide is defined in the Genocide Convention, the international convention adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948:

“Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Determining whether Israel has committed genocide requires evaluating whether Israel has systematically committed acts of genocide enumerated in Article II.  

(a) Has Israel intentionally killed a substantial part of the Palestinian national and ethnic group?

The UN estimates that 62,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died since October 7, 2023. At least 17,000 of the Palestinian dead were children. Israel claims that casualty figures from the UN and the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry are unreliable exaggerations. An independent study estimates that the death toll is actually far higher than the UN’s. 

(b) Has Israel intentionally caused serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group?

As an occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to provide basic needs to Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Not only has Israel failed to provide for basic needs, but Israel actively blocks aid into Gaza. Two million Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of starvation. They also lack adequate medical supplies and are showing severe levels of bodily and mental harm. 

Israel claims it has permitted enough food aid, but alleges that the aid is stolen by Hamas. This claim is intended to convince Israelis that Israel is obeying the laws of war. It is not. Israel has pursued a policy of starvation.

The truth is that Israel has blocked over eighty percent of food aid from entering Gaza since the beginning of the war.

Israel blockaded all food, water, medicine, and fuel to Gaza for three months in 2025 and blocked all food and aid distribution from the United Nations, while simultaneously refusing to open more aid crossings. 

Starvation is the crime against humanity of Extermination under Article 7 (1)(b) of the ICC statute: “The intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.” Starvation is also an act of genocide under Genocide Convention Article 2(c).

On August 27, 2025, all the members of the UN Security Council except the United States issued a statement condemning the starvation caused by Israel in Gaza as a “man-made famine”.

(c) Has Israel deliberately inflicted on the Palestinian group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part?

Israel intentionally bombs schools, homes, hospitals, and designated humanitarian zones. Israel has used 2000-pound bombs that level entire apartment buildings and hurl shrapnel that kills and maims people as far as 360 meters away. Over 174,000 buildings in Gaza have been destroyed and over 19,000 have been severely damaged. Over ninety percent (436,000 homes) of the dwellings in Gaza are uninhabitable. 

Every hospital in Gaza has been bombed by Israel on the pretext that Hamas hides under them. Of the damaged hospitals still standing, the UN reports that all Gaza hospitals lack water, fuel, staff, and medical supplies. Directing attacks against hospitals is a war crime that violates ICC statute Article 8(2)(b)(ix).

Israel is blowing up the remaining buildings in Rafah, where it says it will build a cynically named “humanitarian city” to confine Gazans. They will be guarded by IDF troops and won’t be allowed to leave. Israel is planning to build a concentration camp.

Israel is apparently applying the Dahiya (Dahya) doctrine developed in its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. It is a military strategy involving the large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure that supports an enemy organization, intended to force the civilian population to turn against militants. The Dahiya doctrine is directly contrary to the laws of war that prohibit attacks on civilians. It is Israel’s excuse for committing war crimes.

3. Do Israel’s actions have the intent to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part.

Intent of a state can be proven in two ways: First, by statements or orders from leaders or military commanders, or, second, by a systematic pattern of the acts of genocide enumerated in the Genocide Convention.

A popular belief regarding genocide is that it requires the intent to eliminate a group “in whole”. Many supporters of Israel reject any claim that Israel’s destruction in Gaza approaches the horror of the Holocaust, which attempted to kill all Jewish people.

But the Genocide Convention only requires the intent to destroy a group “in part”. Intentionally killing, starving, or destroying conditions of life of members of a group because of their group identity qualifies as the intent to destroy a group “in part”. 

Israeli leaders have repeatedly made statements that express the intent to destroy conditions of life for a substantial part of the Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli leaders have led a dehumanizing campaign of anti-Palestinian propaganda that claims there is no distinction between Hamas combatants and Palestinian civilians. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant claim that there are “no innocents” among Palestinians. Israeli President Herzog stated, “It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians being not aware, not involved.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Biblical command in Deuteronomy 24 and 1 Samuel 15: 2-3 to kill every Amalekite, a nation that had launched a surprise attack against the Jewish people as they migrated into Israel. Netanyahu invoked a divine order to commit genocide.

On October 9, 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “I have ordered a complete siege of the Gaza Strip…We are fighting human animals.”

These statements from government officials are a clear indication of intent to destroy the Palestinian group in whole or part. 

Israel’s Denial

Israel employs four classic denial tactics against accusations of genocide:

1. Minimize the statistics. 
2. Attack the truth tellers. 
3. Claim civilian deaths were mistakes or “collateral damage”.
4. Deny intent.

1. Minimize the statistics.

Israel claims that casualty figures from the UN and the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry are exaggerated lies. However, a scientific study published in The Lancet, a respected peer-reviewed medical journal, in January 2025 estimated that approximately 64,260 Palestinians died from traumatic injuries in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024. This figure is 40 percent higher than the 37,877 deaths reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry during the same period.

2. Attack the truth-tellers.

Netanyahu portrays opposition to Israeli bombing in Gaza as a pro-Hamas campaign aimed at destroying Israel itself. Netanyahu claims that the United Nations, International Criminal Court, and protests against Israel’s war crimes are “antisemitic”, conflating opposition to Israel’s war with antisemitism. For Israelis, he is invoking memories of the antisemitism that led to the Holocaust.

Additionally, Israel allows only Palestinian journalists to report from Gaza. No foreign journalists have access except on IDF escorted tours. Israel regularly accuses Gazan journalists of being Hamas operatives, using these claims to justify the targeted killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza. This policy allows Israel to claim that reports of its war crimes and crimes against humanity come from biased sources, a tactic of denial.

Israeli Defense Forces have also intentionally targeted media and aid groups. As of July 18, 2025, at least 1,513 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, including 237 UN staff members.

These attacks indicate a pattern of attacking those in Gaza with the ability to report on what is happening to the world. 

3. Claim civilian deaths were mistakes or “collateral damage” in a just war against Hamas.

Israeli leaders say they have no intention to destroy the Palestinian national and ethnic group, as such.  Israel only wants to defeat Hamas. Civilian deaths are “collateral damage” in this war. 

Israel says its Defense Forces (IDF) take all necessary precautions to diminish the toll on civilian life and claim Hamas fighters hide among Palestinian civilians, making civilian deaths unavoidable.

Explanations of civilian deaths by Israel are blamed on acts of individual soldiers rather than on the orders of military leaders. This tactic denies that mass murder and destruction are Israeli state policies. War crimes against Gazans are described as acts of individuals, not acts by the state of Israel.

Israel’s rules of engagement permit killing twenty civilians for each Hamas fighter killed, the highest “collateral damage” percentage in any modern war. These rules of engagement give Israeli Air Force and IDF troops a license to carpet bomb Gaza and commit war crimes with impunity.

When confronted with evidence of atrocities by IDF troops, Israeli bombing, or missile strikes, Israel frequently claims they were “mistakes” or that Israel “is investigating”. After Israel struck Nasser Hospital on August 25, killing five journalists, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was responsible and that it “deeply regrets the tragic mishap”. In fact, BBC Verify showed that Israel struck the hospital balcony where the journalists stood in a “double tap”, waiting until rescuers came and then striking again, hitting with four shells. This was an intentional assassination, not a “mishap”.

If defeating Hamas is really Israel’s only intent, why has Israel bombed all of Gaza? Why did Israel blockade food, water, medicines, and fuel to all Palestinians for three months? Why does Israel continue to restrict shipments of food into Gaza to a tiny percentage of what is needed to sustain civilian lives?

If Israel’s claim of its intent to spare the lives of civilians were true, why have Israeli marksmen shot over 1,400 Palestinians seeking food from distribution sites established by Israel? 

4. Deny that Israel’s destruction of Gaza and killing of Palestinians have the intent required to prove genocide.

Many supporters of Israel say that this is a war, not a genocide. If it is a genocide, they argue, why hasn’t Israel killed many more Palestinians? Such deniers make the mistake of limiting genocide to destruction “in whole” of a group, ignoring the explicit language in the Genocide Convention that includes destruction “in part”. They also make the mistake of thinking that war and genocide are mutually exclusive.

But war and genocide are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, most genocides occur during wars.

The Final Proof of Israel’s Genocidal Intent: The Murders of Palestinians Seeking Food

Since May, Israel Defense Force soldiers have shot and killed over 1400 Palestinian civilians seeking food from distribution sites in Gaza established by Israel. Many of those killed were children who were shot in the head or the back.

These murders and the destruction of hospitals and medical clinics by Israeli Defense Forces are war crimes and also are the crime against humanity of “extermination”. They are also acts of genocide.

In the New York Times on July 15, 2025, Dr. Omar Bartov, a renowned Holocaust and genocide expert, noted that many Holocaust scholars have been reluctant to call Israel’s war crimes in Gaza by the powerful G-word, Genocide. Dr. Bartov, himself, had been unwilling to call Israel’s crimes against humanity “Genocide”.

Dr. Bartov changed his judgment of Israel’s intent based on Israel’s continuing destruction of Gaza and its intentional bombing of hospitals and the tents of displaced people, its blockade of food, and Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians from one part of Gaza to another without food for themselves or their starving children.

The Israel Defense Force’s shootings of over 1400 starving Palestinian civilians, including women, the elderly, and children seeking food finally proved Israel’s genocidal intent for Dr. Bartov and the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the most respected organization of genocide scholars in the world.

The events of the past two years, especially since March 2025, have finally proven Israel’s intentional destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national and ethnic group.

Both Hamas and Israel have committed genocide.

Israel’s genocide continues today.

This war and genocide can be stopped only when Hamas releases all hostages and Israel withdraws from Gaza. Scores of Palestinian civilians are being killed daily by bombing, shelling, and Israeli marksmen. Hundreds are dying of starvation. Any hope for peace between Israel and Palestinians depends on ending this war.

The only way to stop war crimes and genocide in Gaza is to stop this war.

Israel’s war on Gaza is approaching the end of its second year. As global accusations of genocide mount, European states have increasingly voiced support for recognizing a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Arab states have been pushing for the creation of a Palestinian state for decades. On the other hand, some Arab states, in addition to Egypt and Jordan that normalised political relations in the 80s and the 90s, engaged in the Abraham Accords with Israel starting in 2020, even though Israel had made no movement toward the creation of a Palestinian state.

Why does this contradiction from the Arab states exist? And in light of what’s happening in Gaza, what does it mean for the future of Palestine? To discuss these questions, the Cairo Review interviewed Dr. H.A. Hellyer, an academic and intellectual who researches the politics and geopolitics of the contemporary Middle East at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London, and the Center for American Progress in Washington DC.

Abigail Flynn: Hello, Dr. Hellyer, thank you for joining me today for this episode of CR Amplified to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood.

We’ve seen the issue of establishing a Palestinian state referenced again and again by Arab states, but we also saw many of these same states normalize relations with Israel in the absence of any true movement toward that objective from the Israelis, as we saw with the Abraham Accords. So my first question is: why do the Arab states bring up the issue of Palestinian statehood so often?

Hellyer: It’s a pleasure to be on the podcast for your listeners. Once upon a time, I was a professor at AUC, which feels like a very long time ago—when my beard was maybe more black than white and gray. But it was a lovely time, and I’m always happy to be back, virtually or otherwise.

Your question, if I understand correctly, is: why are Arab states focusing more on this? Is that what you were getting at?

AF: Yes, yes.

Hellyer: So, I perhaps have a bit of a controversial view when it comes to this particular question, because I think that a good part of what is pushing this current drive to recognize a Palestinian state is actually something of a betrayal of weakness and an admittance of a lack of power.

Because the fact is, it’s not about whether or not a Palestinian state is recognized. 

It’s about whether the Israeli occupation of the territories that would be governed by a Palestinian state ends; and, more immediately, that the horrific and devastating war on Gaza by the Israelis stops. I have legal training, so I’m loath to jump ahead of the International Court of Justice when it comes to this particular question. But let’s be very clear: the definition of genocide, and the tests for claiming this is a genocide, are pretty blatant and transparent. 

It’s extremely troubling to see people get so hung up on this issue of recognition, when, really, this could be a trap. I say “could be a trap”, because what we have is a huge amount of political effort being put into this recognition point. My concern is that people would then recognize the state of Palestine, but not do anything to bring it into existence. 

This would be very similar to how the Oslo Accords worked out, in the sense that there were the accords, but there were no mechanisms for accountability when people—in particular, the Israelis—broke international law or violated the accords themselves. So, what you had was this constant expression of support for the peace process and for the Palestinians, but no actual policy that meant there were consequences to the Israelis doing what they were doing. Unfortunately, we’ve seen much of that over the past two years, and this is why I say [recognition] could turn out to be a trap.

Now, I hope it will be a trap that people will jump into, and then jump out of—in the sense that they will actually follow through and say: okay, these nations all recognize the state of Palestine; now they actually have to do something to end the occupation of it.

But keep in mind, I think it’s around 150 states out of around 185 at the UN that already recognize a state of Palestine. This will be a bit different, because these are some of the more powerful states in Europe that will now recognize the state of Palestine. So, it does make a difference in that regard.

But if France, the UK, and these other countries that recognize the state of Palestine do not take action to ensure that recognition means there will actually be a state—i.e. that the occupation will end—then I think it will be very symbolic, and stop there. 

Now, it will be symbolic and there will be other things that can happen as a result; but I don’t think anybody should assume that simply by recognizing the state of Palestine it’s going to be a game changer in the short to medium term. On the contrary, it could turn out badly.

The former Israeli ambassador to France, retired, writing a letter in Le Monde to President Macron, said: “Mr President, if immediate sanctions are not imposed on Israel, you will end up recognising a cemetery.” He was saying you have to do something; you have to make sure that there are consequences.

This is why I say I think this push kind of betrays a bit of weakness, because it should go hand in hand with arms embargoes and with massive sanctions. And so far, we’ve not seen that.

AF: Thank you, Dr. Hellyer. So in line with this understanding of people or states pushing for recognition of statehood, and yet not complementing that with any real policy action, looking toward the Arab states again: why were so many of them willing to normalize relations with Israel, despite Israel consistently dismissing the idea of establishing a Palestinian state?

Hellyer: I kind of question the premise of the question, because I don’t think that you have a big normalization push going on right now. On the contrary, any idea that there would be a broadening of normalization of the Israelis in the region, I think, is a fallacy.

I think that when it comes to the Saudis, they’ve made it very clear they’re not normalizing until there’s a Palestinian state. When it comes to the Syrians, there’s absolutely no indication that they’re going to normalize. What they may do is simply return to the 1974 agreement, which basically freezes relations in a place that means that the Israelis stay out of Syria other than the occupied Golan Heights. But normalization is a pipe dream when it comes to the Syrians, at least for the medium to long term.

Same thing with the Lebanese. When people talk about further normalization, they’re usually talking about the Saudis, the Syrians, and the Lebanese. And I don’t think there’s any possibility that that’s going to happen anytime soon at all.

The last time the Israelis normalized relations with any part of the Arab world was through the Abraham Accords. And during the Abraham Accords, even though nobody really thought that Netanyahu wanted a Palestinian state, he never actually said so.

The Emiratis normalized, or at least recognized the state of Israel during the Abraham Accords in 2020, for strategic reasons of their own. It wasn’t about the Palestinians. There was the claim that this stopped the annexation of the West Bank. I don’t think that was the main reason, because of course there’s no guarantee that it would, and I don’t think it will. Actually, the Israelis don’t even consider the Abraham Accords in any discussions now around annexing the West Bank.

I think there were wider strategic considerations from the Emiratis’ perspective when it came to this question—same thing with the Bahrainis, and of course, the relationship both have with Washington, D.C., and how they saw geopolitical positioning in the region at the time. Of course, a lot of this has now changed, but I don’t see any inclination that they’re going to leave the accords.

The Moroccans aceded to the accords, frankly, because they wanted, in my opinion, American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara—and they got it. So, that worked well for them. Again, it wasn’t about Palestinians for them; it was purely about their own strategic interests as they saw it. Whether I agree with that or you agree with that is not the point.

Sudan did not normalize. It took a step toward normalization, but it did not normalize because that had to be subject to ratification from a new assembly or parliament of Sudan, which of course has never been established since. But for very understandable reasons, they took that step forward because they desperately needed to get Sudan off of the terrorism list from the United States in order for Sudan to recover. So I’m not surprised they felt they had to move in that direction. But it was only moving in that direction, not actually doing it, because I don’t think it would go down in Sudan. Quite frankly, I think Sudanese writ large would reject it. But they took that step in that direction, and it worked. It got them off the list.

If we’re talking about prior relationships with Arab states, then, of course, Jordan happened at a very different time, right after the Oslo Accords. Egypt was most concerned about getting Sinai back, although they included language in Camp David about Palestinians. But we know from history that never worked out.

So presumably that covers both the existing relations, and the newer ones since 2020. And, by the way, there have been other relations that just haven’t been very clear, and again for very different reasons. The Qataris had their own Israeli trade office in Doha in the early 2000s and it eventually closed. It closed because they didn’t think there was any utility to it, and they were angry about what was going on in the occupied territories.

Mauritania also normalized with the state of Israel. I don’t think anybody remembers this, because it didn’t last long. They broke off political ties within a few years because of their outrage at what the Israelis were doing in the occupied territories. The Omanis, of course, have had closer relations. But again, they all have their different reasons for this.

AF: So along with that, many have pointed to the issue of the Israel–Palestine conflict as a major source of persistent instability in the region. Do you think, in your lifetime, you’ll ever see a Palestinian state, and would its creation really bring peace to the Middle East?

Hellyer: So, the creation of a Palestinian state—I think you’ll have the overwhelming majority of states worldwide recognize one. 

Do I think it will be allowed to operate as such in my lifetime? I guess it depends how long I live.

I don’t see a political horizon for at least the next 10–20 years. You have to keep in mind there are two critical countries involved in how that situation is going to turn out. One, of course, is the United States. The other is Israel. They are the critical factors when it comes to actually allowing for a Palestinian state to be established: the U.S., by putting pressure on the Israelis or withdrawing support, and the Israelis by allowing one or not allowing one. Because there won’t be anybody else who will force the Israelis during the next 10–20 years.

I do think that the long-term trend is very bad for Israel when it comes to public opinion, not only in the U.S. but worldwide, including in Europe. I think that means they’ll have a much tougher time. Right now, they could rely on any Democratic president that has come to power so far, and any Republican president likely in the next decade. I think they can rely on a fair amount of support going forward, but I don’t think that’s indefinite.

Within the Democratic Party, there is a lot of angst about how the Israelis are perpetrating crimes in the occupied territories. Within the Republican Party, there’s a split between those who want to hold to Donald Trump’s perspective in this regard, and others who are far more “America First,” not wanting to provide arms and money to another state. As far as they’re concerned, Israel doesn’t necessarily impact their day-to-day lives. And then there are others who just don’t like the Israelis.

There will be new configurations in that regard, and I think that changes the calculus. But we’re not talking the immediate future, or the next 10 years or so. And one has to ask what’s going to be left for there to be established in terms of a state after that point.

I will say—just so your listeners don’t think this is unavoidable—there have been other times in history where Palestine, or different parts of it, were lost to Palestinians. 

I’m thinking particularly during the Crusader era, where crusaders established kingdoms. These kingdoms didn’t last. They lasted anything from 50 to 200 years 20 years. But eventually they disappeared. And they disappeared because they could only exist if, A), they really integrated into the region (and they didn’t, they refused) and B), if the surrounding community was just very, very weak and couldn’t withstand them (and of course, that eventually changed), and simultaneously if they had an external power backing them. And of course, eventually that external power also changes, right? I think history is has some interesting lessons for us to remember in this regard.

AF: That concludes our questions. Thank you very much for your time and for your thoughtful contributions, Dr. Hellyer.

Hellyer: My pleasure. Thank you.

As the Middle East continues to deal with the aftershocks of the regional crisis sparked by Israel’s June 13 surprise attacks on Iran, leading to a 12-day war, Jordan finds itself navigating high-stakes challenges. The Hashemite Kingdom has had to juggle a wide spectrum of geopolitical considerations during and after the war, including the delicacy of its relations with Israel that have been seriously tested with the exacerbation of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and its standing in the Arab world. Still, the fierce debate ensuing from its neutralization of Iran’s volleys served as a barometer of the growing pressure the kingdom has been shouldering. 

After Tehran fired the first salvo of projectiles at Israel, the Jordanian military confirmed the interception of at least 30 Iranian drones and numerous missile fragments. Jordan insisted that it had only acted to protect its sovereignty, but its air defense posture, bolstered by the U.S.-supplied Patriot systems and NATO-assisted intelligence, immediately became a hot-button political issue. 

The impact wasn’t only felt in Jordan’s airspace. Jordanian media reported that on the first night of the war, five people were injured when flying objects, reportedly originating from Iran, fell on their house in the city of Irbid, nearly destroying the property. Other city residents also shared social media photos of undetonated Iranian explosives recovered from empty lots. 

The kingdom’s collective position on the war was unambiguous. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi condemned Israel’s attacks as “an assault on Iran’s sovereignty” and King Abdullah II subsequently bemoaned it as unacceptable. Yet, just as it did during Iran’s April and October 2024 attacks on Israel, Amman downed projectiles originating from Iran heading to Israeli territory, and the armed forces emphasized that the violation of Jordan’s airspace by either party wouldn’t be tolerated.

Still, the optics proved divisive. Many Jordanians questioned the decision to engage Iranian drones not aimed at Jordan, accusing the government of implicitly siding with Israel, risking civilian lives in defense of a foreign power. A senior official, speaking anonymously on June 14, warned the move was “dragging Jordan into the war”.

Hardliners in Tehran who continue to resent any attempt at coexistence with the region’s Arab states lashed out at the kingdom, pillorying it for allegedly joining Israel in its aggression against Iran. Former Mossad counterterrorism chief Oded Ailam called Jordan a “strategic asset for Israel”, recounting a January 2023 anecdote when King Abdullah II, who, according to Aliam, told an Israeli security delegation, “I walk with you among the flames, barefoot, but you must understand that every step burns my feet here at home.”

A Colonial Legacy

Jordan’s crisis diplomacy is inseparable from its colonial origins. Created in 1921 as a British protectorate, the Hashemite monarchy emerged from arrangements like the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Unlike Egypt or Iraq, Jordan’s formation was not driven by a popular nationalist movement, but by British efforts to compensate the Hashemites after their setbacks following the 1916 Arab Revolt and the French takeover of Greater Syria.

Transjordan, as it was called then, remained under British control until gaining independence in 1946 as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This legacy of external sponsorship continues to shape Amman’s overseas agenda today, explaining its tendency to preserve stability through intimate Western ties, reinforced by the 1994 peace treaty with Israel, which it has been upholding staunchly. 

This orientation comes at a cost that appears to be increasing over time, including Jordan’s input being dismissed in decision-making processes and diplomatic forums where it should have a say. 

“We see a decrease in Jordanian strategic importance from the American perspective,” said Oraib Al-Rantawi, director general of the Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman. “More focus has been given to the new regional powers emerging in the Middle East, especially the three Arab capitals in the Gulf: Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha…  Israel is another story. It’s their own baby.” 

Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel made it the second Arab nation to formalize ties with Tel Aviv after Egypt, earning it favor and economic incentives from the United States and the European Union. But it also fueled backlash, especially among Jordanians of Palestinian origin, currently making up an estimated 70% of the population. Subsequent agreements, such as the $10 billion Israel-Jordan gas deal signed in 2016 and the water-for-energy swap deal in 2021, have stirred outrage, with critics framing them as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

This frustration has found broader resonances outside the Palestinian community, too. More Jordanians now view Israel as a serious threat and fear the “alternative homeland” narratives that may endanger Jordan’s national identity. These fears were redoubled after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on January 25 that Washington should “clean out” Gaza and relocate its population to Jordan and Egypt, among other places, sparking an international reckoning over the odds of an ethnic cleansing project being in the making.

Leadership and Marginalization

One of Jordan’s most significant global contributions is its custodianship of Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites, a responsibility formalized in 1924, and one which is viewed as central to the Hashemite monarchy’s legitimacy. King Abdullah II, whose lineage traces back to Prophet Muhammad, fulfills this role as both a religious commitment and an emblem of Jordan’s regional influence.

Successive Israeli governments have sought to erode this arrangement. Although the 1994 peace treaty includes vague references to “respect” for Jordan’s role in Jerusalem, Israel has refrained from recognizing its custodianship and is now openly challenging it. Earlier in August, Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir led prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and made an announcement about it, violating the ‘status quo’ agreement overseen by the Jordanian foundation in charge of administering the religious compound.

One dilemma ahead of Jordan is to maintain its traditional function as a steward of moderation engaged in building trust with regional actors at the same time as shielding its own agency, which remains vulnerable to great power competition, especially given the stark realities of the kingdom’s economy.

Despite robust trade with the United States and NATO powers, poverty in Jordan is still an unaddressed fault line. With a GDP (PPP) of just $109 billion and the lingering burden  of post-COVID recovery, the nation faces deep, structural challenges when it comes to welfare and employment. 

As of July 2025, over 560,000 refugees living in Jordan are registered with the UN refugee agency, one of the highest per capita rates globally, although unofficial estimates put the figures at over one million. Jordan’s culture of hospitality has often been acclaimed on the world stage, but the refugee population it hosts is also stretching public services, triggering social discontent sporadically.

Aside from its strained ties with Israel, other factors can potentially undermine Jordan’s global footprint, as well. Critical U.S. decisions such as the first Trump administration’s relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and its proposal that Jordan and Egypt must accept displaced Gazans, have signaled a shift in Washington’s priorities coming at the expense of Jordan’s interests.

There are indications that with Trump’s new Middle East vision, America is recalibrating its approach to the Palestinian issue by accentuating the role of Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, sidelining traditional players like Jordan and Egypt. 

This shift was on full display when King Abdullah II visited the White House in February 2025. Then, despite his expression of admiration for the king and gratitude to the people of Jordan, Trump essentially handed the royal a laundry list of actions regarding the ongoing crisis in Gaza that he should take after flying back to Amman. 

In response to these involuntary role reversals, the king has sought to reassert Jordan’s leadership from a humanitarian position. In an address to the European Parliament on June 17, lauded by MEPs and external observers alike, he lamented the world’s “moral collapse” in the face of unchecked Israeli aggression in Gaza, warning that the global community risked being complicit in a rewriting of the basic human values.

“Because if Israeli bulldozers continue to illegally demolish Palestinian homes, olive groves, and infrastructure, so too will they flatten the guardrails that define moral conduct,” he said. “And now with Israel’s expansion of its offensive to include Iran, there is no telling where the borders of this battleground will end.”

Still, this principles-based rhetoric doesn’t harmonize with the specter of Jordan losing its clout, especially among allies, and this is something critics have warned against as one of the multi-pronged complexities the kingdom must confront head-on. If trade and military ties with the United States, NATO, and Israel are in full swing, these partnerships aren’t uncontroversial, and they cannot be taken for granted.  

For many Jordanians, especially with the ongoing devastation in Gaza, this disconnect between the statements of solidarity with Palestinians and cordial partnerships with major powers and Israel spotlights an uncomfortable duality: the Kingdom is caught between principle and realpolitik, alienating significant segments of its population in the process.

Jordan’s ruling elite clearly sees the perpetuation of its NATO, European bonds as a catalyst for its sustainability. While some voices within the country advocate for a diversified foreign policy, including closer engagement with powers like Russia, China, and even Iran, the leadership is still invested in more beneficial Western coalitions. 

The capital, Amman, is the city where NATO will open its first Middle East office soon, further cementing Jordan’s role as a local hub for security cooperation. The development is a testimony to the Atlantic alliance’s recognition of the kingdom’s strategic utility in furthering counterterrorism and regional stability. 

The royal family itself symbolizes Jordan’s pro-Western proclivity. Apart from Queen Rania, who studied at the American University in Cairo, key Hashemite royals have been educated at elite British and American institutions.

The Iran Question

Ensnared in the fracas between Israel and Iran, Jordan is trying to regain its balancing act while staving off the security threats emanating from this simmering crisis, which the Trump administration has now turned into a potential front for one of the “forever wars” he had campaigned on ending. In recent years, Amman has engaged in high-level contacts with Tehran, hoping to defuse tensions and complement the parallel rapprochement efforts underway in the Persian Gulf. 

Yet, progress remains lackluster. Jordan doesn’t have an ambassador in Tehran yet, and security concerns shared by the two nations—particularly drug and weapons smuggling from southern Syria—persist. The ultra-conservative Iranian MPs and hardline media conglomerates are unwilling to abandon their derisive rhetoric about Jordan and its royal family, the same way they’ve sought to disrupt the pace of Tehran-Riyadh ties, often successfully. 

Iran-Jordan ties never recovered fully since the 1979 Iranian revolution, when Tehran found fault with Arab states that had either normalized their relations with Israel or were reconsidering their policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Iran’s relations with Jordan, like other Arab states, have often been characterized by occasional bitterness stemming from the Iranian government’s interference in the affairs of its regional countries.

Responding to an invitation by former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, King Abdullah II traveled to Tehran in 2003 for the first time, promising what could be a new chapter in bilateral relations. The thaw was short-lived as Khatami stepped down two years later, replaced by an ultra-conservative president.

When it comes to its alignment in the ongoing Iran-Israel tug of war, Jordan remains bound by defense agreements that make neutrality in conflicts like this a daunting task, especially with U.S. and NATO bases on its soil. 

That reality feeds disgruntlement at home. “Even when defending airspace,” says Al-Rantawi, “people still see Israel as the real threat. Many believe we shouldn’t get involved, even if that means upsetting the Americans or NATO.”

Jordan’s imperative arbitration role has never been more crucial and contested. As the monarchy reconciles the different requirements of its role as a stabilizing mediator and moral leader, it must also confront growing expectations from its constituents demanding a foreign policy that better reflects national interest and popular sentiment. How Jordan responds to this moment will shape not only its credibility at home, but its relevance in an acutely fractured Middle East.

For years, Iran has been accused of being the primary source of instability in the Middle East by much of the West, Israel, and a number of Arab states. One point of conflagration is that it maintains a network of armed groups across the region (the “Axis of Resistance”) which it deploys to attack other states in the area, such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. The second is that it continues to develop an increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile arsenal, which was brought to bear against the Kurdish areas of Iraq, Pakistan and Israel earlier this year. Iran is also criticized for supporting the regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (until December 2024). Furthermore, Western and Arab countries believe that Iran has violated article III of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by enriching uranium beyond the 20% threshold for civilian use. 

However, perceptions of Tehran as the main agent of regional instability have shifted in the Middle East and beyond during the past 22 months. A growing number of experts and organizations say Israel is committing more and more war crimes in Gaza, including genocide, and launching an unprecedented series of military campaigns. 

And in recent months, Israel has ignored several orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) demanding that it take measures to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. It also disregarded an advisory opinion of the same court requesting that it dismantle its unlawful occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Israel has also killed hundreds of UN staff in Gaza, attacked United Nations Interim Force peacekeepers in Lebanon, revoked UNRWA’s license to operate in Israel, and declared UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres persona non grata. In addition to destroying Gaza, Israel launched aggressive military campaigns against the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah, Iran and the new government in Syria. Most recently, Israel even bombed the Qatari capital in a bid to eliminate the Hamas ‘terrorist’ team, with whom it also happened to be negotiating a cease-fire for Gaza. Israel has justified its violence as an existential fight against terrorism in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, a necessary pre-emptive strike in the case of Iran, and as self-defense in Syria. Western politicians like U.S. President Donald Trump have largely subscribed to this frame. 

However, in times of war one needs to look beyond rhetoric and examine military actions as objectively as possible to ask the question: Has Israel joined Iran as a major threat to regional stability through a naked power play disguised as a proclaimed fight for survival? The response to this query should inform how the international community relates to Israel, just as it does with regard to Iran. Sketching an answer demands an examination of the recent military objectives and actions of both countries, as well as a rough comparison of the gravity of their actions from the perspective of the international (legal) order and regional stability. 

Iranian Military Objectives and Actions before October 7 

Dating back to the Iran-Iraq war that ended in 1988, Iran’s military strategy has focused on the concept of “forward defense”. It aims to keep conflict away from Iranian soil based on the costly experience and destruction of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), the  threat posed by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), and Former President George Bush labelling Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil”. The concept of forward defense has three main components: (1) a ballistic missile and drone program, (2) a network of armed groups across the region (e.g. Hezbollah, the Badr Corps, and Hamas), and (3) a naval program that employs asymmetric combat tactics in a bid to establish dominance over the waters of the Persian Gulf in case of conflict with U.S. forces.

Iran had two primary military objectives prior to October 7, 2023. First, to deter Israel and the United States from launching a direct attack against it. Second, to maintain significant influence in the domestic politics of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq so that these countries could serve as launchpads for limited military action on its behalf when such was considered useful to its foreign and security objectives. Hezbollah was Tehran’s deterrent-in-chief against Israel while several Iran-linked armed groups in Iraq fulfilled a similar, but weaker role against the United States. Hamas has been a convenient tool for Iran to harass Israel and contest the occupation through violence at a low-cost to itself. This has enabled Tehran to frame itself as an ardent supporter of the oppressed, and as the unrelenting enemy-in-chief of the ‘Zionist regime’. 

In this context, most of Iran’s military actions before October 7 sought to extend the boundaries of its influence through coercive diplomacy underpinned by grey zone tactics (such as limited and deniable military action) while avoiding full-scale regional conflict. The strikes attributed to Iran against Abqaiq (Saudi Arabia) in 2019 via the Houthis and against Abu Dhabi in 2022 via Iraq-based armed groups were instances of such coercive diplomacy. They intended to deter the UAE and Saudi Arabia from band wagoning with Israel and the United States. Similar strikes on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) intended to curtail relations between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Israel, as well as limit activities by Iranian Kurdish armed groups operating out of Iraq’s north. In Syria, Tehran expanded its influence after 2011 by deploying foreign armed groups, transferring advanced missile knowledge via Hezbollah, and creating new military infrastructures with the aim of opening another front against Israel. 

Iran’s nuclear program is often viewed by the West as part of its forward defense concept, but this is technically speaking incorrect. While there is ambiguity about the program, Tehran has always framed it as a civilian undertaking to which it is entitled under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Moreover, Iran has not engaged in weaponizing its nuclear capacity as of June 13, 2025, when Israel struck the country. Iran’s decision to increase its enrichment of uranium up to 60% between April 2021 and June 2025 was essentially a negotiation tactic to regain leverage after the United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 when neither the EU, Russia, nor China did much to salvage it. Additionally, Iran notified the IAEA of its intent to increase enrichment, indicating it was not attempting a covert weaponization effort. 

Despite not including it within its official security doctrine, Iran’s nuclear program has been seen in the West—by the United States and Israel, in particular—as a military hedging strategy to develop latent nuclear weapons capability by means of achieving nuclear threshold status. Beginning in 2015, Iran temporarily rolled back its nuclear program, as monitored by the IAEA, in accordance with the JCPOA framework that it implemented. It maintained this approach—even after America’s 2018 exit from the treaty—until May 2019. 

Iranian Military Objectives and Actions after October 7

After October 7, 2023, Iran combined its expressed solidarity for Hamas with limited military action, which was calibrated to avoid full-scale war with Israel or the United States. Hezbollah, for example, broadly followed a tit-for-tat logic in its skirmishes with Israel between October 2023 and Israel’s offensive against it in September 2024. As long as Israel only targeted Hezbollah’s military facilities, Hezbollah would retaliate by only targeting Israeli military facilities, and so on. Tehran also demonstrated caution in its response to Israel’s unlawful strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1, 2024, launching a limited retaliation that was broadcast well in advance. Iran did initiate a more substantial attack in response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh on Iranian soil in July 2024, however. 

All things considered, Iran brought gradual and limited pressure to bear on Israel after October 7 to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza via the “unity of the fronts” strategy of its armed groups network. The aim was to create psychological pressure on Israel from different sides (‘fronts’) while causing limited—but sufficient—damage. Iran’s caution ultimately proved to be costly as it enabled Israel to go all-in once it managed to concentrate the required military resources—first against Hezbollah, and then against Iran. 

Under the duress of renewed U.S. sanctions enforcement and threats, and Israel’s weakening of the Axis of Resistance, Iran entered nuclear negotiations with the United States once again in April 2025, with Tehran indicating a willingness to reach another deal. Instead, Iran ended up on the receiving end of Israeli airstrikes during the second half of June; Israel and the United States justified their attack by stating their unilaterally imposed 60-day-limit to reach a deal had been exceeded, despite Iran’s continued negotiation efforts.

Israeli Military Objectives and Actions before October 7 

Since its foundation, Israel has claimed a right and a need to act militarily in a preventive manner to avoid being “annihilated”. Israel justifies this approach with reference to its small size and being surrounded by security risks of a supposedly ‘terrorist’ nature, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Indeed, there is sufficient rhetoric by Hamas and Iranian leaders that promise to wipe Israel off the map. It stands to reason that Israel’s political leadership takes such threats seriously. The problem is that Israel’s narrative of self-defense and terrorism is selective on several counts and has created new threats that would not be present otherwise. 

Hamas. Hamas is largely a product of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories since 1967. Without occupation, there would be no Hamas as it exists today. While the organization grew due to support from Hezbollah, Iran, Qatar, and Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, it is a local organization, not a foreign implant. Additionally, the right to self-defense as enshrined in the UN Charter applies to interstate war, not to the conditions of occupation that Israel has created for itself.

Hezbollah. In a similar vein, Hezbollah’s rise to prominence is linked to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, especially Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon (until 2000) and the Shebaa farms (until today). Israel also continues to occupy several additional parts of Lebanon at the moment in contravention of its November 26, 2024 ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah. It is unlikely Hezbollah could have flourished as it did without sustained Iranian support, but Israel itself also provided key conditions necessary for this development. Israel’s presence in and regular attacks on Lebanon over the past decades have enabled Hezbollah to brand itself as a more effective defender of Lebanese soil than the official government, which has proven incapable to act effectively against the threat that Israel poses.

Iran. In contrast to Hamas or Hezbollah, Iran poses a real threat to Israel that is not the result of previous Israeli policies or actions. However, some elements of this threat are exaggerated. For instance, Iran’s ballistic missile program is hardly different from any other sovereign nation’s standard armed forces and does not compare to the strength or functionality of the Israeli airforce. On the other hand, Iran’s ties with Hezbollah and its military architecture in Syria (before the fall of Assad) are matters of serious concern for Israel. Iran’s nuclear program sits between these extremes: it does pose a risk, but the risk is latent. This is because there is no immediate threat without weaponization. Moreover, Tehran signed and implemented the 2015 nuclear deal, indicating a willingness to engage diplomatically on the matter with the United States, E3 (Germany, UK and France), Russia and China. A final consideration is that the main aim of nuclear weapons is deterrence, not conducting wars of aggression. Nevertheless, safeguard issues from the past remain unresolved. For example, it is unclear whether Iran violated particular NPT provisions in its civilian nuclear program in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Furthermore, Iran has enriched uranium post-JCPOA to levels unnecessary for civilian use since 2021.

If Israel’s objectives are not based solely on ‘preventive’ self-defense, as argued above, then it must have other goals. As to its direct neighborhood, Moshe Dayan’s funeral oration for Roi Rotberg (1956) and the permanence of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories indicate the true nature of Israel’s military strategy: to resettle the land, using force as necessary. Regionally, Israeli military objectives can be discerned by analysis of the Begin Doctrine (1981) about Israel’s nuclear weapons; the Dahiye doctrine (2006), an official military strategy to target civilian infrastructure; and the concept of Qualitative Military Edge (QME). Together, they point to Israel’s desire to dominate through superior firepower, including the breaking of an adversary’s will to fight by mass targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure as necessary. Israeli military strategy essentially manifests what the U.S. political establishment calls ‘peace through strength’. The problem of this approach is that it generates its own threats by applying too much force in an indiscriminate manner without diplomatic follow-up; grievances then multiply while more durable peace remains absent.

In this context, Israel’s main military actions before October 7, 2023, sought to maintain the status quo by gradually annexing the West Bank and East Jerusalem, keeping Hamas in check in Gaza, and conducting a war of attrition against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and against both Hezbollah and Iran in Syria. 

Israel after October 7 

After October 7, Israel’s military actions underwent a fundamental shift from status quo management to threat elimination by any means necessary. To begin with, the Israeli military turned Gaza into a wasteland to destroy Hamas and kill Palestinian civilians in genocidal fashion. In the West Bank, meanwhile, Israel has destroyed the refugee camps of Jenin and Tulkarem and imposed a full lockdown that included countless violations of human rights and international law against Palestinian civilians as annexation accelerates. 

In Lebanon, Israeli forces dealt Hezbollah severe blows while simultaneously targeting civilian infrastructure and Lebanese society at large. Today, Israel does not abide by the terms of its November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah. Instead, its forces maintain control of five additional strategic areas of southern Lebanon. The Israeli air force also continues to conduct regular airstrikes in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, which have killed dozens of civilians at the time of writing. 

In Syria, Israel initiated an extended bombing campaign after the fall of Assad despite assurances from interim President Ahmed al-Shaara on behalf of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that the group would continue to abide by the 1974 Disengagement Agreement between Syria and Israel. Al-Shaara insists that HTS is focused on national stability and recovery, and will not allow foreign forces to use Syria for attacks on Israel. There is no evidence that Damascus has violated any of its assurances. Neither does the group possess the military capabilities to do so, incidentally, given the antiquated state of the remaining equipment of the Syrian Arab Army and the departure of Iranian forces after December 2024. 

Finally, the recent Israeli-U.S. attack against Iran’s nuclear sites can only be considered as an act of aggression on the basis of international law since it cannot be justified with reference to the right of self-defense. The UN Charter only allows a country to attack in self-defense after being attacked; international customary law allows it but requires the presence of an immediate and overwhelming threat against which only military recourse offers protection. But in the absence of weaponization and ongoing diplomatic negotiations, there was no overwhelming or immediate Iranian military threat to Israel. Israel’s and America’s official justification of their attack—a proclaimed need for self-defense based on Iran exceeding the sixty days to agree a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear issue that the U.S. had imposed unilaterally—suffers fatally from the fact that negotiations were ongoing and Iran had not actually started to weaponize its nuclear program at the time of attack. 

Israel’s strike on Doha can now be added to this growing list of aggressive military action. Its bid to eliminate the Hamas negotiating team staying in the city is not justifiable as self-defense under international law—just like Syria and Iran—because there was no overwhelming or immediate threat to Israel. In fact, Qatar is a major non-NATO ally of the same United States that is also Israel’s chief international supporter. This attack further illustrates Israel’s disregard for international law, its runaway militarism, and U.S. duplicity, given that it had just put a proposal to Hamas about a Gaza ceasefire days prior to the strike.

Comparing Iranian and Israeli Military Actions 

Israeli and Iranian military actions can be compared on two dimensions to establish the extent to which they represent a threat to stability in the Middle East. These dimensions are: 1) their level of compliance with the international legal order and, 2) their contribution to regional (in)stability from a geopolitical perspective.

With regard to the international legal order, there are four primary markers that can be used to compare Israeli and Iranian military action. These include the UN Charter, in particular the right of a country to defend itself after it has been attacked as enshrined in article 51; international customary law with regards to the right of self-defense; the Geneva conventions that regulate warfare and stipulate rules pertaining to occupation; and the Non-Proliferation Treaty that regulates how nuclear power can be harnessed for civilian purposes while preventing its militarization. 

On the basis of the 1837 Caroline Affair and the 1842 Webster-Ashburton agreement, international customary law established three principles for legitimate pre-emptive self-defense that complement the UN Charter: imminence, necessity, and proportionality. In brief, the foreign attack needs to be anticipated in the very near future, it must be overwhelming in nature, and that it cannot be averted by other means than a military response. The response must also be commensurate to the scale and type of the anticipated attack. 

The fourth Geneva convention specifically regulates occupation, among other things. For example, it prohibits forced population transfers, the destruction of property (unless essential to military operations), and it obliges the occupier to facilitate humanitarian relief schemes as necessary as well as to promulgate and maintain a clear set of enforceable rights for the occupied population to enjoy. 

In addition, there are two important secondary markers relevant to any comparison of Iranian with Israeli military action. The interim orders of the International Court of Justice of January 26, 2024, March 28, 2024, April 5, 2024, May 24, 2024 and April 14, 2025 in the context of the case that South African initiated against Israel, stipulated that all signatories must do what they can to prevent genocide from happening. Furthermore, the advisory opinion of the same court of July 2024 that established Israel’s entire occupation of the Palestinian territories as unlawful.

Applying the aforementioned legal markers suggests that most of Iran’s military actions over the past few years have substantially contravened its international legal obligations. Its missile strikes against Saudi Arabia (2019) and the United Arab Emirates (2022) violated the principle of non-aggression enshrined in the UN Charter. Even though these attacks were claimed by the Houthis and Iraq-based armed groups respectively, they were viewed by the United States, Israel, and others as instigated and enabled by Iran through its Axis of Resistance linkages. Iran’s missile attacks on the Kurdistan region of Iraq in 2018, 2022, and 2024 were an even clearer violation of the UN Charter as they were executed directly by Iranian forces. 

Iran’s relations with various groups of the Axis of Resistance—especially Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraq-based armed groups—offer further violations of articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter, especially regarding their elements on state sovereignty. It is clear that these groups prevent the governments of their respective countries from exercising their sovereign rights even when they have become part of them; foreign support for such groups thus manifests unwarranted interference. Hamas is an exception, however, since the Geneva conventions stipulate that occupation is a temporary situation that does not create valid sovereignty claims on the part of the occupier. Iran building a new military architecture in Syria pre-December 2024 did not necessarily contravene international law either since it took place by formal request of the Syrian government. Finally, Iran’s nuclear program, while not a military action in itself, partially violated the NPT after 2021 when Tehran commenced higher-grade uranium enrichment. But it bears reminding that this was only after the United States walked away from the 2015 JCPOA agreement in 2018, and the EU failed to deliver its part. There also remain unresolved NPT safeguard issues dating back to the late 1990s and early 2000s with regard to Iran’s nuclear program.  

Applying the aforementioned legal markers indicates that most of Israel’s military actions also contravened its international obligations. Israel’s quest to eliminate Hamas conflicts with the five successive interim orders of the International Court of Justice because its genocidal methods ensure the obliteration of Gaza in the process by means of the destruction of civilian infrastructure (including hospitals), mass civilian killings, large-scale displacement and starvation. In addition, Israel’s military operations in the West Bank that protect its settler communities and facilitate annexation directly contravene the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 2024, as well as the fourth Geneva convention. 

Israel’s bombing campaigns in Syria after December 2024, and in Iran in mid-June 2025, also violated the UN Charter as it was not attacked prior to its military action and there was no imminent threat. Moreover, Israel bombarded several civilian facilities in Iran, including a hospital and a broadcast station, killing over 200 Iranian civilians. Israel’s September 2024 assault against Hezbollah offers more of a mixed picture. Lebanon is a sovereign state that Israel in principle has no right to attack, but Lebanon also needs to prevent groups on its territory, like Hezbollah, from posing a threat to Israel. Israel’s indiscriminate targeting of Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure is, however, clearly illegal under the Geneva conventions.

Threats to Regional Stability

Assessing how Israeli and Iranian military campaigns contributed to regional instability requires consideration of the extent to which their actions risked crises and violence beyond the immediate warring parties. 

About half of Iran’s military actions, namely its strikes against Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, carried no such risk. This is because these strikes were one-offs, limited in both scope and objectives. However, Iran’s strengthening of the different groups engaged in the Axis of Resistance did create risks to regional stability because they threatened neighboring countries, attacked Israel, and interfered with the business of their respective domestic governments (at times even becoming part of them). Iran’s development of new military infrastructure in Syria also threatened neighboring countries, particularly Israel. Tehran’s nuclear program did not directly contribute to regional instability in the absence of weaponization, but high-grade uranium enrichment in a context of deep regional tensions did make it a concern to other states. 

Turning to Israel, the assessment suggests that all of its recent military actions, except one, contributed to regional instability. Its campaign of destruction in Gaza has placed significant pressure on Egypt and inflamed public opinion across the region with ancillary risks of domestic instability. It may also, at some point, force regimes in the region to counteract Israeli actions. The same holds for Israel’s military operations on the West Bank with respect to Jordan. Moreover, Israeli bombing campaigns in Syria after December 2024 weakened its new government at a pivotal moment, which increased the possibility of a new round of internationalized civil war while also risking direct conflict with Turkey. In the same vein, Israel’s aerial campaign against Iran violated both Syrian and Iraqi airspace, and risked regional conflagration, which was highlighted by Iran’s attack against U.S. military assets in Qatar. The single exception was Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah that was largely limited to Lebanon and did not affect other countries much, except for a large number of Lebanese fleeing to Syria. 

Between a Rock and a Hard(er) Place

A few initial conclusions can be drawn from the preceding analysis. First, Iran and Israel are in good company with regard to the frequency with which they violate international law. Israel’s justification of doing so in self-defense only properly stands with respect to Hezbollah and Iranian military activity in pre-HTS Syria. Its attacks against Hamas, on the West Bank, in Syria after December 2024, and against Iran cannot be labelled as self-defense when considering the legal markers mentioned in the previous sections of this essay. 

Second, Israeli violations of international law—its war crimes in Gaza and its human rights violations in the Palestinian Territories at large—are far more serious in their gravity than Iran’s.

Third, it appears that Israeli military action produces greater regional instability than Iran’s. This is in large part because most of Tehran’s military actions are limited in nature and use coercion in mafia-style fashion to achieve its diplomatic and security objectives. In contrast, Israeli military action pursues surrender and/or defeat via large-scale military and civilian destruction. The ensuing ceasefire deals are more likely to produce a desire for revenge than encourage amicable future relations.

Fourth, Israeli military action has killed far more civilians in the past two years than Iran’s coercive diplomacy has killed in decades.

It is clear that Israel and Iran are both major threats to Middle East stability. Due to recent events—and if we were to use a scale measuring threats to regional stability—Iran is down and Israel is up. However, many Western political elites view Israel as engaged in either self-defense or an existential fight against terrorism, even though much of this argument does not stand up to scrutiny and ignores Israel’s aggressive expansionary politics. Israel has given clear demonstrations of how ‘might makes right’ in Gaza, Syria, and Iran, with thanks to the United States and a few European countries for their support. Anyone that Israel labels as a security threat in the future knows what to expect. 

A peaceful resolution to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the creation of security and stability between Israelis and Palestinians has been defined for decades by the flickering hope—and repeated frustration—of the so-called Two State solution. 

Despite recurring international initiatives and diplomatic alliances, such as the “International Alliance for the Two-State Solution” formed by ninety-three countries in 2024, mistrust, leadership crises, and the realities on the ground have rendered the concept of Middle East peace nearly unattainable in practice. This impasse, compounded by the regional and internal shifts since October 7, 2023, thrusts forward the imperative to consider new models of governance, such as confederation or federative arrangements, or the One-State solution as some have suggested, and to interrogate deeper political and legal paradoxes about recognition and rights. In an era of maximalist Israeli governments and fragmented Palestinian leadership, the question lingers: what kind of institutional transformation could facilitate progress? 

Since 2022, Israeli governments have become the most right-wing and maximalist in the country’s history, openly rejecting Palestinian statehood and advancing policies of settlement expansion, annexation, and consolidation of Jewish sovereignty over all contested territory. Key far-right ministers now wield significant power, mainstreaming exclusionary ideologies and blocking even limited autonomy for Palestinians. Parallel to this, Palestinian leadership is deeply fragmented between the Palestinian Authority, ruled autocratically by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza, which has suffered both military collapse and international isolation. Mahmoud Abbas’s reluctance to hold elections and the PA’s internal corruption have further eroded public trust and institutional legitimacy, creating a political vacuum. Multiple failed unity attempts and the existence of rival factions have undermined prospects for a unified Palestinian strategy or credible negotiating partner. Externally, regional Arab states and international actors have shown increasing frustration with the paralysis and regularly call for leadership renewal and unity. These dynamics of maximalism and fragmentation contribute to persistent deadlock, violence, and the absence of substantive negotiations on conflict resolution.

Must the Palestinians conjure a Ben Gurion or Mandela-like figure to gain international legitimacy, or ought their rights as a people suffice within the parameters set by International Human Rights Law and broader international legal instruments?

The observation voiced by Palestinian activist and politician Samer Sinijlawi, in a recent extended interview, clarifies a core frustration: the gap between institutional credibility and actual representation. Sinijlawi derides the current Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, noting that “around 75–80% of Palestinians in recent polling consistently demand that President Abbas resign and leave political life, and laments that “at least 90% of the Palestinian people [are not] represented” within prominent international frameworks for peace. This crisis of legitimacy, he says, echoes throughout Palestinian civil society and diaspora, as well as among political scientists who have tracked the decline of public trust in Palestinian leadership since the mid-2010s. Sinijlawi’s reflections, steeped in decades of activism, prison experience, and direct negotiation with Israeli civic society, push the conversation beyond the focus on personalities and into institutional transformation.

For Sinijlawi, leadership is not merely about appearing “moderate” or “reconciling” but about demonstrating sovereignty in practice—controlling armed factions, building transparent institutions, and enacting the rule of law. Sinijlawi’s conception of sovereignty is not unique; every autonomous state enjoys these rights as the basis for their existence. This approach explicitly references David Ben Gurion’s consolidation of Israeli statehood and monopoly over force, contrasting sharply with repeated calls for a “Palestinian Mandela”, which echo South African reconciliatory motifs. Sinijlawi argues compellingly that Palestinians need a leader who can enforce a monopoly on the legitimate use of arms, and who can openly declare “I am the sovereign and I will not allow any angry Palestinian or any ideological Palestinian who carries a gun to declare war on behalf of the Palestinian people”.

Sinijlawi’s call for a narrative transformation—the “recognition of historical rights of Jews in Islam”—integrates an oft-ignored prescription from Edward Said, namely, an acknowledgment that Jews have belonged to the land alongside others, laying the groundwork for mutuality rather than exclusive claims. Said himself argued that there was “no reason to deny the Jewish historical presence in the land, but we must remind the world that they have not been alone”. This joining of historical recognition to political pragmatism signals a more strategic approach to negotiation, one that does not rely on miracles or mythologies of leadership, but on the hard work of institutional change. 

Relinquishing Control

Recognizing that Jewish communities have—along with Palestinians—been part of the land, alongside others, provides a logical basis for reimagining not just coexistence, but new structures of shared governance. Such acknowledgment supports a pragmatic shift toward confederal models, where both peoples maintain autonomy while collaborating on areas of mutual interest. The confederal approach to governance, discussed increasingly in academic and diplomatic circles, pursues precisely this blend of flexibility and shared sovereignty. Confederations, distinct from federations or traditional single-state models, allow for two distinct entities to maintain sovereign authority over certain matters while mutually sharing other institutions—economic zones, security forces, infrastructure—across borders. 

In practice, a successful confederation would require both sides to relinquish maximalist control over territory, security, and symbols, in exchange for stable access and mutual recognition.

For a confederation to work, both parties would need to move away from these zero-sum ambitions and instead accept shared responsibility, flexible borders, and the existence of parallel sovereignties, making space for genuine cooperation and mutual acknowledgment.

Models from the European Union’s Schengen zone or Bosnia-Herzegovina’s complex shared presidency—in their limitations as well as their strengths—are routinely cited as precedents for these forms of governance. However, the Israeli–Palestinian context complicates such comparisons, given the perpetual asymmetry of power, which is the ongoing and pronounced imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians in nearly every sphere: military, economic, technological, legal, and diplomatic. Israel is a recognized, sovereign state with one of the world’s most advanced armies and nuclear capabilities, robust international alliances (especially with the United States and Europe), and control over borders, airspace, and resources throughout the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. In contrast, Palestinians lack a sovereign state, exercise only limited self-administration in fragmented areas, possess no standing army, face severe restrictions on movement and trade, and are deeply dependent on foreign aid. This disparity means that, in negotiations or daily realities, Israel wields overwhelming leverage and can unilaterally shape outcomes, while Palestinians have little capacity to enforce rights, alter the status quo, or pursue independent development—making “mutual” arrangements inherently unequal in practice.

Then there is the status of Jerusalem, and the persistence of occupation. Israeli governments, ever more dominated by right-wing coalitions, have repeatedly rejected even the basic premise of equality as the foundation for negotiation. 

Confederation is not a panacea. Recent policy papers warn that asymmetric power, security dilemmas, and the risks of “creeping annexation”—whereby one party, Israel, gradually absorbs the territory and institutions of the other—could undermine the experiment swiftly. Critics also argue that confederation could enable further fragmentation of Palestinian governance, creating a patchwork quilt of disconnected zones, and allowing Israel to maintain ultimate control over borders and security while eschewing responsibility for Palestinian wellbeing. Nonetheless, the emerging consensus acknowledges that stalemate, violence, and cycles of reprisal cannot be resolved by the current architectures of leadership—nor indeed by international interventions which exclude the real stakeholders. Realist scholars such as Rashid Khalidi stress that “prior efforts have failed not for lack of vision, or leadership, but due to the refusal of powerful actors to allow Palestinian self-determination or equality”.

Inalienable Palestinian Rights

Sinijlawi’s political experience—including under incarceration—bridges the divide between theory and lived reality. He reflects that the conflict “brought us to a level of violence, of extreme ideas on both sides that maybe we should start thinking about how we can defeat ourselves?… Not the other side”. He further insists that reconciliation is the necessary precursor to building a political horizon; in Israel–Palestine opposing models such as Ireland or South Africa—in which compromise comes first, then reconciliation—are inverted. For Sinijlawi, reconciliation must precede compromise. 

This is supported by research in conflict transformation conducted by academics Daniel Bar-Tal and Gabriel Solomon which argues that cycles of trauma and reciprocal fear in protracted conflicts inhibit the implementation of any formal accord unless accompanied by grassroots and elite-level reconciliation initiatives.

The language of “human dignity” for Palestinians and “security” for Israelis, deeply rooted in the parties’ respective narratives, can only be unlocked through mutual prioritization: Palestinians declaring Israeli security as a “national interest,” and Israelis enshrining Palestinian dignity and freedom absent paternalism or charity.

As the discussion moves from the realm of leadership to the register of rights, a profound contradiction comes into relief. International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and the United Nations Charter establish, unequivocally, the right of all peoples to self-determination, including the formation of a state. The International Court of Justice, in its 2004 advisory opinion, declared the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and stressed that occupation cannot nullify this right. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as numerous General Assembly resolutions, affirm this entitlement to equal citizenship, democratic participation, and—critically—freedom from collective punishment or discriminatory exclusion. 

The practice, however, falls short: Palestinians are routinely required to “produce a dove,” demonstrating exceptional moderation, as a precondition for statehood or recognition. Israeli governments, by contrast, are not required to moderate their hawkish stances, or provide a symbolic Mandela. This is visible at the very heart of Jerusalem, where—as Sinijlawi recounts—some 370,000 Palestinian residents are denied citizenship and political participation in national politics, while municipal power remains dominated by Israeli leadership. In contrast, newly arrived Israeli immigrants often occupy the very institutions and budgets that govern the city. As Sinijlawi phrases it: “the most basic right for any individual in this world is to be a citizen of at least one state … we are still looking for our first citizenship.”

This paradox is not accidental. The perceived demand for Palestinian moderation, political performance, or virtuous leadership is a reflection of a broader power asymmetry—one which has been documented and analyzed extensively in the literature on colonial and occupation practices. Legal scholars and human rights advocates have repeatedly underlined the fundamental inequity of conditioning rights on exemplary behavior, rather than on the universality enshrined in law. Moreover, leading political scientists note that the insistence on Palestinian “performance” as a precondition for statehood—an idea reinforced by the logic of the Oslo Accords and by donor conditionality—fuels frustration, cynicism, and resistance among Palestinian communities themselves. Sinijlawi’s account on the necessity for changed strategy is therefore not just pragmatic, but a rebellion against a system in which the victim must meet impossible standards while the powerful state is left to define the terms of engagement.

Sinijlawi outlines five central steps for Palestinians, which serve as a roadmap for institutional, not personal, transformation. Firstly, “changing the narrative”—not merely in terms of slogans, but as recognition of the “historical rights of Jews in Islam”. Secondly, ending incitement and hatred, particularly within Palestinian discourse. Thirdly, assuming statehood “by practice, not by slogans,” through institution-building and the development of credible agencies for governance. Fourthly, adapting strategies towards Israel: moving from pressure and violence, or international diplomatic lobbying, to persuasiveness and articulation of mutual interests. Finally, “reform our political system,” making it accountable and transparent, empowering dignity and rights for Palestinian individuals. To repeat, it is noteworthy that Sinijlawi demands a sovereign who declares and enforces limits to armed struggle and personal rule. In this, he breaks with the mythos of reconciliation through charisma, suggesting that the maturation of national institutions and the rule of law—not the emergence of a lone savior—will create opportunities for lasting peace.

Decades of Decay?

Sinijlawi’s critique of Abbas’s legacy is stinging. Citing twenty years of stagnation, alleged corruption, and the erosion of parliament, the judiciary, and executive branches, he chronicles the transformation of Fatah—the dominant Palestinian political party and historical leading faction of the Palestinian national movement—into an instrument of patronage and repression.

Security coordination with Israel is described as stemming from “self-survival,” not genuine political calculation. In practice, Sinijlawi observes, “the security agencies are not serving the best interests of Palestinians, or the security of Palestinians, nor the Israelis”. This assessment is echoed in recent analyses by Nathan Brown, who is a distinguished American political scientist and professor at George Washington University, recognized for his expertise on Palestinian politics, Arab law, and constitutionalism. This is also shared by Yezid Sayigh, whose work highlights the structural impediments to accountability and the decoupling of security functions from popular legitimacy in occupied Palestine. The impact of these failings is vivid: civilian suffering, unaccountable violence, and the collapse of the dream of statehood into a technical arrangement serving only elites.

The answer to the dilemma may ultimately rest less on personalities and more on institutions and norms. If Palestinians reform their institutions—prioritizing democracy, rights, and the rule of law, and reject the legacies of personalist rule—there is a potential not only to reclaim agency, but to reshape the terms of engagement with Israel and with the wider international community. As Sinijlawi argues, the pathway to recognition does not require the world’s approval through the raising of 192 flags; rather, it requires convincing “one state only—the state of Israel”. This approach, rooted in pragmatic calculation and mutual interest, does not negate the salience of international law, but seeks to align political strategy with the realities of power, negotiation, and self-representation. The risk, as ever, is the persistence of maximalist leadership on one or both sides, or external actors who subvert reform through self-interest or inertia.

In the short and medium term, Sinijlawi’s forecasts are cautiously optimistic. He points to a letter by President Abbas to President Macron, promising reforms, elections, and the restriction of Hamas within Palestinian party law. If this is implemented, followed by credible elections and the defeat of Hamas at the ballot box, he is hopeful that a new cadre of leaders may emerge—committed to responsible language and internal reform. This, he suggests, could trigger a parallel dynamic within Israeli politics, leading eventually to an environment receptive to confederation, equality, and even regional integration. It is a vision in which the shores of Gaza and hotels in Beirut become places for Israeli–Palestinian friendship rather than checkpoints and conflict.

Still, the challenges remain formidable. The obstacles to transformative change are not simply the absence of charismatic leadership, but the obduracy of entrenched interests, the structural violence of occupation, the manipulation of narratives, and the inertia of international actors. But if there is anything to take from Sinijlawi’s vision, and the lessons of history, it is that the assertion of human dignity, equal citizenship, and pragmatic institutional reform offer far more durable paths to justice than the search for singular saviors. 

For the Palestinians, the right to statehood is inalienable, and should not depend on the emergence of a “dove” to placate the world, just as for Israelis, security and legitimacy can best be achieved through equality rather than exclusion. Confederation or federal arrangements may yet offer mechanisms for coexistence and shared futures, but only if built on the premise that the rights of all must finally, and unconditionally, be affirmed.

The most rightwing government in Israel’s history has exploited international complicity and inaction in Gaza to achieve what would have been inconceivable a few years ago—ethnically cleansing the territory of its indigenous Palestinian population and advancing the “vision” of “Greater Israel”.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was building a ruling coalition government following elections in 2022, the issue of annexation of the West Bank became a critical negotiating point. 

The agreement that was reached and signed by Netanyahu’s Likud party and the Religious Zionism party, headed by the self-professed fascist Bezalel Smotrich, included an annex of unprecedented specificity that reflected the level of work plans already in place to take over the West Bank.

According to the annex, the government would increase budget allocations to facilitate annexation as well as installing a new de facto governor of the occupied West Bank within the ministry of defense. His role would oversee settlement expansion, land grab, and other issues. Accordingly, Smotrich became the Finance Minister and also assumed the newly created post within the Ministry of Defense, becoming the de facto governor of the West Bank. 

As soon as the genocide began, Israel placed the West Bank under lockdown, gutting the territory into hundreds of isolated Palestinian communities that were left helpless and defenseless from increased Israeli military raids, home demolitions, and unhinged Israeli settler attacks. Unleashing this unprecedented level of violence upended the lives of over three million Palestinians who live there. By July 1, 2025, Israeli occupation forces and armed settler militias had killed over 1,000 Palestinians, including a number of Palestinian Americans whose killers are still at large. The numbers pale in comparison with Gaza but they break records of the past two-and-a-half decades. 

Since October 2023 and the genocide in Gaza, Israel has fast-tracked its program of steady erasure and replacement by employing settler colonial expansion and terrorism, establishing 900 military checkpoints, restricting the movement of Palestinians and other policies of economic strangulation.

Systemic Erasure

A closer look at the terror inflicted on communities in the West Bank further demonstrates its deliberate and systematic nature, designed to ethnically cleanse entire communities and clear more Palestinian land for Israeli grab. Israeli settler attacks spread across the occupied West Bank and they occur under the protection of Israeli occupation forces. 

According to UN records, since 2023, armed Israeli settlers have launched hundreds of attacks, displacing nine communities in the Jordan valley and wider Ramallah area. The number of Palestinians injured in these attacks has also been steadily increasing, averaging about 100 civilians in June and July 2025, compared to 49 between January and May of this year and 30 per month in 2024. Settler attacks in 2024 prohibited half of the Palestinian farmers from harvesting their olive orchards, dealing a heavy blow to an economy already choked by Israeli measures. In July 2025, Israeli settler attacks disrupted water supply to over 100,000 Palestinians in the Ramallah area. 

Parallel to this campaign, Israeli occupation forces continue to demolish Palestinian homes in record numbers, predominantly in rural areas, referred to as Area C under the Oslo Accord, which account for 60% of the West Bank and where almost all of Israel’s illegal settlements are located. Since 2023, Israeli forces have demolished over 4,100 Palestinian homes and displaced over 7,000 Palestinians. 

Since January 2025, the drive to demolish and demographically reengineer entire communities has taken a new and mortifying turn. Israeli forces launched the largest scale military assault on refugee camps in Jenin then Tulkarem starting in January of this year. The onslaught has displaced upwards of 40,000 Palestinian refugees who have not been allowed back in the camps. Israeli forces proceeded to demolish and burn Palestinian homes in the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nour Shams refugee camps, permanently changing the geography of those communities and putting into practice the “lessons” of Gaza as the Israeli minister of defense said at the time. The United Nations estimates that Israeli forces destroyed or totally leveled 43% of the Jenin camp, 14% of the Tulkarem camp, and 35% of the Nour Shams refugee camp. According to UN data, 700,000 Palestinians in the West Bank required food assistance in 2024 because of these practices, a 100% increase from the preceding year.  

More recently, Israel said it would withdraw from the ruins of these camps on the condition that the following be met: banning the UN agency for Palestine refugees UNRWA from its operations there, turning what remains of the camp into neighborhoods of Jenin and Tulkarem, and allowing only half of the Palestinian displaced residents back to the camp after Israeli screening and clearance. 

According to reports, this formalization of the displacement of the camp’s residents and the demographic reengineering of the camps were agreed upon with the Trump administration. 

While this violent reality is cemented through a dichotomy of Israeli violence perpetrated by the army and settler militias, the Israeli government and legislature are undertaking other, even more strategic steps to serve land grab and ethnic cleansing. In 2023, Israel advanced measures to construct over 30,000 housing units in new and existing illegal Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The year after that, the government approved slightly less housing units but took strategic steps to offset the deficit by stripping the Palestinian government of its planning and zoning powers in what remains of the occupied West Bank, and transferring the administration of the territory to the civilian branches of the Israeli government. This is not a symbolic measure. Rather, it was evidence of the ongoing annexation of the West Bank by way of administrative integration. 

In the course of the past two years, Israeli legislators convened or attended several conferences on the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, including one held in the Knesset itself dedicated to the annexation of Gaza and the expulsion of its Palestinian population. To that end, Smotrich recently approved plans to construct the E-1 settlement in Jerusalem to “bury the idea” of a Palestinian state. The plan would cut the West Bank in two separate parts and would complement earlier approvals of unprecedented land grabs that strip major Palestinian cities of any land around them, including Bethlehem and Ramallah. 

These unprecedented measures are happening with U.S. approval. Recently, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Israeli army radio that his administration did not oppose what he called “massive development” in the E-1 settlement, referring to it as part of Israel. But while he has condemned some settler attacks, Huckabee said the situation between Israel and Palestine was a “spiritual war”, one between good and evil, which Israel must win. 

The Endgame: Greater Israel, with Western Backing

In a recent interview with the Israeli channel i24, the Israeli Prime Minister said he was very attached to the vision of Greater Israel, which includes all of historical Palestine as well as parts of Jordan and Egypt. 

The Israeli body politic is taking practical steps to materialize this colonial expansion and perpetual state of military aggression in historical Palestine and beyond. 

In Lebanon, for example, Israeli forces now occupy part of that country’s south with the tacit approval of the Trump administration, under the pretext of “demilitarizing” the area. In Syria, Israel seized even more territory immediately after the fall of the Assad regime. Instead of compelling it to respect Syrian sovereignty, the Trump administration has supported Israel’s imposition of a demilitarized south in the country, where Israeli settlers have already attempted to create their first outpost. 

This annexation drive on steroids is not a surprise. Western governments, which continue to provide military assistance and sell advanced weaponry to Israel while providing it with preferential trade treatment and political cover for its prolific crimes, are partners in this agenda of colonial expansion and ethnic cleansing. In the first year of the genocide alone, the United States is estimated to have gifted israel with 22.76 billion dollars in military assistance. In 2024, Israeli arms exports broke records for the fourth consecutive year, reaching $14.8 billion. Europe accounted for 54% of those sales, up from 35% in 2023. Arms sales to Israel by the UK, Serbia and others have also grown exponentially while military “cooperation” with countries like Greece are worth billions of dollars. 

Over the decades, Israel’s trade partners and allies have not held Israel accountable for its land grab and settlement expansion, both of which are glaring violations of international law. On their watch, Israel has nearly tripled the number of Israeli settlers living illegally in hundreds of settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. In 1993, there were 250,000 thousand Israeli settlers living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. By the year 2023, that number was estimated at well over 700,000 and growing. 

This complicity has provoked legal challenges from the European public and human rights organizations. In the UK for example, several human rights organizations, including OXFAM, have sued the current Labor government for continuing the Conservative party’s sale of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel. 

The lawsuit was preceded by a similar case successfully filed against the Dutch government in February 2024 where the Court ordered the government to stop the sale of F-35 fighter jet parts because such a sale risks violating the Netherlands’ obligations under the Genocide Convention. And in March 2024, Nicaragua initiated action against Germany, which is the second largest arms exporter to Israel after the United States, at the International Court of Justice for complicity in Genocide.

Sanctions Must Be Imposed

Under public pressure, some Western governments have recently expressed outrage at the Israeli government’s settlement expansionism and sanctioning of settler attacks. Some countries even took nominal measures, including banning the entry of extreme right ministers like Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. Others have opted for more concrete steps. Spain is working to legislate an arms embargo while Slovenia has formalized its embergo—and along with Ireland—has banned the import of Israeli settlement products. Calls by these states and others to suspend the EU-Israel Association Trade Agreement have failed to produce any collective European response due to fierce opposition from a handful of members, including Germany and Hungary. This derailment of a unified European response happened despite the EU’s own reports that accuse Israel of committing grave international law violations like starvation and apartheid.

Overall, there is a persisting international failure to hold Israel accountable for its crimes even when the facts on the ground, and the International Court of Justice’s ruling a year ago, indicate Israel’s presence in and control of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and must end. 

The UK, France, Australia, and other states have announced their intention to recognize Palestine during the upcoming UN General Assembly plenary in September. The announcements were met with fierce Israeli and U.S. belligerence, with the Trump administration canceling and revoking visas of the Palestinian delegation that was due to attend the meeting in New York. The Israeli Prime Minister, building on the precedent of international inaction, is considering the formal annexation of parts of the West Bank in response to this recognition drive. 

It remains a sad fact that Israel’s ethnic cleansing and erasure of Palestine will not stop without extreme political, economic, and other sanctions. 

Recently, Belgium and Norway have offered examples of concrete measures of sanctions that other states can follow. Belgium, for example, imposed 12 measures, including a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies, restricting consular services for nationals residing in Israeli settlements and examining ways to deny long-stay visas to Israelis living there. The measures include investigating criminal liability of Belgian nationals implicated in human rights violations, and banning the import of illegal Israeli settlement products. Meanwhile, Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund has divested from Israeli companies as well as the U.S. company Caterpillar due to its involvement in the demolition of Palestinian homes. The decision has irked the Trump administration but threats of countermeasures have not affected Norway’s decision. 

These sanctions are in line with obligations all states have under international law and translate recognition of Palestinian statehood into tangible outcomes for the Palestinians. They are effective and proven ways to exact a price for crimes and would apply enough cumulative pressure to compel Israel to end its colonial expansion, apartheid and genocide policies. Anything short of that buys time for genocide and ethnic cleansing. 

As we were preparing to publish articles on the carnage in Gaza and the prospect of Palestinian statehood, Israel launched an unprecedented attack on the Qatari capital Doha.

The target is reported to be Palestinian negotiators and what remains of the Hamas leadership who were in Doha to discuss Egyptian and Qatari ceasefire initiatives.

The attack comes a day after two Palestinians from the West Bank opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem, killing six Israelis and wounding several others. The Palestinians were killed by an off-duty officer and armed Israeli civilian.

Earlier in the week, members of the flotilla of activists, lawyers, journalists, and parliamentarians from 44 countries hoping to break the siege on Gaza reported that one of their vessels was allegedly attacked by a drone off the shores of Tunisia.

In the meantime, there is an escalation in Houthi missile attacks from Yemen against Israeli targets, with Tel Aviv responding in deadly air raids.

If it was an already grim summer, the coming weeks promise to be more deadly, plunging the Middle East into further uncertainty.

As we were going to press, 86 percent of the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars have backed a resolution describing Israeli action in Gaza to fall within the legal definition of genocide in 1948’s Article II of the UN’s Convention for the Prevention and Punishments of the Crime of Genocide. This convention, and rightly so, came in response to the unimaginable horror and suffering unleashed by the Nazis against the Jewish people before and during World War II.

From the images of Palestinian children withered away into living skeletons as they face systemic starvation—a medieval weapon of war—to the Israeli hostages emaciated and pleading with a government that has tuned them out, it is forgivable to feel anguish and despair.

In the meantime, and facing homegrown public revulsion at their incapacity to act, European capitals say they will recognize Palestinian statehood at the United Nations 80th General Assembly. But the UK, among others, has said that the Palestinians must fulfill certain conditions—such as disarming Hamas, prohibiting it from playing a rule in any future Palestinian governance, committing to non-violence, recognizing Israel, and other such obligations—before statehood can be recognized.

Yes, Palestinian statehood, which is an inalienable right for the Palestinian people, is conditional. Even when having to stomach the images of bodies torn to bits and Israeli and Palestinian mothers begging for the conflict to end, there is still hesitation.

In response to more than 145 countries already recognizing Palestine as an independent, sovereign state—with a handful more following pursuit in the coming months—Netanyahu’s government has adopted a two-prong approach, first by launching diplomatic spats with the likes of France and Norway, and second by swearing to bury any hope of a  Palestinian state by annexing the West Bank.

The genocide might be happening in Gaza, but the war threatens all of Palestine.

But will the recognition of Palestinian statehood halt the tanks from bulldozing through Gaza and destroying the lives of the two million people who live there? Will this iteration of a two-state solution halt Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians, their homes, and olive orchards?

Former Cairo Review editor Omar Auf tackles these questions and more in his essay “What Palestinian Statehood Must Mean to Mean Anything”.

“A two-state solution is currently impossible to achieve given the Israeli control over Palestinian lands, even before October 2023 let alone now, combined with the Israeli government and people’s hard slide to the right,” Auf argues.

“And to pursue it while a genocide is taking place with plans to annex the entirety of the West Bank is to stop a tsunami by spraying water at it.”

Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin believes ending the war is the most important priority and, like Auf, sees that more needs to be done by the international community.

“There is growing global criticism against Israel, but it will take significantly more pressure to produce any real impact. Recognizing the State of Palestine (which should have been done decades ago) and cancelling the visa of a right-wing fanatic Israeli minister to Australia is not enough,” he writes in “Ending the War In Gaza: What Must Be Done Now”.

The ongoing war in Gaza has revealed uncomfortable truths to many within and outside Israel society. Israel may be impervious to defeat from an external enemy, but it risks destroying itself from within. 

Founder of Tikkun Olam, a liberal Jewish blog, Richard Silverstein uses history as a guide in his piece “Beyond Its Wildest Dreams: Israel’s Campaign for Geo-Strategic Dominance in the Middle East”, arguing that Israel has made fateful errors in declaring its enemies defeated.  

“You cannot eliminate an enemy solely by brute force. The urge to resist and rebel has historically always been an animating force in human affairs. Eventually, either Israel declines through its own internal dysfunction; or its enemies regain their power and renew their challenge. The tide will inevitably turn. Its colonial power and dominance will dissipate. At that point, its hubris will be its ultimate downfall,” he warns.

Hubris may very well have fueled a lot of the current crisis. One wonders what Hamas was hoping to achieve in its bloody attacks on Israelis on October 7, 2023. Did they really overlook 78 years of history suffered by the Palestinians and underestimate how Israel would respond? Like the Israeli government which continues to defy global outrage and the rising call of Israelis to end the war, Hamas, too, must answer to their own people.

A grim summer? Indeed. But there may yet be a spring of hope. As academic and author Raphael Cohen-Almagor observes in his essay Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, both Israelis and Palestinians are battered and traumatised, but shifting attitudes suggest that opportunities may eventually emerge. 

“We should not fall into the fallacy of thinking that the future is bound to be similar to the present situation, and whatever situation we are in is here to stay,” he cautions.

“Peace will not come quickly, but its potential rewards—security, prosperity, and justice for both peoples—justify the immense effort required.”

Indeed.

Cairo Review Managing Editor,

Firas Al-Atraqchi

Looking to the situation in Gaza—at what lawyers, genocide scholars, rights watchdogs, international civil servants, and activists all around the world increasingly recognize as genocide and famine—a number of governments announced their intention to recognize a Palestinian state during the upcoming high-level conference on the two-state solution on September 22. One would be forgiven if one experiences a sense of cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile how such actions are in any way relevant to events on the ground. The fear, and indeed the expectation held by many, is that recognition of statehood—joining 147 other countries—will serve only as a performative gesture designed to appease angry populations while maintaining the base political and economic structures of occupation and annexation, as affirmed by the 2024 International Court of Justice advisory opinion, alongside settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.

Nevertheless, assuming that the move to recognize a State of Palestine is genuinely viewed as a path toward a just and sustainable regional peace, many questions still remain about how any political momentum from recognition can be translated into action on the ground. In the current context, states must adopt bold policymaking to not only recognize Palestinian statehood but also actualize it in a way that contributes to ending the war on Gaza; this means going beyond mere statements of condemnation. The recognition of Palestine must be treated by governments as a policy tool with short-term aims, which means not waiting for political effects to cascade and instead exercising forceful statecraft through diplomatic pressure, legal review, boycotts and sanctions, support for civil society initiatives, and adopting policy that is integrated nationwide and not only in the form of speeches in international fora. Without a focus on immediate outcomes, recognition risks being at best too little too late and at worst a distraction from the tragedy currently unfolding in Gaza. 

Upholding Existing Legal Commitments

When states recognize Palestine, it will get a diplomatic upgrade that amounts to more attention by the bureaucratic structures of recognizing states, which would translate into a stronger political and legal standing with these governments. The issue is, though, that most of the legal obligations that would immediately benefit Palestinians on the ground are obligations that already should have reasonably been complied with under international humanitarian and human rights law. Therefore, recognition of Palestine would first function as a political signal urging states’ bureaucracies to take seriously their legal and humanitarian obligations toward the humans—who happen to be Palestinians—being systematically murdered in Gaza. Second, it would create political momentum for other states to recognize Palestine and practice the same review of obligations, leading to an overall more stringent regime of protection of Palestinian rights due to the notion of their organization in the political unit known as a state in a state-dominated system. 

It is important to note that the Genocide Convention (to which the State of Palestine is already party) is clear on the obligation to prevent genocide. If, years later, the ICJ concludes that genocide has been committed in Gaza, then countries that supported Israel’s military, or failed to prevent its actions when they reasonably could have, will be considered to have been in violation of the convention. It doesn’t make much sense. Such is the nature of international law today; powerful states can disagree over the law and act as they wish without much rebuke or consequence due to its indefinite and inapplicable nature, and then, years later, the ICJ or an international criminal tribunal might clear up the situation and make it definite. At that moment, states that took a certain position will be said to have broken the rule in the past tense, because the situation has already passed (possibly to devastating effect). It is not a fault of the ICJ per se but rather the international system which cannot enforce the Court’s orders. The ICJ issued a provisional measures order in April 1993 telling Serbia and its agents “to take all measures within its power to prevent commission of the crime of genocide”. Two years later, the Srebrenice Massacre took place. Fourteen years after the provisional measures order and twelve years after 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were rounded up in a stadium and murdered, the court found in 2007 that Serbia had been in violation of its obligation to prevent genocide during the 1990s Balkan war. 

Thus, if states want to truly respect international law, they must attempt to weigh the law as the ICJ eventually would and not as short-term national interest may dictate. By prompting a legal review vis-à-vis the rights of a Palestine state and its people, recognition of Palestine could provide the momentum to do exactly this. It might find that, to safeguard the State of Palestine’s future, it must be forward-looking in its approach to international law. And it is by being proactive that recognition would begin to cease to be performative and begin to have concrete effects on state actions. Consider its possible effects as applied to international humanitarian law. 

With the expected exception of Israel itself, there is near-unanimous legal consensus that Israel is the occupying power of Gaza and the West Bank— a position affirmed by the International Committee for the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC), the ICJ in its 2024 advisory opinion, and by the states that announced their intention to recognize Palestine in September. Israel’s conduct violates at least a dozen clauses in the Fourth Geneva Convention, such as the prohibitions on blocking humanitarian aid, using starvation as a weapon of war, attacking medical facilities, forced displacement, and collective punishment. Signatories to the Geneva Conventions undertook to “respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances,” which, according to the ICRC, entails both negative obligations to refrain from aiding parties committing violations and positive obligations to do what is possible to prevent such violations.

In this way, recognition provides the political will, not to instigate some sort of novel legal development, but simply to respect states’ existing positive and negative obligations to ensure respect of the Geneva Conventions by all parties. From here, the next logical question is what action states could take to refrain from aiding Israel and reasonably prevent  it from violating international humanitarian law. With this question, the discussion is transformed from an abstract legal one to a policy discussion about concrete action and outcomes, and reaching this stage is already a step further than the contentment with the issuing of statements and a hodgepodge of performative or late decisions that some states have adopted. Take France’s barring of several Israeli stands at its Paris airshow for displaying “offensive weaponry”. There is no denying that this is a genuinely positive development, but the question remains, if the Israeli companies had not displayed the specific weapons objected to, would business continue as usual? And how come such companies as Elbit were allowed to participate in the first place when they are responsible for providing weaponry used in Gaza? And this is to say nothing of the Israeli Ministry of Defense stand which remained on display. These sorts of decisions are good as headline news but fall short once examined closely due to not challenging the underlying structures of occupation. 

But there is also a further use in this context for the activity created by recognition of Palestine. In 1989, following the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) tried to accede to the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols as representative of the State of Palestine. Switzerland responded as follows: “Due to the uncertainty within the international community as to the existence or non-existence of a State of Palestine, and as long as the issue has not been settled in an appropriate framework, the Swiss Government, in its capacity as depositary of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, is not in a position to decide whether this communication can be considered as an instrument of accession”. 

Moving towards unanimity of recognition of Palestine would dispel this uncertainty and, if a State of Palestine becomes a party, more forcefully assert the legal reality of Israel’s violations. Though illegal in the current context anyway, all state parties will be forced to review their positions to make sure they are not violating the rights of a state or its people. Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute is a case in point; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant would otherwise not have been wanted internationally on criminal charges, adding pressure on state parties to the Rome Statute to respect the ICC’s arrest warrants. 

If a strong enough impetus is generated by states taking their recognition of Palestine seriously, it could tip the threshold and push countries like Switzerland to accept Palestine’s instruments of accession to key treaties and, potentially, to recognize a Palestinian state themselves—further amplifying this effect. Each successive recognition strengthens the political momentum for a legal review of obligations that should already have been met, as well as new obligations arising from Palestine’s statehood. In addition, recognition would bind states not only to protect the rights of the Palestinian people as subjects of humanitarian law, but also to uphold the rights of the state of Palestine itself. Yet this raises the question, what does that state actually look like?

The Cart Before the Horse

Statehood is not a concept—or a practice—that has a clear-cut definition. The 1933 Montevideo Convention codified the common practices of the time perceived to be constitutive of statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, government, and the capacity to enter relations with other states. Palestine’s supposed territory is firmly established by Security Council resolutions and ICJ rulings to be the borders of June 5, 1967.  Its population can be understood to be the Palestinian citizens of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It can also be argued that the Palestinian Liberation Organization is recognized as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority as its government based on the Oslo Accords. However, these arguments run into various difficulties, all going back to the de facto ineffectiveness of any sort of Palestinian self-rule due to the Israeli domination of all aspects of Palestinian life. 

The Montevideo formula, which adopts the view that statehood is a fact that is merely discovered by other states once recognized by them, is alone insufficient to declare statehood convincingly. Given its focus with the reality on the ground, it should be taken as a policy goal to achieve for Palestine rather than simply a legal qualification of statehood. 

Prominent jurist and international law scholar James Crawford addressed this question in the 2006 edition of his book The Creation of States in International Law, building on previous work. Crawford was focused on what would legally make a state a state rather than whether a state should be a state. He argued against relying on the Montevideo Convention and instead advanced a notion of statehood as independence: “the existence of an organized community on a particular territory, exclusively or substantially exercising self-governing power, and the absence of the exercise by another State, and of the right of another State to exercise, self-governing powers over that territory.” 

Crawford also emphasized the centrality of self-determination in contemporary international law as a strong driver for statehood, which is particularly important in the Palestinian case. “The PLO of course is a national liberation organization, widely recognized as such, and is the external representative of the Palestinian people. The people of Palestine […] have a right of self-determination, a position noted by the International Court in its advisory opinion on [the separation wall]. There is thus a non-State legal entity recognized as represented by a national liberation movement.” 

He ultimately dismissed Palestinian statehood as incompatible with the reality of the time. However, Crawford did concede the possibility of a ‘premature’ statehood that seeks to address the injustice on the ground by recognizing the right of a people to a state by virtue of their self-determination. As he explained, “there may come a point where international law may be justified in regarding as done that which ought to have been done, if the reason it has not been done is the serious default of one party and if the consequence of its not being done is serious prejudice to another […] and circumstances can be imagined where the international community would be entitled to treat a new State as existing on a given territory, notwithstanding the facts.”

There is a strong argument that this is the case for Palestine today. In fact, international law scholar Marko Milanovic remarked that if James Crawford were alive today, he might reach this conclusion. Nevertheless, the view of one jurist, no matter how prominent, is not the focus of the issue. This is merely to illustrate that recognition of statehood, typically considered recognition of a legal fact, can—in certain cases where the lack of statehood is due to unjust conditions imposed by another state—be a policy to achieve statehood. 

In other words, states should put the cart before the horse and then use it as a battering ram. Adopting this mindset is the first step to ensure recognition of Palestine amounts to atrocity prevention. Yet many steps remain to concretize the possible implications of recognizing a Palestinian state. 

Creating a Sense of Urgency

The most urgent step is creating a real sense of urgency surrounding the situation. States could use the recognition of Palestine as a springboard to question Israel’s every action against the Palestinians as an action against the State of Palestine. Summoning the Israeli ambassador would become a daily routine. Without action to halt the genocide in Gaza and the colonization of the West Bank, expulsion or a downgrading of diplomatic relations would become a very real and imminent possibility. Other diplomatic tools are on the table, such as calling for further General Assembly meetings based on UNGA Resolution 377A (Uniting for Peace), issuing joint statements with regional countries and blocs, and providing logistical support and defense to ships carrying aid in international waters, sending diplomats every day to Egyptian Rafah while holding press conferences in front of the aid Israel refuses to let in. Once Israel is seen as a state systematically and brazenly violating the rights of another state and its people—and creating significant regional instability—the debate surrounding sanctions would no longer be about whether or not to adopt them, but what type and scale are required to halt Israel’s violations. 

Here, a thought is overdue: would policymakers actually adopt firm, atrocity-preventing measures—regardless of recognition of a Palestinian state? This question is rhetorical because the answer is, unfortunately, obvious. It can be assumed with near certainty that they will not go the full distance of the measures outlined/to be outlined in this essay, but, not to hold much hope that they adopt even some of these measures, providing such a roadmap may at least contribute to increasing the political cost of inaction; the excuses of ‘we did all we could’ or ‘we did not know’ would hold even less water as viable alternative courses of action are further disseminated and advocated. Business as usual for many states would, with sober reflection, come to be seen (initially by a growing minority) as being uncomfortably close to complicity or even joint criminal enterprise. 

Lethal Business

Doing business with the Israeli state or its market becomes a form of complicity while it commits genocide in Gaza—including via engineered famine—kicks Palestinians out of their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and moves to annex the land of a hoped-for Palestinian state. Recognition of Palestine provides a very legitimate opportunity to review all business and economic implications with Israel at large (and not only the war on Gaza) including financial ties, the military sector, big tech, and the activity of companies like Caterpillar feeding the occupation’s machinery; according to the 2024 ICJ advisory opinion, states have a legal responsibility to cease aiding or assisting Israel’s continuing occupation, annexation of Palestinian land, apartheid or racial discrimination, and more.

One of the first things states need to do if they take their recognition of a Palestinian state seriously is to listen to Francesca Albanese. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)’s June report, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”, details how corporate actors are actively enabling Israel’s genocidal war and settler-colonialism and invites states to revisit their trade and economic ties with Israel. In this intertwined, interdependent ultracapitalist system, and in this age of information, the links between states and certain corporations have become irrefutable, and the ability of states to prevent private sector trade with other states already an operationalized practice. Global sanctions on apartheid South Africa have proved how pariah states can be forced to change. Justified Western sanctions on Russia serve as proof that, when political will is present, a bloc of countries can take coordinated collective action. Conversely, the politically-motivated U.S. trade embargo wit Cuba show that countries do not hesitate to act alone when needed. 

The most obvious starting point is the military industry. Unfortunately, the main suppliers of weapons to Israel (the U.S., Germany, and Italy) are not among the countries intending to recognize a Palestinian state. However, there are companies in countries that intend  recognition that are supplying components going into Israel’s F-35 fleet, whether directly or by supplying companies that are known to sell to Israel significant quantities, such as the American firm Lockheed Martin. Thus, other countries have a role to play in circumscribing relations between themselves and their private sectors on one hand and the Israeli military, public, and private sector on the other, including any American or other intermediaries. Full sanctions on dual-use products and an arms embargo are the obvious options.

To ensure a future for a State of Palestine, companies fueling the occupation, like Elbit and Israeli Aerospace Industries, must not be allowed to be approached or entertained in any manner, whether by states or private companies operating within these states. To do otherwise would be to favour an occupying power over an occupied state, as if countries are dealing with Russian weapons manufacturers that play a role in the occupation of Ukrainian territory. 

In truth, at this point of Israel’s systematic infliction of suffering on Palestinians, especially with the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declaring a famine in Gaza, governments that recognize a Palestinian state in September should ask themselves whether Israel deserves treatment any less severe than the one Russia received when it illegally and brutally invaded Ukraine. Why shouldn’t Israel be heavily sanctioned for its violations, its leaders and businesspeople unable to operate abroad? Why shouldn’t its sports teams be banned from international competition? Why shouldn’t its banks be frozen out of the Swift system? 

The financial system in particular deserves a moment’s pause. Albanese’s report highlighted undeniable facts: banks such as BNP Paribas underwrote Israeli treasury bonds, and Barclays facilitated Israeli debt offerings to investors. In recent decades, the global financial system has taken on a life of its own, yet it remains subject, to some degree, to state sovereignty. The scale of interconnectedness between certain Western economies and Israel’s financial system makes divestment a difficult choice for policymakers. For that reason, it also makes it an essential one. What chance does a Palestinian state have at becoming viable amid the full force of global capitalism propping up Israel’s economy as it wages its war on Gaza and annexation of the West Bank? 

The other sector deserving of particular scrutiny is tech. Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Palantir, and IBM have all been proven to be directly and unashamedly facilitative of genocide. Unfortunately, Microsoft and Google services have become cornerstones of individual as well as enterprise use. But this does not change the fact that Microsoft provides a special version of its Azure cloud storage to the Israeli military for mass surveillance of phone calls, and Google provided AI services following Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza. These companies’ activities in Israel should be sanctioned, at the very least. Any tech company providing the Israeli military with such levels of support should not be contracted by governments of states intending to recognize Palestine, as such companies are an active component of violating the rights of what would be Palestinian sovereignty and of those who are Palestinian citizens. This means that companies from other countries, such as the U.S., operating in states that recognize Palestine should be placed under national bureaucratic scrutiny for compliance with human rights and humanitarian standards—and face sanctions if they are found in violation.

Sanctions must be immediate, and they must be comprehensive. Companies mentioned in Albanese’s report such as Caterpillar, HD Hyundai, and Volvo profit by selling equipment used in demolishing Palestinian houses. Such companies cannot be allowed to operate in sanctioning countries as long as they continue to fuel occupation. Leonardo and Lockheed Martin’s weaponry mustn’t be acquired by other states until Israel stops its genocidal campaign and lifts the occupation. Laws should disallow companies like Airbnb and Booking to operate locally while their hosting offers include units in settlements. Oil and gas companies like Chevron should not be awarded new contracts until they stop exploiting natural resources within occupied Palestinian maritime boundaries. 

Taken together, these companies show how without a comprehensive sanctions framework, actions against individuals fall short of addressing the structural nature of the occupation. The issues of occupation, colonialism and annexation, apartheid, and genocide, can no longer be treated as isolated issues receiving isolated efforts. Israel’s actions are empowered by its history of impunity in the entirety of the Occupied Territories which has allowed it to undermine peaceful Palestinian resistance efforts. To recognize a Palestinian state means to see all of these issues as deeply intertwined. 

One State, Two State, No State, My Fate.

I have previously argued in the virtual pages of the Cairo Review that the discussion of a two-state solution is premature, paternalistic, and pointless; instead, respecting Palestinian self-determination should be held as the priority, and the Palestinian people should be given sufficient space to then pursue the solution they see fit while reckoning with the prevailing political reality. I would not amend this argument, even as the two-state solution seemingly gains new life with this new wave of recognition. There is a normative reason and a realist one, and they are linked. 

The realist reason is that a two-state solution is currently impossible to achieve, given the Israeli control over Palestinian lands, even before October 2023, let alone now, combined with the Israeli government and people’s hard slide to the right. And to pursue it while a genocide is taking place, with plans to annex the entirety of the West Bank, is to stop a tsunami by spraying water at it. The normative reason is that there is political momentum associated with Palestinian statehood, yet the conditions on the ground are not yet conducive to such an immediate outcome, therefore recognition of Palestine must serve to actualize Palestinian self-determination as the rightful path to statehood. And this is the outcome that makes moral, legal, and political sense. It has several implications.

One, safeguarding and promoting self-determination entails ending genocide and settler-colonialism. Two, the PLO must be empowered to represent the Palestinian people by supporting its revitalization and widening its political representation. Three, the Palestinian Authority must be dismantled in all but name, and a revitalized PLO build something genuinely and holistically (and not selectively) Palestinian in its place. Four, the boundaries and other conditions of a Palestinian state in the standard vision of a two-state solution (borders of 5 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, reconstruction of Gaza, linking Gaza and the West Bank) must be guaranteed as the unconditional minimum starting point which the Palestinians will then use to negotiate a final settlement with the Israelis if they so choose. 

The power imbalance and paralyzing conditionality imposed by the Oslo process cannot be repeated. The existence of Hamas as a key actor in the conflict landscape should not be seen as a complicating factor. Not only is there precedent for organizations (Fatah, the PLO) previously considered terrorists by some states (a political classification anyway) to be accepted into the fold, but Hamas has also shown time and again that it is willing to come to the table to negotiate and that it is willing to compromise. Thus, the idea of disbanding Hamas as a precondition for statehood is contrary to self-determination insofar as Hamas is one of many political elements within the wider Palestinian landscape. It is up to the Palestinian people themselves to choose who shall represent them. The Israeli military and far right, responsible for a level of terrorism and dehumanization far exceeding in scale anything Hamas has done, have not faced the same conditionality, yet the ICC also wants Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes charges (Israel assassinated the Hamas leaders who were wanted in the same case). Is it because Israel is an already-established state that has the power to manage its own internal affairs that this conditionality is imposed only on the Palestinian side? Recognition of a Palestinian state must address precisely this hidden imbalance. It should mean empowering the Palestinian people, represented through a widened PLO, to organize the state and sit at the negotiating table with the state-based system, if not in its favor, then at least not playing against it at every turn. 

A State of Palestine Must be Inherently Decolonial

The recognition of the existence of a Palestinian state under conditions where there cannot feasibly be one implies that such a state must be inherently decolonial to reverse the colonization of the land within its intended borders. This is perhaps the subtle yet powerful implication that policymakers have not fully taken into account when pledging recognition, but with which they will have to reckon all the same. 

To recognize the State of Palestine means to offer a firm and blanket opposition to the existence of settlements, new and old. In the West Bank, it means further sanctions on settlers, as the UK has previously done more than once. But not only that, it means taking an economic stance, as previously detailed, against West Bank settlements. It means understanding Israel as an illegitimate apartheid state as long as it creates a systemic regime of separation between two populations, one privileged and one downcast, over land it is not entitled to in the first place. It means adjusting diplomatic relations on that basis. And it means to oppose genocide in Gaza by any means necessary. Arms embargos, economic sanctions, multilateral diplomacy, supporting civil society, out-of-the-box policymaking—the works. 

As mentioned time and again, most actions described can be taken independently of recognition of the State of Palestine. However, since this is the route taken, combining the political momentum of recognition with practical policy choices that have immediate effects contributing to ending genocide, colonialism, and occupation is the only way that the route taken is one that ends up somewhere. Otherwise, recognition will be, as the pattern within the international community often goes when action must be taken, too little, too late—a futile attempt at politics while what is needed is to be human. 

Postscript: Israel’s attacks today on Qatari soil—in brazen violation of international law and common diplomatic sense—have demonstrated how far the Israeli government is willing to go to fulfill its delusions, and how the status quo is irreparable. It demonstrates the imperative for the recognition of Palestine to be a qualitative shift rather than more of the same—a fate that is unlikely, but possible, as outlined in this essay.

The level of violence that journalists in Gaza are facing today is unprecedented in the past 100 years of global conflict; the numbers alone are staggering. 

Since October 7, 2023, press freedom groups and journalists’ associations have reported that at least 270 Palestinian journalists have been killed under Israel’s ongoing military campaign.

The fatalities have included, among others, photojournalists, camera operators, stringers, and correspondents working at Arabic-language media, Al Jazeera, Reuters, Associated Press (AP), and Agence France-Presse.

The mounting death toll raises serious questions about the future of press freedom, international law, and even the public’s right to know the facts on the ground from a war zone.

This essay specifically builds on a joint study carried out in 2025 by a team of researchers at the American University in Cairo, the University of Maryland, and Tilburg University. Using 12 interviews with Gazan journalists—some still operating under bombardment—the study documented a complete collapse of protections offered to journalists and how this reconfigured the journalism profession. The conclusions may rely heavily on a record of death, but they also warn that if Gaza becomes the precedent, journalism everywhere faces an untimely demise.

The Size of the Crisis

The death toll of media professionals in Gaza is distinct from other conflicts not only in size but also in speed—journalist fatalities that accumulated over decades elsewhere have been compressed into a few short months. In World War II, 68 journalists were killed. In Vietnam, 1955-1975, 66 journalist fatalities occurred. The death toll for journalists in the former Yugoslavia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s was 36; in Iraq, at least 150 journalists were killed between 2003 and 2011, and in Ukraine, at least 17 journalists have been killed since 2022. However, in the case of Gaza, the death toll since October 2023 has neared the cumulative totals of these conflicts compressed into less than two years.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) properly labeled Israel’s genocide in Gaza as the most dangerous context for journalists to work in, calling it “the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented” in modern history.

The devastation has not only been measured in terms of loss of life; Gaza has witnessed the systematic destruction of press offices, news bureaus, and storage facilities for equipment. In addition, internet and electricity blackouts have made communication with the outside world nearly impossible. This is a stark reality that journalists are not just being killed in airstrikes but are also being silenced by systemic design targeting and destroying the infrastructure on which journalism operates.

In response, Human Rights Watch issued a call for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate potential war crimes. Likewise, Amnesty International issued a report stating that the deliberate killing of journalists is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless, Israel has not yet been held accountable for its deliberate targeting of journalists.

Institutional Responses

One of the more crushing aspects of the crime of journalists targeted and killed for their coverage is the muted institutional response.

On July 24, Reuters, AFP, AP, and the BBC published a rare joint statement asking Israel to provide safe passage and basic conditions for journalists in Gaza. They noted that local journalists were “the world’s eyes and ears,” working in intolerable conditions. It was an unusual gesture of solidarity from competing organizations, but it served no purpose. The rallying cry for accountability immediately turned into silence.

Just one month later, on August 25, Israeli fighter jets hit Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza. The double-tap strike killed at least 20 people, five of whom were journalists: Hussam al-Masri and Moaz Abu Taha (Reuters), Mariam Abu Dagga (Associated Press), Mohammed Salama (freelancer for various outlets), and Ahmed Abu Aziz (Middle East Eye). Photographer Hatem Khaled (Reuters) was seriously wounded. The injured and dead included doctors, patients, and civilians. International organizations reported the facts, but none pushed for an inquiry nor demanded any consequences for the perpetrators.

The double-tap strike came just two weeks after a similar air raid on Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City killed award-winning Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif and four other journalists. Two additional people, including Al Sharif’s nephew, were also killed.

Despite providing no evidence to support its claims, Israel said that Al Sharif was a known Hamas operative planning an attack on Israelis. Several global media outlets parroted the claim.

The official responses to the two attacks, which killed 10 journalists within two weeks, have been limited to carefully crafted expressions of condolences. Reuters confirmed the loss of journalists, AFP described “impossible conditions” for their staff, and AP expressed sentiments of sorrow, but the escalation to either warning or demanding accountability never happened.

The same organizations that acknowledged that they depended on Palestinian freelancers for Gaza coverage were now limiting their responses to expressions of grief. The difference between grievances expressed and apparent anger on the frontline was startling. Some media organizations even distanced themselves from their own journalists after Israel branded them “terrorists.”.

Within days, Reuters photojournalist Valerie Zink resigned with blistering clarity. On her personal page, she shared her resignation statement, writing:  

“At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza. I have valued the work which I brought to Reuters over the past eight years but at this point I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief.”

For Gazan journalists, the strike on Nasser Hospital confirmed an even deeper betrayal. As photojournalist Al-Hassan Selmi, working for South Africa’s Media 24, told us in an interview:

“We, as journalists in Gaza, are like orphans; we have nobody, no one to ask after us. Israel bombed a hospital, a sacred, trustworthy place of protection under international law, to eliminate a journalist who is supposed to have protection.”

Selmi’s words not only referenced Nasser Hospital, but also a pattern of many attacks on hospitals; he used “orphanhood” to evoke what other colleagues voiced to us, a sense of abandonment not only by governments but by the very organizations that rely on their work.

The solidarity they anticipated was something that never came, and this fissure between institutional grieving and frontline despair is precisely what our interviews uncovered—a profession being rebuilt in the crossfire.

Research Findings

Our interviews with twelve journalists from Gaza shed light on the reality of reporting in a life-threatening and unprecedented historical moment. The interviewees provided four themes.

1.  Breakdown of neutrality

A number of journalists discussed how it was impossible to separate their work from lived experience. Photojournalist Ahmed Al Zard from the Palestinian network Al-Kofiya Channel said that he sometimes feels as if he’s not just a journalist sharing news objectively, but also an activist trying to raise awareness to the voice of suffering. 

“I cannot even separate journalism from my humanitarian call to action when I participate in such events and see that my presence might shift the scope of finding the truth.” 

To these journalists, neutrality does not mean disconnection; rather, it means survival with a conscience.

2.  Multiplicity of roles

Journalists repeatedly expressed the added responsibility of assuming roles significantly beyond journalism. 

“The field doesn’t let you remain in one primary mindset… you are a journalist, a bodyguard, a Red Cross worker, a rescuer, a psychologist, and for you, you are also a victim, and you are scared,” says Gazan journalist Sanaa Kamal who works for the Chinese Xinhua News Agency.

Al Arabiya’s Mohamed Awad provided an example of the enormity of that burden. 

“During the recent war on the Gaza Strip, I documented more than 3,450 items of content through videos, audio bulletins, photos, and tweets during the war. Perhaps most significantly, we addressed the very issues that people themselves were raising, engaging directly with the prevailing public narrative.”

In Gaza, the journalist is not only someone who reports; they serve as a recorder of collective memory, as a voice in the public debate, and often as a participant in events themselves.

3.   Emotional Rationality as Credibility

For many, the demonstration of emotion was not a weakness of the journalist, but rather a way to communicate an essential reality. Youmna El Sayed, who works for Al Jazeera English, explains how her professional and personal roles merged. 

“As a journalist I did a number of professional videos for, for example, the Al Jazeera Digital Platform…very professional. But at the same time, social media gave me as a person, a human being or a resident living in Gaza, a vehicle to express my own reality.” 

Emotional expression becomes part of the evidence—not the opposite of professionalism, but its extension.  

4.   Digital Resistance and Censorship

Given Israel’s prohibition and ban on the presence of foreign correspondents in Gaza, the Palestinian journalists there have had to be considerably reliant on digital platforms. Working for China’s CGTN, Noor Harazeen remembers not being very active on social media when the war on Gaza began. However, within a matter of weeks, she decided to create her own accounts on social media as a space to publish her work and the certainty of reaching a larger audience.

“Social media platforms played a very important role during this genocide in Gaza,” she says. 

But many media professionals in Gaza also bemoaned the censorship of content they were sending to social media platforms, or the content disappearing altogether. Repressive censorship of content by some social media platforms added to the feeling of erasure. 

The testimonies of these media professionals indicate a shift. In Gaza, journalism as it is understood in traditional Western approaches is no longer just the pursuit of truth; it has become the fight against oblivion itself, existing in a state where documenting history is synonymous with existing.

Systemic Failure of Protection

While journalists in Gaza are on the verge of being wiped out by Israel’s attacks, systemic siege and starvation—and many have already perished—every mechanism that was supposed to protect them has failed, from Geneva to The Hague. As a result, there is testimony without protection and truth without legal remedy. Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions guarantees journalists the same protections as civilians. The UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists (2012) further intended for attacks on journalists to be seen as a “red line”. The UN has issued statements of concern but taken no binding action. UNESCO has also condemned the killings, but has no enforcement power.

In the meantime, the ICC has not opened a dedicated investigation into the killings of journalists in Gaza despite repeated requests from press-freedom organizations. And although some Western governments have attached general human-rights conditions to military assistance they currently provide Israel, none have made journalist protection a specific precondition.

“Journalism should never be a target… which is protected by international law…,” says Selmi. “But here in the Gaza Strip Israel did not respect these laws.” 

Recommendations: What Must Be Done

The question is no longer if Gaza marks a tipping point for global press freedoms, but whether the world has the will to prevent its collapse—or even the disappearance of journalism itself. Urgent reforms are essential from our research, five clear recommendations emerge.

1.  A binding international convention on the protection of journalists

While existing UN and treaty-based protections are weak, the world needs a new binding convention on journalist protection—modeled on the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banning landmines—which created enforceable obligations, sanctions, and mechanisms for accountability where none existed before.

2.  Automatic ICC jurisdiction for crimes against journalists

Just as the ICC has automatic jurisdiction for genocide, it should also have jurisdiction for attacks against journalists, thus removing the need for ad hoc referrals that have been blocked by geopolitics, preventing accountability.

3.  Conditionality of Aid and Arms Transfers

Governments that fund military operations, not only in Israel, but globally as well, should condition that funding on guarantees of protection for journalists. U.S. and EU military aid packages should explicitly include clauses that any ongoing aid will be suspended if journalists are killed.

4.  A Global Journalist Protection Fund

Following in the footsteps of the development of the Green Climate Fund, a proposed Global Journalist Protection Fund would establish a multilateral mechanism with other governments to provide equipment, insurance, relocation arrangements, and legal support for journalists operating in conflict zones.

5.  Accountability for digital platforms

Social media companies should be held accountable to preserve war reporting, if for no other reason than the fact that it serves as evidence in the future. Platforms such as Meta, X, and YouTube should be required to archive evidence, particularly documents, rather than censor historical narratives from any conflict zones.

The last word belongs to the journalists themselves. “A silent scream… so the world cannot say it didn’t happen,” said Gaza freelancer Abed Zagout about his and his colleagues’ mission in Gaza.

“We are victims like everyone else,” added Kamal, “but with the burden of telling the story while trying to survive.”

Together, these testimonies are more than a chronicle of Gaza’s journalists; they are a warning. Gaza is not only a Palestinian story but a frontline test of global democracy. If journalism dies here, the right to truth dies everywhere.

For 18 years, I have negotiated with Hamas. While there were short periods during that time that I was authorized by Israeli officials to pass messages on to Hamas leaders and negotiators, most of my contacts were not authorized but generally viewed as valuable at best and, at worst, having no influence at all. My secret direct back channel was used to secure the deal which led to the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas for five years, back in 2011. I believe that my contacts also led to the first negotiated deal between Israel and Hamas at the end of 2023. In September 2024, I secured an agreement from Hamas to release all of the Israeli hostages (more than 100 at that time) in exchange for a three-week period that would end the war, release Palestinian prisoners, and lead to a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The Israeli and American sides were not interested at that time. 

There is another partial deal currently on the table—put forward by the Egyptian and Qatari mediators and supported by the United States—for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas would release 10 living Israeli hostages and the bodies of 18 deceased hostages. In exchange, Israel would release about 200 Palestinian prisoners, most of them serving life-sentences for killing Israelis, and another 1,000 Gazans taken prisoner during the past 22 months. The exchange would not include those who crossed the border on October 7, 2023 to kill Israelis. The deal is very close to the one presented months ago when Israel reportedly accepted it, but then claimed Hamas walked away from the table.  The truth is that Hamas was continuing to negotiate on the details when Israel walked away and blamed it for being unreasonably hardline on the issues of Palestinian prisoner release and the redeployment of Israeli troops in Gaza. The United States adopted the Israeli narrative and blamed Hamas for the failure of the talks.

When Israel recalled its negotiating team before Hamas agreed to the new deal, Hamas released videos of two starving and emaciated, near-death Israeli hostages in the hopes the images would rally the Israeli public against the government’s failure to bring them home. It did. The mass protests on August 17 brought out one million Israelis in demonstrations across Israel, with some 400,000 in Tel Aviv in the evening. But these, too, failed to move the Israeli government and its prime minister even one millimeter. 

More than two weeks have passed since the partial Egyptian-Qatari deal was accepted by Hamas, but the Israeli government has yet to respond.

On August 28, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and his Qatari counterpart Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani issued a joint statement blaming Israel for the delay in implementing the ceasefire deal.

They said that Israel was showing “resistance and delay” to their proposed deal, and called on the international community to pressure Netanyahu to agree to the ceasefire.

Meanwhile in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump has said he was deeply disturbed by the Hamas videos and that he felt a deep personal connection to the Israeli hostages and to their families. He then issued a statement that Israel needs to do what Israel needs to do—essentially giving Netanyahu the green light to advance the planned escalation of the war and the total occupation and destruction of all of Gaza. 

What infrastructure remains in Gaza will now be flattened by Israel.

Finality

Israel is engaging in all kinds of tricks and deceptions to enable the final stage of the war before ‘total victory and the total destruction of Hamas’, as Netanyahu has described it several times during the past 22 months. One of those deceptions is the long time that Israel says will be needed to properly plan and execute its newest military operation to take over all of Gaza, which was approved during the first two weeks of August.

The truth is that this operation has already begun. Israel has sent notices to 60,000 reservists to show up for duty on September 2 (the day after the school year begins so that those who are fathers can take their kids to school on September 1). No one should have any illusion about what the true goals are: level the central area of the Strip including Gaza City and squeeze more than two million Gazans into the southwest corner of the Strip. Israel has begun this military operation and is already attacking the outlying neighborhoods of Sabra, Zaytoun, and Jabalia. 

The human pressure cooker will explode; Israel—chiefly Netanyahu and his government coalition allies Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and Cabinet Minister Bezalel Smotrich—want the dire humanitarian disaster to force the Gazan masses to cross the border into Egypt. Egypt, meanwhile, has begun to deploy more forces on the Gaza-Sinai border in fear that it will be breached by thousands of Gazans trying to escape the misery and the fear of being killed. 

The Israeli plan even includes the government’s approval to allocate more than $300 million to prepare infrastructure for what is being described as “the humanitarian zone”—including roads, electricity, water, tent cities, and more.  

There is nothing humanitarian about what they are planning and implementing. Crowding two million hungry Palestinians who have already lost everything and have been moved from one location to another in Gaza several times already cannot be called humanitarian. These actions by Israel are illegal under international law and cannot be whitewashed in any way, especially not by calling them humanitarian. 

How much of this will actually be accomplished by Israel remains to be determined. As long as there is no alternative deal that Trump would accept to end the war, the Americans will continue to provide political cover for Israel, as they have done until now.  The United States has adopted the Israeli blame narrative for which side is to be held accountable for continuing the war—Hamas. It will also use its veto power or its threat to veto to guarantee that the UN Security Council is ineffective in pressuring Israel to end its war on Gaza. 

What Hamas Should Do

While Hamas have informed me that they want to end the war—and have included significant concessions to that goal—they nonetheless failed to present their own initiative to the Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Instead, they claim that the mediators have pushed them to accept a partial deal because that is what Israel and the United States are willing to accept. For some inexplicable reason, Hamas has not stood firm on outright ending the war, even though they have said that they are willing to release all of the Israeli hostages in 24-48 hours and have publicly agreed to give up governing Gaza in favor of a Palestinian technocratic civilian government that they would not be part of.  

Because Israel has failed to respond to the deal accepted by Hamas, I have advised Hamas to draft a comprehensive end-of-war deal and to hand it in writing to Qatari Prime Minister Al Thani. I also suggested that they stop seeing Netanyahu and Israel as the ‘other side’ at the negotiating table. Netanyahu does not want to end the war. Instead, Hamas needs to imagine that they are sitting across the table from Trump and ask themselves what the U.S. president wants and how best they can deliver.

First and foremost, Trump wants to see a new non-Hamas Palestinian government working in Gaza and supported by Egypt and Qatar. This is essential so that he can debunk Israel’s claim (which had him convinced until now) that if it leaves Gaza, Hamas remains in power. 

Second, Hamas needs to say that with the implementation of the end-of-war deal, it will release all of the Israeli hostages—those still alive and those who died in captivity.

They can say that when the Israeli withdrawal is complete, the last hostages will be released. If Israel wants the 60 days of ceasefire first then, fine, Hamas accepts that and Israel will have 60 days to leave Gaza. Hamas, I have been told  by a member of their negotiating team, will accept an Israeli no-entry security zone along the Gaza-Israel border, with no Israeli soldiers inside of Gaza. 

I have also been told by a member of the Hamas team that they agree to an international inspection mechanism at the Rafah crossing. They also expect a reasonable deal on the release of Palestinian prisoners and hostages from Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas demands a massive increase of food supplies, medical aid, fuel, generators, and more, to be managed by international organizations in Gaza and not by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (that should be shut down). 

Hamas should deliver their plan to the Qataris and the Egyptians and publish it in Western media. Hamas should immediately begin to provide real food and medical care for the 20 living Israeli hostages and film them being cared for. This care should continue until they are released. They need to do this because this is the right thing to do according to Islamic law and because it will bring Trump to the side of ending the war. 

Until Hamas produces a written initiative to the mediators, the Israeli-U.S. claim that Hamas wishes to continue fighting will remain the dominating narrative of what is happening in Gaza. 

Israeli Impunity

In the meantime, it must be acknowledged that Netanyahu and his government are immune to public pressure in Israel. They have a strong base and a majority in the Knesset, and they perceive any protest against the government as the actions of the home-grown anti-Israel (it is really anti-Netanyahu—not anti-Israel) leftist traitors who support Hamas and Israel’s other enemies. 

Israel also continues to enjoy overwhelming impunity internationally. While the international community is obligated by international law to do everything in their power to prevent genocide, they are not doing that, and as such they are complicit in the genocide taking place in Gaza. There is growing global criticism against Israel, but it will take significantly more pressure to produce any real impact. Recognizing the State of Palestine (which should have been done decades ago) and cancelling the visa of a right-wing fanatic Israeli minister to Australia is not enough. 

Every country in the world with relations with Israel needs to immediately impose conditional sanctions on Israel, to be lifted when Israel ends the war and withdraws from Gaza. That is the most important thing right now—getting the war in Gaza to end. Afterward, we can discuss what needs to be done to end the Israeli occupation, create peace, and implement a fair two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

At the United Nations General Assembly scheduled for September 2025, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada plan to formally recognize Palestine as a state—a move they announced this past July. Of the four, France is the only one that appears to have committed to taking this step unconditionally. Australia, the UK and Canada, on the other hand, have announced only a possible, conditional recognition. Some have heralded these moves as important steps toward revising the moribund two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly given the fact that France and the UK are permanent members of the UN Security Council. Others, however,  have decried these announcements as ‘too little, too late’.

In defending its decision, the French government described it as “a call to all the peoples and countries of the world. Add your contribution to the edifice of peace. Join in the irreversible momentum that we have started…”. 

At this critical juncture, it is important to remember that a majority of the world’s peoples and countries—more than 145 states—have already made this call. In fact, history shows us that post-colonial leaders and nations were among the earliest and most steadfast voices in support of a just and durable solution to this seemingly ceaseless tragedy. In this context, France’s acknowledgment that depriving a people of their right to self-determination “inevitably leads to resentment, violence and war” is welcome, albeit somewhat belated. Remembering the historical context of this moment helps us understand the links between the Palestinian quest for self-determination and a long history of anti-colonial and anti-racism struggles.  

In a 2024 article published in The Cairo Review, I discussed India as an early voice of reason on the Israel-Palestine issue. In June 1947, even before India had itself ceased to be a British colony, Jawaharlal Nehru, who then became the country’s first prime minister, wrote a letter to Albert Einstein where he condemned the actions and policies of Nazi Germany, repudiated fascism, and expressed “the deepest sympathy for the great sufferings of the Jewish people”. At the same time, Nehru highlighted the sufferings of Palestinians, and warned that attempting to subjugate them would “not lead to a settlement, but rather to the continuation of the conflict”.  His warnings went unheeded by the powerful Western countries of the time. 

As more countries gained independence from European colonial rule, they, too, viewed a just resolution to the Palestinian question as being a central imperative of a more equitable, post-colonial world order. The 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, where delegations of 29 countries of Asia and Africa met, included in its final communique the following statement: 

“In view of the existing tension in the Middle East, caused by the situation in Palestine and of the danger of that tension to world peace, the Asian-African Conference declared its support of the rights of the Arab people of Palestine and called for the implementation of the United Nations Resolutions on Palestine and the achievement of the peaceful settlement of the Palestine question.”

The Bandung Conference laid the foundation for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which regularly issued statements in support of Palestine in global forums. The Organization for African Unity (OAU), which became the African Union or AU in 1999, also frequently spoke up for Palestine and often drew comparisons between the oppressive policies of the South African and Israeli regimes. (Both Israel and the United States long supported South Africa’s apartheid regime—a point that did not escape the notice of Global South countries). 

After Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declared Palestine as an independent state in 1988, a number of countries in Asia and Africa recognized Palestine as a state, as did Cuba and Nicaragua. In 2011, several Latin American countries, including Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador, also extended this recognition. Sweden became the first Western European country to recognize Palestine as a state in 2014, followed by a handful of others, including Slovenia, Spain, Ireland, and Norway, in recent years. 

The Crime of Apartheid

Since 1994, South Africa has emerged as a particularly steadfast supporter of  Palestine and a critic of Israel’s oppressive policies. South Africa’s anti-apartheid activists have long seen intersections between the oppression they faced at the hands of the white majority government and the struggles of European Jews against fascism and racial bigotry; they have also drawn attention to the parallels between Israel and the racist South African regime that they fought against. Consequently, one of the first acts of the post-apartheid South African government was the recognition of Palestine in 1995. In 2002, Archbishop Desmond Tutu published an article titled Apartheid in the Holy Land. In it, he described the similarities between South Africa’s apartheid regime and Israel’s policies. Speaking at the 2014 Presbyterian General Assembly Biennial Meeting,  Archbishop Tutu reiterated his views, delivered with the same moral clarity that had made him a global voice of hope:

“The sustainability of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people has always been dependent on its ability to deliver justice to the Palestinians. I know firsthand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed…. The stubbornness of Israel’s leaders in wanting to hold onto and settling [settle] land that is not theirs can only lead to tragedy for both peoples. For the sake of them both as God’s cherished, the strong witness of the two overtures is the only peaceful route left in the cause of justice and ultimate reconciliation. My prayers today are with…the peoples of the Holy Land in Israel and Palestine.” 

In 2006, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter published Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a book based on his extensive travels in and knowledge of the region. He argued that apartheid is an “accurate description of the forced separation within the West Bank of Israelis from Palestinians and the total domination and oppression of Palestinians by the dominant Israeli military”. He hoped that the book would generate more awareness and debate about the situation in Israel and Palestine. Today, following the early warnings of Archbishop Tutu and President Carter, numerous voices in the international human rights community have brought attention to Israel’s practice of apartheid—a recognition brought about by South Africa’s historical experience. 

The Apartheid Convention, adopted by the UNGA in 1973, specifically established apartheid as a crime in the eyes of the international community. Subsequently, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) affirmed apartheid as a crime against humanity.  In an exhaustive 2021 report, Human Rights Watch provided evidence to show that Palestinians have been “dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity”; and that, in some cases, “these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution”. Importantly, the report does not compare Israel to South Africa under apartheid. Rather, it outlines Israeli actions that cross the threshold of apartheid, as it is defined in international law. Similar conclusions were reached by Amnesty International in its 2022 report, which runs over 200 pages long,  as well as by the Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem. United Nations officials, including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, have also backed up these allegations in their reports and statements. 

An Inflection Point: What Comes Next?

Today, we are at yet another inflection point. To the crime of apartheid must now be added the crime of genocide. South Africa remains the first country to have called attention to Israel’s commission of both of these crimes against humanity. Other Global South countries have also long supported Palestine, but have been unable to change the ground realities in the region. Amid the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel, we might ask: what is new about France, the UK, Australia, and Canada now contemplating recognition of Palestinian state. What tangible difference could it make?

On the one hand, these gestures, while symbolic, show that the Israeli state’s actions, decisions, and words are no longer acceptable to the global community—even among its historical allies. This loss of international legitimacy should give the government of Israel pause. Yet, at the same time, it is the Global South that has long demonstrated that it is possible to extend solidarity to the Palestinian people while also respecting the historical forces that have shaped Israel into a state that has the same rights and responsibilities as others.

The following words of Nelson Mandela, spoken in 1997, remain as true today as they did then.

“The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine to a state of their own…Yet we would be less than human if we did so….the pursuit of human fraternity and equality – irrespective of race or religion – should stand at the centre of our peaceful endeavours. The choice is not between freedom and justice, on the one hand, and their opposite, on the other. Peace and prosperity; tranquillity and security are only possible if these are enjoyed by all without discrimination….we know too well that [South Africa’s] freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world… security for any nation is not abstract; neither is it exclusive. It depends on the security of others; it depends on mutual respect and trust. ..Thus, in extending our hands across the miles to the people of Palestine, we do so in the full knowledge that we are part of a humanity that is at one…”

It is difficult to predict what will unfold at the UNGA meetings next month. It is possible—though not inevitable—that Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and Canada will formally recognize Palestine. This may not substantively change Palestine’s current UN status as an observer state; recognition of an independent and sovereign Palestine would automatically imply full member status at the UN. The United States, with its veto power in the Security Council, will not agree to recognizing Palestinian statehood. It remains unclear how these moves by Western countries will stop Israel’s ongoing assaults on Palestine, or ensure the safe return of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. 

What is certain, however, is that a majority of UN members at this year’s UNGA will express their opposition to Israel’s subjugation of the Palestinian people, as they have repeatedly done in previous sessions. 

It is unlikely, however, that the Israeli government will be swayed by these demands, at least for now. At the same time, it is not tenable for Israel to continue to remain obstinate in the face of growing global approbation of its actions, including among its closest friends. Just as sustained international pressure on South Africa’s government helped end the apartheid regime there, so too must global public opinion continue to apply pressure on principal actors involved in the Israel-Palestine quagmire. This includes calling out the governments of both the U.S. and Israel, as well as demanding accountability from Hamas and other regional actors. 

As we witness multiple atrocities unfold daily, many among us see few reasons for hope that Israel and Palestine can, in fact, co-exist in the manner envisaged by Archbishop Tutu. Yet, a solution that offers justice, equity, and accountability remains, as always, the only viable solution. This knowledge is not new, but perhaps the will to convert that knowledge into reality has yet to be found. Heading the wisdom and moral clarity of leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, and others can provide a path forward– for all of us who live in this global comity of nations and peoples. 

On November 15, 1988, a profound silence fell over Nuseirat, a refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip. Most residents confined themselves to their homes. My family and some neighbors were packed into our small living room. The streets of the Gaza refugee camp, rarely this desolate without an official Israeli military curfew, were empty. The reason for the quiet anticipation was simple: Yasser Arafat was expected to declare the birth of a Palestinian state at the close of the 19th Palestinian National Council (PNC).

The historic moment arrived when Arafat, flanked by the Palestinian leadership’s top brass in Algiers, declared: “The Palestine National Council hereby declares, in the Name of God and on behalf of the Palestinian Arab people, the establishment of the State of Palestine in the land of Palestine with its capital at Jerusalem.”

Immediately, my mom began to ululate, her cries of joy punctuated by tears. My father fought his own tears but ultimately succumbed to weeping as neighbors began chanting “Allahu Akbar”—God is Great—a powerful chorus that echoed across every part of the camp.

Their joy came after a year of the First Intifada, a year of relentless sacrifice. Thousands of youths were killed, wounded, or had their bones deliberately broken by the Israeli army in a brutal attempt to crush the widespread popular revolt. For Palestinians, the Algiers Declaration was the culmination of their collective suffering, their perpetual confinement during military curfews, the mass unemployment, and the indescribable fear of Israel’s military retribution.

That moment of euphoria was short-lived, however. Israeli violence intensified, and the political horizon for Palestine became a series of what Palestinian intellectuals and historians now call ‘symbolic victories’. These gestures, while celebrated, rarely translated into any tangible change in the lives of ordinary Palestinians.

The idea of a Palestinian state is ancient, rooted in Palestine’s long history as an administrative entity under various empires for millennia. However, the concept of a Palestinian nation-state is relatively new, emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much like most nations today.

Betraying its supposed mandate in Palestine from the League of Nations in the 1920s, Britain violently suppressed Palestinian national aspirations. Instead, it focused exclusively on creating a state for European Jewish settlers. The 1917 Balfour Declaration pledged a “national home for the Jewish people”, while callously reducing the indigenous Palestinian Arab, Muslim, and Christian population to “non-Jewish communities”.

This event and those that followed defined the modern Palestinian struggle. A Palestinian state became the ultimate defense against Zionist settler colonialism, a project sustained by Britain and later the United States and other Western powers. This historical context explains the deep emotional reaction to the Algiers Declaration—a declaration meant to counter Balfour. The tears shed were not for a mere political entity with defined borders. They were for an escape from the systemic erasure of a people, an erasure perpetrated by Israel and its Western allies.

The Algiers Declaration, however, created a separate historical track, disconnected from the popular struggle of the Palestinians. After the Oslo Accords, even Western powers began to champion the idea of a Palestinian state. But their motive wasn’t a response to erasure; it was a political tool. The state became a ‘carrot’ dangled before the Palestinian leadership to secure their cooperation in the so-called “peace process”. This process came with a predictable script of ‘moderation’, painful but necessary compromises, and a commitment to cracking down on Palestinian resistance. The message was clear: prove you are a worthy peace partner.

On the ground, the situation continued to deteriorate, unfolding in a separate political dimension untouched by these symbolic victories.

In 2011, Palestine became a full member of the UN culture agency, UNESCO, an act that provoked U.S. fury and led to it cutting funds to the organization. In 2012, the UN General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine’s status to a non-member observer state. Each time such an event occurred, the Palestinian leadership attempted to use it to renew its legitimacy among ordinary Palestinians. These people were caught between the Palestinian Authority’s symbolic victories and upbeat rhetoric on the one hand, and the harsh reality of Israel’s ever-expanding settler colonialism and military occupation on the other.

When Sweden became the first Western European country to recognize Palestine in 2014, the symbolism was immense. By then, 134 countries had already recognized Palestine, but Sweden’s move was different. It suggested that the West, which had birthed Israel and funded its existence and war crimes, might be changing course. The Swedish position was largely understood as a betrayal of the century-old understanding that the West must blindly follow the diktats of the Zionist movement.

Yet, little action followed. That is, until May 2024, when Spain, Ireland, Norway, and Slovenia added their voices to the European recognition of Palestine. These recognitions came seven months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza. They were correctly understood as part of a burgeoning global solidarity with the Palestinian people and a direct response to Israel’s attempt to quash Palestinian political aspirations and its openly championed plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

The positions of these four countries can be seen as a genuine effort to challenge Israel’s discourse of erasure. They have been some of Israel’s fiercest critics. While Irish-Palestinian solidarity is rooted in a shared history of colonial oppression, Norway has been particularly outspoken against Israeli war crimes and military occupation for years, even before the current genocide.

Though Spain has been more supportive of Palestinians than, for example, Germany or Britain, its position during the war has become exponentially stronger, far exceeding any expected threshold of solidarity from a Western European country. For example, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez was among the first European leaders to publicly condemn Israel’s genocide in Gaza, stating in November 2023, “The indiscriminate killing of civilians, including thousands of children, is completely unacceptable”. His government has also taken concrete actions, such as suspending arms sales to Israel and supporting the International Criminal Court’s investigation into war crimes, a stance reiterated by Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares.

These positions must be distinguished from the later stances of France, Britain, and Germany. Last June, France announced its intention to recognize the state of Palestine, only to postpone the recognition, possibly to coordinate with other countries, including Britain.

Britain, for its part, declared its intention to recognize Palestine in September 2025, a position echoed by other European nations. Italy, always cautious and aligned with Washington, hesitated. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stated: “I am very much in favor of the state of Palestine, but I am not in favor of recognizing it prior to establishing it.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced in New York that the UK intends to recognize Palestine. However, the statement clarified that this recognition would not proceed if Israel agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza and commits to bilateral negotiations for a two-state solution. Essentially, the UK’s recognition of Palestine is conditional on Israel’s actions.

Other conditions were openly stated or implied: certain Palestinian groups, like Hamas, must have no role in politics, and any future state must be demilitarized.

While all these recognitions can be classified as symbolic victories, the entire effort cannot be dismissed as futile. Several general points must be made:

First, the recognitions by Ireland and Spain must be analyzed differently from the potential ones by Britain and France. The former are motivated in part by genuine solidarity with Palestinians. The latter, arguably, are desperate attempts to salvage liberal Zionism and the entire Western political framework in the Middle East from the political extremism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ilk.

Second, it is crucial to remember that 144 countries already recognize the state of Palestine. Most of these nations are from the Global South. Their solidarity and support for Palestinian rights to self-determination are not insignificant or inconsequential compared to the West’s.

Third, a clear distinction must be made between how Palestinians see Palestine and how Western powers use the concept. For Palestinians, a homeland is the ultimate defense against settler colonialism and erasure. For the West, recognition has historically served as a leverage used to manipulate the Palestinian leadership into adhering to its agenda in the Middle East.

Fourth, recognizing Palestine, while a welcome symbolic acknowledgment of Palestinian rights, must not overshadow the struggle for a just conclusion to the Israeli occupation and apartheid. It must not distract from the urgent need to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza and hold Israeli war criminals accountable.

Fifth, the recognition of the Palestinian nation was acquired at a very high price: the collective sacrifices of Palestinians, especially in Gaza, and the global solidarity such sacrifices have inspired. Neither France nor Britain, nor even Spain, would have dared to defy U.S. policy with free recognition of Palestine if not for the global solidarity born from the powerful steadfastness and resistance of the Palestinian people.

While the two tracks—symbolic victory and everyday struggle—persist, the future may finally merge them. For this to happen, two critical issues must be addressed. In Palestine, a national unity based on inclusion and Palestinian priorities must replace the ongoing attempts to exclude large segments of society and consolidate power in the hands of unelected, corrupt elites. Internationally, these recognitions should not be presented as a favor to Palestinians, conditioned on their good behavior. Instead, they must be understood as a right rooted in international law and historical truth. For this to materialize, these recognitions must be followed by accountability and genuine pressure to force Israel to adhere to international law.

Ultimately, the recognition of Palestine should not be framed as a ‘solution’ but as an acknowledgment of the Palestinian people’s rights and aspirations. These recognitions must not be used to manipulate the Palestinian leadership into more concessions or to distract from the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Gaza is not holding its collective breath for British and French recognition. A people enduring famine and genocide will not shed tears of joy over these symbolic gestures. However, one must acknowledge, even hesitantly, that if these recognitions are a victory, it is a victory for the Palestinian people themselves. Their unwavering sumoud—steadfastness—has proven far more consequential than the stifling politics of the Oslo Accords and the empty negotiations of the Palestinian Authority.