The two-state solution is internationally accepted, but it is rejected by both Hamas and the current Israeli government. Washington and Brussels are making plans for the time after Netanyahu.
The war in the Gaza Strip has been raging unabated since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel. According to some reports, 20 to 30 percent of armed fighters in the Gaza Strip have been killed since the beginning of the war. At the same time, and according to Washington's estimates, Hamas has enough ammunition to continue the fight for months.
Israel's political and military leadership tirelessly repeats that the conflict will continue until Israel's goals are achieved: security for the citizens of Israel, the destruction of Hamas and the release of the hostages. And Israel, therefore, is counting on a longer war.
A two-month ceasefire?
According to the latest media reports, Israel is trying to secure the release of the 136 hostages still held by Hamas by offering to agree to a two-month ceasefire in return. Allegedly, the Israeli representatives sent that proposal to mediators from Egypt and Qatar, reports the "Axios" portal. The author of the article is the well-known Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, who has good connections in the Israeli government.
According to that report, hostages over 60 years of age would be released first, and then Israeli soldiers and civilians under 60 years of age would come next. The plan calls for Israel and Hamas to agree on a certain number of Palestinian prisoners who would be exchanged for hostages. The specific names of each Palestinian prisoner would then be negotiated.
Demonstrations in Israel
There are also Israeli citizens who advocate an end to hostilities in the Gaza Strip. Protesters gather daily in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other Israeli cities, even in front of the house of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrators do not have in mind the suffering of civilians in Gaza, but want the Israeli hostages to be released.
In Davos, Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the atmosphere in the country as follows: "If you ask the average Israeli how he feels, at the moment no one wants to think about peace solutions. Everyone wants to know if it will be possible to promise security in the future. Everyone wants to be sure that in the future he will not be attacked in the same way from the north, south or east". Herzog added that Israel is waging a war "for the entire universe, for the free world."
It is this "free world", above all the United States and Germany, but also other European countries, that want a perspective and a solution for the time after the war. The two-state solution is currently more relevant than ever.
Brussels is thinking about a peace solution
The member states of the European Union are consulting on a new strategy for achieving peace in the Middle East, and at the center of that strategy is a two-state solution. The first man of Brussels diplomacy, Josep Borelj, said that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is a priority topic, but that the causes of the war would have to be eliminated in order to make peace.
At the meeting of Union foreign affairs ministers, Borelj presented a "comprehensive strategy" that includes a peace conference.
Ahead of Monday's (January 22nd) meeting in Brussels, he said: "We should stop talking about the peace process and start talking about a two-state solution." Borelj, however, added that it will not be easy to find a common position of all the member countries of the Union.
In recent months, this was visible in the attitudes of some states. For example, Belgium and Ireland are calling for an immediate ceasefire while Germany and Austria are pushing for humanitarian pauses, bearing in mind Israel's right to self-defense. However, it seems that all countries can come together around the peace concept with two states - Israel and Palestine. German Foreign Minister Analena Berbock said it was "the only solution".
For a number of years, the European Union has advocated this concept, which envisages the peaceful coexistence of the Palestinian state and Israel. Foreign ministers will most likely discuss the topic at the next summit in two weeks. A Brussels diplomat said that they are currently working on getting Washington to join the peace conference.
The head of Austrian diplomacy, Alexander Schallenberg, supported Borelj's initiative in principle, but warned that peace cannot be imposed and that a minimum of will is needed in the region itself. His Czech colleague Jan Lipavski reacted similarly.
Hamas and Israel oppose it
Although Brussels and Washington insist on a two-state solution, and although the first man of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has unequivocally taken that side, and Saudi Arabia supports that concept, those who would have to implement that solution completely reject it.
Hamas, which before the war completely controlled the Gaza Strip, refuses to accept the existence of the Israeli state. One of the political leaders of that terrorist organization, Khaled Mashal, who normally lives abroad, has just challenged Israel's right to exist again, demanding Palestine "from the Mediterranean to Jordan."
He has this in common with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who rejects that solution only with the opposite sign - stating that there is no place for a Palestinian state in the Middle East. And Netanyahu's coalition partners not only want to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, but also have plans for the Gaza Strip after the war.
Finance Minister Bazalel Smotrič advocates for new Jewish settlements in the area, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wants to speed up the emigration of Palestinians, calling it "voluntary migration".
Such attitudes provoke criticism on the international level.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bethel warned Netanyahu: "If Israel believes that a two-state solution is not a solution, then they are quite isolated internationally."
Distrust of the Palestinian Authority
Ultimately, the question arises as to who on the Palestinian side can lead the negotiations. The Palestinian self-government with 88-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas is extremely unpopular among its own people, who consider it incompetent and corrupt. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently stated that the Palestinian Authority must be rebuilt from the ground up. In Davos, however, he spoke in favor of the two-state concept, saying that without a Palestinian state, there will be no real integration of Israel into the Middle Eastern environment, nor security.
In any case, it remains unclear how that solution can be applied where the main actors do not want it at the moment.
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