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It has been decades since the international community sent a decisive message of unity and clarity on the need to resolve the question of Palestine through the two-state solution. Co-hosted by ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ and France, a conference at the UN headquarters in New York and attended by delegates from no less than 125 countries issued such a message this week.
The final communique presented a comprehensive and unanimous approach to ending the war in Gaza, establishing tools to protect the Palestinian people while rejecting unilateral changes to the demography and geography of the Occupied Territories. But most importantly, it underlined that the only just and viable resolution to the conflict is through ending the occupation and implementing the two-state solution.
The international conference, boycotted by the US and Israel, was a collective response by a majority of members of the UN’s General Assembly to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, its declared intention to carry out ethnic cleansing through the forced displacement of Palestinians and its plan to annex Palestinian territories. The final communique was anchored in international law and UN resolutions, as well as on the public positions of an overwhelming majority of states regarding the two-state solution.
While Israel’s immediate rejection of the conference’s message and intentions can be understood in the context of the policies of the country’s most radical government in history, it is the position of the US that is both disappointing and puzzling. For decades, successive American administrations have had a monopoly over the workings of the so-called Middle East peace process. That process, which began with the Madrid Conference in 1991 and culminated with the signing of the Oslo Accords, failed to deliver on its initial goal: a final status settlement of the conflict.
America’s exclusive sponsorship of the peace process and negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, which ended with President Barack Obama’s first term, was corrupted by Washington’s grim failure as an honest broker. The US did nothing to hold Israel accountable for its aggressive policy of building and expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank. The US stood aside as a far-right Israeli government unleashed a wave of settler terrorism against Palestinians.
It did nothing when Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Oslo was dead and that the Palestinian Authority must be disbanded. It did nothing when Netanyahu declared on more than one occasion his intention to annex the West Bank and bury the hopes of Palestinian statehood for good.
President Donald Trump’s first term offered little to the Palestinians. During his second term, Israel has caused the most horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while massacring civilians and carrying out their ethnic cleansing.
Netanyahu used the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack as an excuse to speed up the liquidation of the Palestine question. He offered nothing to the Palestinians as Israeli extremists roamed the West Bank, killing and injuring native inhabitants while carrying out a campaign of state-sponsored terror.
But by carrying out wholesale war crimes in Gaza, Netanyahu has caused Israel great harm in the international arena. The world can no longer stomach the horrific scenes coming out of the Gaza carnage. Public opinion has shifted against Israel and weekly protests put pressure on Western leaders to take a stand.
This is when Riyadh and Paris decided to end the current stalemate. ÂÜÀòÊÓƵ made it clear that the lack of a just solution to the Palestine issue was the root cause of regional instability. Netanyahu and his far-right partners have no answer to the nagging question: what to do with the Palestinians? Oct. 7 was a milestone that brought agony to Israel and a second Nakba to the Palestinians. For both people not to go through another Oct. 7, a just settlement must be implemented.
Israeli officials will use subterfuge, hubris and threats to debunk calls for Palestinian statehood. They will claim that France and the UK — both of which plan to recognize Palestinian statehood in September — are only rewarding Hamas and hampering an end to the war. They will join the more than 140 countries that have already done so. But Palestinians, more than 12 million of them around the world, have earned their right to self-determination. The only assurance of Israel’s security is a Palestinian state next to it, living in peace and harmony.
The New York conference was a moment of awakening across the globe. This is a blow to Netanyahu and his extremist partners. But they are still in a position to do harm. Netanyahu has so far rejected any permanent end to the Gaza war. He is still banking on US support to help him extend the bloodbath in the hope of driving millions of Gazans out of the war-torn enclave.
To keep his coalition alive, he could go as far as to implement a recently adopted Knesset resolution to annex most of the West Bank. He could also pull out of Oslo and disband the PA. But he could only do so if he knew that the US would have his back. All such illegal acts will only deepen Israel’s political isolation and may create an international backlash of sanctions.

By carrying out wholesale war crimes in Gaza, Netanyahu has caused Israel great harm in the international arena.

Osama Al-Sharif

A few weeks ago, Netanyahu looked at the region and proudly announced that Israel had created a new Middle East. He had humbled Hezbollah, helped bring the Assad regime down and dealt a painful blow, with America’s assistance, to Iran’s nuclear program. But despite all these critical geopolitical achievements, his war on the Palestinians has not been won. Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and use of mass starvation as a weapon have failed to fulfill the fundamental goals of the war, while triggering an unprecedented wave of anti-Israel sentiment across the world. The fact that Britain, of all countries, is now ready to recognize Palestinian statehood is a symbolic form of delayed justice.
Netanyahu is taking Israel into a dark place from which it may never return. The Saudi-French initiative is already creating momentum that promises to get stronger by the day because of the terrible choices that Israel and the US are making. While Palestinians suffer and are forced to pay a heavy price, leaving decent people around the world angry and supportive, Israel is now isolated and vindictive.
But the choice at the end of the day is Israel’s. It can choose to live in peace with the Palestinians and ensure an end to decades of enmity, or it can allow zealots and radicals to push it into a corner. That would be the wrong choice.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010