Years before the Gaza war and months after, the World has repeatedly called for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian State with the borders of the year 1948, living side by side with the Israeli State. Later, this came to be to be known as the “Two-State Solution” – a theoretical political model that would supposedly end the long and fierce war between Palestinians and Israelis. Despite the official support of many countries to this model, it has never seen light, so far.
Since its establishment, Israel has never truly believed in the right of Palestinians to have their own independent state. This can be linked to various reasons. First and through “Realistic Approach”, Israel does not see itself pressured or in need to accept such an option as it has one of the strongest armies in the world, armed with nuclear bombs and enjoys superior military support from the US, the UK, and others. In other words, the massive difference between Israeli and Palestinian military capabilities does not really offer much to the later when it comes to serious political negotiations.
In addition, Israel seems to be good in using the current regional status-quo for pushing away from a “Two-State Solution”. Historically, Arab nations used to be the main supporters of Palestinians in their fight to achieve an independent state, however, this reality has steadily changed over the years as more and more Arab nations has been normalizing political and diplomatic relations with Israel. First it was Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), then Morocco joined, and lately it was Sudan, UAE and Bahrain (2020).
With time, the more Arabs normalize relations with Israel the less possible it is for Tel Aviv to seriously consider negotiating a “Two-State Solution”. Tel Aviv sees its influence and diplomacy developing in the region without the need to consider the legitimate Palestinian right in establishing an independent state. Moreover, the most feared Arab nation -Egypt- is no more an enemy of Israel and in “Real Politics” Tel Aviv does not fear any solid Egyptian support to the Palestinian resistance, neither in Gaza nor West Bank, a direct support that would give the Palestinian armed groups an equal status to the Israeli military force in battle and therefore push Israelis to seriously consider the option of a “Two-State Solution”.
In general, Israeli politicians deeply fear a scenario of an “Independent Palestinian State”. Such a scenario would probably create further complications for Israelis as they have to retreat from many illegal settlements in West Bank, they have to share districts of the holy city of Jerusalem with the new Palestinian State, they also have to remove all types of embargo imposed on Gaza and its people.
Moreover, a Palestinian State means having its own army, government, security agencies and even border guards, thus, a possible Israeli aggression against the “New Arab State” will automatically be considered an aggression against a sovereign independent country – a development which would make it possible for other Arab nations to interfere in the war, or directly support the “Official Palestinian Army” with arms and logistics.
Beside all that, Israel fears the most a future scenario where the “New Arab State” grows fast and strong so it becomes resourceful and capable enough to declare a “War of Liberty” to retrieve all Palestinian lands Israel occupied after the year of 1948. Such a possible war would be legally justified in case negotiations failed, as the UN announced these Arabic lands illegally annexed by Israel. Moreover, such a Palestinian move would probably push Syria and Lebanon to join the fight against Israel as they still have occupied lands to this very day.
In other words, Tel Aviv knows very well that giving any initial concessions -towards the “Two-State Solution”- would open a whole bunch of unwanted scenarios that eventually would weaken its “iron grip” over the land of Palestine and would force it to officially lose control of all the Arabic lands it occupied during the past 80 years. As a result, Israel will do all it can to avoid the “Two-State” Solution and seemingly it is ready to occupy the whole West Bank after Gaza but not to submit or even discuss such an international and Arabic demand.
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