Israel Urges United States to Stop Publicly Pushing 'Two-State Solution'

The Biden Administration still seems determined to talk about the "two-state solution," that fantastical notion that somehow Jews and "Palestinians" can live peacefully alongside one another. Israel, on the other hand, is quietly asking the United States government to please shut up about the idea.

Israeli leaders have been privately urging the Biden administration to refrain from publicly talking about the two-state solution in the fallout of Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught, four Israeli and US officials told The Times of Israel this week.
The message is not just being voiced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose resonance is more limited since Washington is convinced he has been engaged in a “politically motivated campaign” on the matter, a US official said. Other war cabinet members including Benny Gantz, President Isaac Herzog and even Opposition chairman Yair Lapid have also conveyed their discomfort with the Biden administration’s revived rhetoric regarding the need for a two-state solution since the war’s outbreak, according to two Israeli officials.
“A two-state solution after what happened on October 7 is a reward to Hamas,” said one of the Israeli officials, referencing the terror group’s shock attack, in which 1,2000 were massacred and some 240 were taken hostage in Gaza.

It's belaboring the obvious to point out that a two-state solution was, effectively, what was in place before October 7th. Israel has already given in to the demands of "land for peace," exchanging not only Gaza but also the West Bank for that peace that failed to materialize.

The elephant in the room here that the Biden Administration seems determined to ignore is that everything changed on October 7th. The "Palestinian" people were given Gaza and the West Bank; Hamas then was voted into power in Gaza and promptly started tearing up infrastructure, such as water pipes (installed by Israel) to make rockets. Those rockets were, of course, used to attack Israel.

Everything that Israel has done to work towards that "two-state solution" led up to October 7th. But the Biden Administration doesn't seem to have Israel's best interests at heart, and it's unclear what they think America has to gain by catering to Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO.)

A US official confirmed to The Times of Israel that there has indeed been a multi-front effort to convince the Biden administration to tone down the public rhetoric regarding the need for a two-state solution, but they said that Washington has no intention to budge.
“We have our own domestic politics and our global diplomatic standing to take into account,” the official says. “We’re doing a lot for Israel, and they need to understand this is something we need to do.”

It's very clear that Israel is going to have to be responsible for their security, regardless of what the United States or (emphatically) the United Nations has to say about it. And Israel has, in recent weeks, shown they are certainly up to that task.

The brutal facts are these: Israel faces a security situation most Americans cannot comprehend. They are a tiny nation, a little under 10 million people in a country spanning a little more than 8,000 square miles - a little larger than New Jersey. They are surrounded primarily by people who want to see every Israeli murdered and their country wiped off the face of the earth.

Why, then, is it in their interest, especially in the post-Oct 7th world, to cater to the demands of those same people to exchange still more "land for peace"? Especially when every promise of peace has come to naught? One can hardly blame Israel for deciding, "You know what, no, enough is enough!"

Golda Meir, in her autobiography "A Land of Our Own," said:

When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.

She was right. A lasting peace in the Middle East will require, not a two-state solution, but a massive and pervasive cultural shift. The killers in Gaza and their ilk elsewhere must be renounced, hunted down, and eliminated; but more importantly, the terroristic ideology that spawned them must be stamped out.

FLASHBACK: Read more recent RedState coverage of the Israel/Hama war and related issues at these links: