From its prenatal days, the Jewish state has looked for ways to coexist peacefully with the Arab population of the Jewish homeland. As it declared its independence, nascent Israel reached out to its local and foreign Arab neighbors in peace.
At the conclusion of each of its wars and intifadas, Israel initiated peace processes with its foes. Israel successfully reached peace agreements with two of its biggest enemies, Egypt and Jordan, and over the past decade signed normalization deals with four Arab states. A fundamental value of Judaism and Zionism, and a central interest of the State of Israel, is peace.
You wouldn’t be mistaken if you thought you were living through an absurd version of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Groundhog Day earlier this month. Countries couldn’t find a microphone fast enough to say they were going to recognize a Palestinian state, and the United Nations held a closed-door, seemingly clandestine summit on the two-state solution. These unilateral pronouncements that exclude Israel are counterproductive and would better serve the interests of peace if they included Israel.
In the mid-1990s, the world was falling head over heels in wild optimism that the Oslo Accords were going to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the decade ended, there was a new wellspring of hope with the Camp David Summit. Former US president George W. Bush rekindled the dream of peace in the 2000s with the first official endorsement of a two-state solution. Prime Minister Netanyahu closed off the first decade of the new millennium by declaring his support.
With a Palestinian terrorist intifada, multiple wars in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority officially incentivizing its people to commit terrorist attacks against Israelis, and with thousands of Palestinians streaming across the Israeli border to murder, rape, and kidnap Israelis on October 7, 2023, it seemed like the idea of a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a two-state solution had died a slow but final death.
In a Pew Research Center survey conducted between February and March of 2025, only 21% of Israelis thought Israel and a Palestinian state could coexist peacefully, the lowest share since 2013. In a similar Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research study from July 2024, 40% of Palestinians supported a two-state solution, up from 33% in 2022. Support among Palestinians for a two-state solution was higher in Gaza, 47%, than in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), where support was at 35%. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Which is why people familiar with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were surprised to find France, Canada, and England announce they would recognize a Palestinian state. With the Palestinian Authority at its weakest point ever, Hamas actively fighting Israel in Gaza, and no local support for a two-state solution, it seems like the strangest of times to announce support for a Palestinian state. Without any realistic opportunity for a Palestinian state to come to fruition, what led these nations to make these announcements?
An even stronger sense of déjà vu came at the United Nations earlier this month. As the Associated Press reported, “After decades of inaction and frozen negotiations, the issue of an independent Palestinian state living in peace with Israel returned to the spotlight at a high-level UN conference spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia.”
The conference was boycotted by the United States and Israel. Seemingly living in a different reality from Israelis and Palestinians who clearly oppose a two-state solution, French UN Ambassador Jérôme Bonnafont said: “We say to those who are hostile to Israel, the way to peace is certainly not to deny the right of existence to Israel.
“This is the way to perpetual war, and the real way to defend the Palestinians is to give them a state, and the only way to give them a state is a two-state solution, and we have demonstrated concretely that this solution exists and is feasible.”
Palestinian support for terrorism has eroded Israelis' trust in peace
THE MOST fundamental impediment to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today isn’t the war in Gaza, settlement building, the right-wing Israeli government, or even Palestinian demands that eight million Arabs from around the world move to Israel. Palestinian support for, incentivization of, and active terrorism against Israelis has eroded Israeli trust in the Palestinian ability to stick to a peace plan. The Israeli peace camp has all but withered and died, and even Israelis against the war in Gaza are no longer calling for a two-state solution.
Not only does it seem the world is being forced to endure a terrible version of Groundhog Day but also that nations are making the same mistakes that led to the death of the peace process and the October 7, 2023, Simchat Torah massacre.
All too often, nations, pundits, and advocates prioritize ideology over pragmatism in their policies. While this approach can give the sense of moving in the right direction, it actually sets back chances of progress and makes a situation worse instead of better.
A dangerous cycle has occurred in the past one hundred years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: violence, an attempt to end the violence by raising hopes of peace, and the doubling of the violence continuum. When nations announce steps to bring about an end to the conflict, like recognizing a Palestinian state or hosting conferences on a two-state solution, Palestinian hopes are raised that their circumstances might change. When Palestinian actions and policies don’t change, chances of progress are stymied.
As the false hopes of progress come to a sad end, history has proven that Palestinian violence and terrorism return in higher than previously seen rates. These false hopes deadlock any chance of progress.
Israel has always been, is, and will forever be interested in a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Insisting on promoting ideas that history has proven do not work will never bring peace to the region. Substituting ideology for pragmatism in this region by announcing support for policies that don’t have the support of the people most affected by the ideas is a recipe for disastrous violence.
When Egypt, Israel, and the United States decided to take practical steps together, a fifty-year peace was born. It is time for today’s world leaders to once again implement the same pragmatic thinking that brought a half-century of peace.
The writer is a Zionist educator at institutions around the world. He recently published his book Zionism Today.