One reason is that the Netanyahu government is committed to continuing the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank and moving to absorb the occupied territories into what supporters of that project call “Eretz Israel,” aka, “from the river to the sea.” That goal is officially endorsed by Netanyahu’s Likud party and his governmental program. But in places like the US and Germany, the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is often called an endorsement of genocide against Jews.
The hope for a “two-state solution” still has diplomatic currency. But it’s hard to see it at this point as anything but a zombie concept. Israel controls the occupied territories and there is very little domestic constituency for allowing a Palestinian state. Israel rules over its own official territory and the occupied territories with a strong apartheid system. That can continue indefinitely. Or it can be replaced by a democratic state including both those who are currently Israelis and Palestinians.
Despite the triumphalism of Donald Trump’s bizarre reality-TV speech speech to the Israeli Knesset this week, the grand vision of a peaceful Middle East is still a long way off. (1)
Kyle Kulinski gives an irreverent and scathing description of Trump’s Knesset speech: (2)
Netanyahu’s commitment to continuing war also means that the neighborhood isn’t a friendly one, as Zvi Bar’el recently described in Haaretz: (3)
Bar’el writes:
[H]ope is not yet lost. On May 15, 2008, on Israel's 60th Independence Day, U.S. President George W. Bush gave a rousing, optimistic address to the Knesset in which he fantasized about the "new" Middle East.Visions are necessary. Concrete arrangements for peace are infinitely better.
"Israel will be celebrating its 120th anniversary [2068] as one of the world's great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved – a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror. From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies... Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations... Al Qaida and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause."
A wonderful vision; we just have to pass the time until 2068. [my emphasis]
Notes:
(1) Scott Lucas analyses President Trump's peace deal as 'nothing more than a cynical move'. Times Radio YouTube channel 10/13/2025. <https://youtu.be/cxHtM9cttgE?si=e9iJ0ssLyJwd5N6T> (Accessed: 2025-14-10).
(2) Breaking: Trump Protested in Israel: Begs for Bibi Pardon; Brags About War Crimes. Secular Talk YouTube channel 10/13/2025. <https://youtu.be/aUyJHn2akkM?si=5EAdF-2E56FdKNTx> (Accessed: 2025-14-10).
(3) Bar’el, Zvi (2025): How Netanyahu's Mideast 'Map of Opportunities' Is Turning Into Israel's Map of Threats Two Years After October 7. Haaretz 10/06/2025. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-10-06/ty-article-magazine/.premium/how-netanyahus-mideast-map-of-opportunities-is-turning-into-israels-map-of-threats/00000199-b91a-d9d3-ab9b-fbdb05bc0000?gift=4942310067fd43d0b130ab794cd880e5> (Accessed: 2025-14-10).
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