An Intellectually Bankrupt White House Resurrects the ‘Two-State Solution’ From the Trash Bin

The Biden White House is attempting to resurrect the moribund idea of a two-state solution inside Israel by dangling the possibility of official recognition by Saudi Arabia as a reward.

As inducements to recognize Israel, the White House is offering Riyadh a more formal defense relationship with Washington, assistance in acquiring civil nuclear power and a renewed push for a Palestinian state—a package that U.S. officials say they are in the final stages of negotiating.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Saudis might “might accept verbal assurances from Israel that it would engage in new talks on Palestinian statehood to secure the other parts of the deal of more interest to Riyadh.”

For President Biden the gambit offers the chance of a significant diplomatic breakthrough in the middle of a presidential-campaign year, one that would expand the Abraham Accords that his Republican opponent Donald Trump sealed when he was in office. The accords led to the normalization of relations between Israel and the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco. 

Let’s stop and review the bidding.

First, the “two-state solution” is a failed concept that has been kicked about since UN Resolution 242 was passed in November 1974. While it looks good on paper, it effectively gives the Palestinians a veto over any possible solution. President Trump’s signal achievement was recognizing this and cutting the Gordian Knot by saying the Palestinians could go hang for all he cared. It was this realpolitik that showed the Palestinians where they fit in on the food chain that led to the Abraham Accords. Resurrecting this non-starter is a way for Biden to destroy Trump’s legacy that every day stands in silent condemnation of the utter dog’s breakfast that Biden and Jake Sullivan have made of the Middle East.

Second, the deals between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco were made possible because the Palestinians were cut out of the loop, and the new strategic relationship was based on the acknowledgment that Iran was a threat to everyone in the region. Again, this is in direct opposition to the policy pursued by Obama and Biden, who sought to woo Iran away from terrorism by allowing it to have nuclear weapons and throw its weight about the region. The idea that the Saudis will let a Palestinian state stand in the way of attaining their goals is ludicrous. If they are willing to deal with a Palestinian state, they are willing to deal without it.

Third, this is not the same security environment that existed in the Middle East before October 7. The brutal attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 has taken Palestinian statehood off the table. Not only has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu come out against a mini terror state inside Israel’s borders, but the Israeli parliament has come to the same conclusion. Sixty-five percent of Israelis oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.

This gambit by Biden’s national security cabal is not foreign policy; it is domestic politics by a failing president in an election year. It is aimed at shoring up Biden’s cratering support among American Jews by seeming to help Israel. It is meant to stop the hemorrhaging of support from pro-Hamas Americans by bringing the “two-state solution” back from the dead. And it is designed to kill off one of the most successful American diplomatic ventures of the last half century and replace it with something that can’t work because it never could.