Israel’s endgame and the fading prospect of a Palestinian state
The world is focused on the famine in Gaza and the renewed military campaign by Israel’s armed forces, “Gideon’s Chariot,” which began in late May. As outside Israel political and legal debates are centered on whether the last-ditch attempt to defeat Hamas at any price could be labeled a genocide, a near-genocidal campaign, or merely a major war crime, Israeli politics has already moved past Gaza to eliminate any possibility of a Palestinian state.
The almost impossible ceasefire
Indeed, under pressure from both the Trump administration and domestic public opinion, the Netanyahu government is still pretending to negotiate a delicate ceasefire agreement with Hamas brokered by three external players (the US, Qatar and Egypt), yet even a 60-day truce seems unattainable at the moment.
The ceasefire negotiated by Trump’s envoy Witkoff centered around a phased release of hostages by Hamas and prisoners by Israel. The Israeli government declared that all hostages should be released without public ceremonies to avoid giving Hamas a platform. Hamas accepted the general approach of the deal but raised a critical issue: How can they prevent Israel from immediately relaunching the war after the 60-day truce? Indeed, the two main sticking points of the agreement lie there: there is no trust between the parties, and no external players are willing to deploy boots on the ground to Gaza to ensure the ceasefire holds even after all hostages have been returned to Israel. In fact, everyone knows that the negotiations will not result in anything more than a truce, as Hamas will never agree to disarm, and Israel will never accept Hamas’s continued presence in the Strip, with or even without an official role.
The West Bank annexation process
The problem is that, contrary to what Palestinians have always believed about this conflict, time is not on their side. Parallel to ceasefire developments, the Israeli right-wing government is moving its pawns to another chessboard. On May 30, the Knesset passed a non-binding motion to extend Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). The motion was spearheaded by Religious Zionist lawmakers and supported by a broader array of political forces, including the Likud and the opposition party, Israel Beitenu. The so-called “Eretz Israel Caucus” is an organized group of 51 Knesset members (out of 120) whose mission is “to strengthen the State of Israel’s hold” on the West Bank. Linking the current motion to the Gaza front and the traumatic memory of October 7, the proposal argues in favor of the existential nature of the current war. By doing so, it highlights the moral and security rationale tied to completely rejecting a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza: this is a view currently shared by most Israelis (with surveys showing a 58% majority viewing Jewish settlements in the region as vital to national security[1]).
The move comes in part as a reply to the campaign for recognition of a Palestinian state which is gaining traction among European states, which Israel portrays on its domestic media as a major security threat, with the Israeli government issuing multiple warnings to European countries against unilateral recognitions of a Palestinian state, hinting at potential annexations of “Area C” (the land that is already totally controlled by Israel) as a response. The same caucus is working behind closed doors to extend the so-called “Referendum Law” of 2014 to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank – a law that states that to relinquish a sovereign territory of the State of Israel, or to abrogate Israeli sovereignty on any territory, the government would be required to obtain a qualified majority of 80 Knesset members or be put to a referendum. In addition, Likud Minister Eli Cohen went so far as to declare that Israel cares more about annexing the West Bank than achieving regional peace, extending the US-sponsored Abraham Accords and achieving normalization with Saudi Arabia.
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Yet, despite numerous internal pushes from coalition members, the government has held back annexation for now. It believes that the time is not yet ripe for the announcement of such a unilateral move, especially since Israel is already under constant political attack from its Western allies over Gaza and as long as Trump is still considering the idea of a nuclear deal with Iran, currently facing significant challenges. The debate within the ruling coalition reveals a complex balancing act of messianic, nationalist and pragmatic groups within it: in this context, somewhat paradoxically, the Likud appears internally split, with some of its members appealing to the more extreme settlers, while, in this respect, the ultra-Orthodox parties play a restraining role, voicing their dissent about seizing territory in Gaza and prolonging the war, directly linked to the question of recruitment of additional Haredi soldiers.
The Arab States’ stances
The Arab League’s and the Arab states’ role so far has been largely symbolic. The “Palestine Summit” on March 4, 2025, emerged as a response to Trump’s suggestion of a sort of mass Palestinian exodus from Gaza, to which the Arab League once again opposed the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative. Yet, despite some stymied reactions from the European and Arab side, the international community is just watching in astonishment as the massacre daily unfolds in Gaza, without any serious leverage over the Israeli government.
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Although criticism of Israel’s actions remains vocal among Arab foreign ministers — including Saudi Arabia’s recent rebuke of Israel’s restrictions on Arab ministers’ visit to Ramallah — no Arab country has shown a willingness to intervene militarily in Gaza, reflecting extreme reluctance to get involved. The most Egypt and Jordan have committed to is training Palestinian police for post-war governance in Gaza and (Egypt) to rebuild – through its $53 billion plan – the Strip with international support. However, the absence of any reference to Hamas in official Arab statements suggests an unwillingness to engage directly with the key political issues, such as pushing for Hamas’ ousting from politics or fighting Hamas in Gaza outright. The same goes for the EU states, which, beyond declamatory announcements, appear even more divided within themselves than their Arab counterparts.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
A notable example is the lack of reactions to the recent ousting of UNRWA, the World Food Programme, and other UN agencies – which Israel declared public enemies – from the Gaza Strip’s humanitarian aid mission, collectively replaced by the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” a presumed American-led initiative, but actually architected by the Israeli state. A NYT inquiry revealed that already in 2023 a shady forum of government-affiliated activists (the Mikveh forum) had appropriated the creation of the GHF in their plans to reduce Hamas’s and the UN’s hold on Gaza’s civilian population, casting a shadow over the possible links between the GHF establishment and the famous “plan of the generals”[2] to cantonize Gaza and completely evacuate all the north of the Strip, including Gaza city.
Despite Ha’aretz’s investigative inquiry exposing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s (GHF) false claims of independence from the Israeli military and political establishment — GHF’s leadership includes former IDF officers and Israeli tech entrepreneurs, and has been approved by the Prime Minister’s cabinet, not the IDF leadership — the arrangement was put in place by the Israeli government quickly and smoothly.
The involvement of private U.S. security firms, such as Safe Reach Solutions – a security contractor with ties to CIA veterans and private military firms, such as Blackrock – introduced controversial elements to the management and goals of aid operations. Ultimately, GHF’s model enables Israel to control the delivery of aid, currently a daily aid flow of 60 trucks carrying basic food and household items inspected by the IDF distributed through at least four fixed humanitarian hubs, secured and managed by US private security contractors, to pre-approved Palestinian recipients verified by facial recognition technology able to collect a single package per family each week[3].
This arrangement not only facilitates a form of population containment, but it also potentially singles out aid only for clans and families that collaborate with Israel. Unsurprisingly, the first GHF CEO, Jake Wood, cited upon resignation on May 26, 2025, the impossibility of GHF acting as a neutral actor according to humanitarian principles.
Israeli public opinion
The mild passivity of the international community regarding this and other choices made by the Israeli government suggests that the strongest opposition may still come only from within the country, even if protesters calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages account for a minority.
Recent surveys reflect a public that is deeply divided, not only over the Gaza war, but also over West Bank annexation and other strategic and domestic issues. Trust in the IDF has remained stable over time, even rising to 76%, indicating robust societal support for the military despite differing views on its role in the current war[4]. Conversely, public confidence in government leadership remains very low, with only 24% expressing trust in political institutions. Some 48% of the respondents believe that the current reserve soldiers’ movement of refusal to serve in Gaza is a legitimate position, though a very close 45% consider it totally illegitimate[5]. An overall majority supports ending the war if it secures the return of all hostages, indicating widespread war-fatigue but also a drive towards a political solution. There is also significant support for Egypt’s technocratic governance plan for Gaza over both a Palestinian Authority’s takeover of the Strip’s governance and Israeli resettlement strategies.
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The most recent political polls in view of the next Israeli elections due in October 2026 show the pro-peace Yair Golan-led “Democrats” party gaining ground and projected to win 13 seats. Rallies against the government and for an end to the war are held every Shabbat, not only on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, but also in other major cities and at road junctions. Yet, the opposition camp in Israel is not homogeneous and is very fragmented. Recently, Yair Lapid, leader of Yesh Atid, rejected Golan’s appeal to merge with the center and left to build a broader electoral front against the right for mere electoral calculation (his party would be a minority force in a potential coalition, with only 8 seats). The opposition may have the numbers to form an important bloc to stop the maximalist nationalist and authoritarian trend in the country, but to do so, they must unite and present a clear plan for post-war Gaza.
Meanwhile, the vision of the Religious Zionists and settlers is quietly gaining traction. They have succeeded in framing the conflict in existential terms insisting on the trauma of October 7.
Until recently, the words of some settlers’ representatives and pundits seemed simply delirious. Yet today they may indicate the government’s design to achieve “Greater Israel”, which, in the best Israeli tradition, is gradually revealed through a policy of small steps without stirring up international public opinion. The end of the myth of a Palestinian state could be near, though it is unclear how much the Palestinians themselves and their supporters worldwide have come to realize it.
Notes:
[1] According to a survey the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) published on March 11, 2025.
[2] The plan was published in late September 2024 by the Forum of Commanders and Soldiers in the Reserves, an Israeli NGO which defines itself as a professional body with more than 1,500 army officers (https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/israel-gaza-palestine-what-generals-plan)
[3]Israeli Policy Forum report, May 2025: Israels-New-Humanitarian-Aid-Mechanism.pdf.
[4] The survey was conducted from April 21–24, 2025, by the Data Analytics Center at the Institute for National Security Studies, https://www.inss.org.il/publication/survey-april-2025/.
[5] Ibidem.
