On the question of a "pathway" to an Arab state in the land, the new Trump-Netanyahu plan for Gaza appears to repeat Netanyahu's 2009 Bar-Ilan move: embracing the idea in a way that makes its realization impossible.
In their previous Trump-Netanyahu plan, known as the 2020 "Deal of the Century," Netanyahu led Trump into a similar bear hug modeled on the Bar-Ilan speech: an initial application of Israeli law to parts of the territory, followed only later by a limited and reduced "minus Arab state" in the remaining areas.
The Bar-Ilan speech once sparked unfounded hope and equally unfounded fear. At the time, the late president Shimon Peres and former defense minister Ehud Barak praised the "brave speech," not understanding what Netanyahu was actually doing. From the other side of the political spectrum, many settlers in Judea and Samaria have remained suspicious of Netanyahu because of that speech to this day. Now, with the second Trump-Netanyahu plan, that same misunderstanding returns. We hear doves murmuring with hope at the revival of the "two-state" idea, while hawks stiffen with suspicion.
How did Netanyahu arrive at the "minus state" formula? In his first term (1996 to 1999), he opposed the idea of "two states" composed of an Arab state alongside a "state of all its citizens" that would gradually lose its Jewish character. But he ultimately lost the political battle, was defeated in the election and made way for two of his rivals, Barak and Olmert, who revived the fixation with "two states." A decade later, in 2009, Netanyahu cautiously set out (to prevent diplomatic damage to Israel) to slowly bury the dangerous idea that Peres and Rabin had bequeathed to the entire "international community" through the Oslo process as the only way to achieve "peace in the Middle East."
Netanyahu's strategy then was to expose the bluff. The entire Arab and Muslim world, not only the "Palestinians," seeks to establish an Arab state in the land as a means of destroying Israel from the river to the sea. Israel therefore placed on the hypothetical road to such a state conditions that would thwart the destructive potential embedded in the idea, conditions the Arab side would never accept. These included explicit Arab recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, strict demilitarization of the future Arab entity, the resettlement of the perpetual "refugees" outside Israel's borders, and limits on population movements from the Middle East into the Arab state.
Under these conditions it would be a "minus state," as Netanyahu explained. Since these conditions, in his view, prevent any ability to destroy the Jewish state, he believed the Arabs would never adopt them. And indeed, they have rejected them to this day, holding fast to their hope of eliminating Israel.
In the "Deal of the Century" crafted by Trump and Netanyahu, that same diplomatic structure reappeared, this time with territorial conditions already difficult for the Arabs from the outset: early application of Israeli law in the Jordan Valley and the settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria. In the second Trump-Netanyahu plan, now approved by the UN Security Council, the conditions required to open a pathway to an Arab state in the Land of Israel are similarly difficult for the Arabs, yet they make sense in light of the atrocities of October 7 and now carry the stamp of Security Council legitimacy. These conditions include the disarmament of the Hamas terrorist organization, the elimination of all its political power and the destruction of its tunnel network, otherwise the Israel Defense Forces will return and do so by force. They also include an international custodial regime that will conduct de-Nazification in the Gaza Strip as a prerequisite for reconstruction.
It is reasonable to assume that the "pathway to statehood" will later include conditions similar to Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan conditions. It may even be preceded by applying Israeli law to parts of the territory. One can therefore understand why Netanyahu supports the Security Council resolution. It ratifies the very tactic he and Trump devised together.
Netanyahu now accepts the "pathway to statehood" because the wording may allow the Arab side tt embrace the language of "two states" while essentially living without it, as Israelis continue to settle in the territories. It leaves the Arabs with their anti-Zionist hope, but without any practical horizon for achieving it, and in this way may allow them to go along with the Trump-Netanyahu plans. Time will tell whether the two leaders' tactics and strategy succeed.
