Trump's Gaza Plan Could Force Netanyahu to Make a Stand on Palestinian Statehood
A UN Security Council resolution alone is not enough to change the situation on the ground. However, the resolution that passed on Monday, expressing support for U.S. President Donald Trump's plan for Gaza and the establishment of a "Board of Peace" to govern the Strip, and also authorizing countries to establish an International Stabilization Force that will be subordinate to the board, does signify two points of no return: First, Israel will not be able to return to fighting in Gaza without severely damaging its relations with the Trump administration, the only remaining international support for the Netanyahu government. Second, the world does not intend to give up on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and simply let it "take its course."
At an Israeli-Palestinian meeting organized by peace activists Gershon Baskin and Samer Sinijlawi, which took place on the outskirts of Jericho last week, Eran Etzion, a former deputy national security adviser and head of policy planning in the Foreign Ministry, said that not since the UN General Assembly's adoption of the partition plan on November 29, 1947, has there been so much international involvement in Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
Ezion sees promise in international bodies' involvement in the conflict. The hopelessly optimistic among us might draw a line spanning decades: Perhaps what failed in 1947 – the establishment of two independent states, side by side, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – will happen as a result of the Security Council's resolution from November 17, 2025.
The notion of a Palestinian state may be heresy in today's Israel – for a variety of reasons, some of them entirely rational and others imaginary – but the world clearly considers it a necessity. A Western diplomat told Haaretz that Israeli officials made a strategic error when they scorned the Saudi-French initiative for months. According to him, several Israeli representatives responsible for foreign affairs and security expressed indifference or even ignorance about the process when asked about it, and missed the significant shift in the Saudi attitude toward a Palestinian state during the war in Gaza.
The diplomat's impression is that if on the eve of the war and even during its first year, the Saudis were willing to settle for very little in regard to the two-state solution, over time their position hardened, and Israeli officials failed to notice. Another point that was missed in Israel, the diplomat said, is that the weakening of the Iranian axis and of Iran itself actually reduced Saudi Arabia's motivation to normalize relations with Israel. Riyadh may have needed Israel as a counterweight to a strong Iran, but now it is less dependent on Jerusalem, the diplomat argues.
Judging by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's English-language announcement, posted on his official X account as well as that of the Foreign Ministry, it appears that even if he long turned a blind eye to regional and international processes, he now understands very well that the game has changed. "Israel extends its hand in peace and prosperity to all of our neighbors and calls on them to normalize relations with Israel and join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region," the prime minister wrote in a statement welcoming the Security Council resolution, which is expected to further restrict Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip.
It's possible, however, that another sentence in Netanyahu's statement holds an even more significant message: "In cooperation with the United States and other countries signed on President Trump's plan, we expect to receive all of the deceased hostageswith no delay." If we recall for a moment that just last month, Netanyahu forwent the dubious pleasure of attending the Sharm el-Sheikh summit on Gaza without even mentioning its host, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, who took the trouble of inviting him, and thanking only Trump for the invitation, we can appreciate the significant change in tone. "Other countries signed on President Trump's plan" include Turkey and Qatar. No more disdain or disregard from Netanyahu, no more open hostility, but a request for assistance.
Netanyahu's statement defiantly skipped over the issue of a Palestinian state, which is officially mentioned in both the Trump plan and the UN resolution. There is radio silence from the Prime Minister's Office regarding the price he is willing (or unwilling) to pay for any progress toward the long-awaited normalization with Saudi Arabia, to which he claims to be extending a hand. The only message the public heard from Netanyahu on the matter this week was his public promise that his opposition to a Palestinian state "has not changed one bit."
However, there is a clear logical contradiction here: Netanyahu's public support for the Trump plan and the UN Security Council resolution is not a "yes, but." When the prime minister stood alongside Trump in the White House in September as the president announced his 20-point plan, Netanyahu noted his opposition to a Palestinian state. Now he didn't add any reservations, but rather simply skipped over the issue. That constitutes a clear, absolute "yes." Since the government and its head are not providing information about this to journalists, all the public can do is to guess whether there is a de facto "but" concealed in this omission, while what is visible is "yes."
Netanyahu is known as a master of stalling, but it seems that this time, under unprecedented international pressure, he will struggle to reconcile the absolute yes to Trump with the absolute no to a Palestinian state that he's broadcasting to the members of his "fully right" government and the confused Israeli public. It seems that the Security Council resolution paving the way for the implementation of the Trump plan will push him to make a decision.