Neither Victory nor Liberation: After Three Years of War, We Need a Palestinian State Side by Side With Israel
Beyond all the narratives and all the historic score-settling, human life is the most precious thing of all: people are more important than land, and this land is already saturated with too much blood
After three years of continuous bloodshed, the overall picture of the whirlwind that has visited the Middle East is beginning to come clear. What began at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict turned into a regional war with direct involvement of the United States and indirect involvement of China and Russia. It culminated in a crisis with global ramifications that, based on various estimates, cost the world economy around $2.2 trillion.
All this makes clear just how important the Palestinian issue continues to be to Israel's main story. And its influence also extends far beyond Israel's borders.
The following are 10 insights from the war. All of them lead to the conclusion that there will be no peace, stability or security for the Middle East without a just solution to the Palestinian issue.
1. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's life's work has been the attempt to bypass the Palestinian issue, as is clear from his book "A Place Among the Nations." He therefore worked to destroy the Oslo Accords, signed the Abraham Accords, and stood at the UN podium two weeks before Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023 and showed a map of the Middle East that contained no mention of the Palestinians.
But in an irony of history, the most prominent mark left by his time in office is actually the constant presence of the Palestinian issue. The man who tried to bypass it discovered that it may be possible to postpone addressing historical questions, but it's impossible to make them disappear.
2. Netanyahu and the right spent years pushing the doctrine of "managing the conflict," which also won support from the leaders of our weak opposition, on the assumption that it was possible to suffice with doing constant maintenance of the existing situation. But in the end, reality proved that the doctrine of managing the conflict has collapsed.
3. The war also put an end to theories that advocated winning the conflict, whether through "total victory" by the Israelis or "total liberation" (of Israel as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip) by the Palestinians. The October 7 massacre and the ensuing war of annihilation in the Gaza Strip, despite the lack of symmetry between an occupied people and the occupying power, were both unprecedented peaks of violence and destruction. For that very reason, it is now time to recognize the limits of force and the existential need to find a political solution.
4. The outcome of this war was totally different from the outcome of previous wars. During the 1948 War of Independence, the Palestinian people experienced a Nakba, whereas the vast majority of Israeli Jews felt great joy. During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Palestinians and other Arab nations suffered a severe humiliation, whereas the vast majority of Israeli Jews felt pride.
But this war was completely different. It ended with both peoples bleeding, exhausted and fearful. And both are looking toward the future – the near future and the distant future – with deep uncertainty.
5. For the Zionist left, the foundational event of the last 30 years was the Oslo Accords. But for the Israeli right, the foundational event was the October 7 attack and the war that followed it. This was an extremely long, expensive and destructive war in which an unprecedented amount of force was used. Yet even this war didn't bring Israel security.
For years, the right's accusation against the left has been that negotiating with the Palestinians didn't bring security. Even if the right refuses to admit this, it is now clear that the right's ideology, which offered nothing but occupation and perpetual war, also didn't bring security – not even after an extremely long, expensive and painful war.
6. Following Israel's unilateral pullout in 2005, Gaza was largely erased from Israelis' consciousness. But the October 7 massacre and the ensuing war of annihilation returned it to center stage and reminded us that some 7.5 million Palestinians live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – roughly similar to the number of Jews living there. Now, after all the plans for population transfer have collapsed, Israel is facing a difficult choice – either full apartheid, a single state of all its citizens or a two-state solution.
7. Three key countries in the Middle East are vying for regional influence – Israel, Turkey and Iran. The Palestinian issue is at the heart of this competition. Israel's connection to it is inherent. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned support for the Palestinians into one of the sources of Turkey's legitimacy and influence in region. And Iran and its allies have placed the conflict with Israel at the heart of their regional worldview.
The Arab world still lacks a common diplomatic goal. But in recent years, Saudi Arabia has been leading a clear policy of conditioning normalization with Israel on the establishment of a Palestinian state in the framework of a two-state solution. This policy has won widespread international support, as reflected at the Saudi-French conference on a two-state solution that took place in July 2025.
8. The war of annihilation in Gaza wrought a major change in international public opinion. After most of the world expressed solidarity with Israel following Hamas' attack on October 7, a gradual change began and intensified as the war continued. According to various polls, roughly 75 percent of Americans and 85 percent of Europeans now identify with the Palestinians, their right to live in dignity and their demand for an end to the occupation.
This is an unprecedented change. Even U.S. Vice President JD Vance said last week that "You're a country of nine million people. You can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have." He added that Israel continues to exist thanks to American arms that are funded by the American taxpayer – an unusual comment that attests to the growing disgust with the perpetual war even in key circles of the Republican Party. This, too, is unprecedented.
9. Israel's security doctrine rests to a large extent on the concept of deterrence. But Israel's deterrence was significantly eroded on October 7 and continued to be eroded during the first months of the war. Israel managed to rehabilitate its status to some extent starting in the second half of 2024, but the recent war with Iran has eroded its deterrence once again.
As of June 2026, Israel's deterrence is the weakest it has been since 1967. That is evidence of the magnitude of the shock Israel's security doctrine has suffered.
10. Logic dictates that the more convenient the occupation becomes, the less of an incentive Israel has to end it. But in recent years, the occupation has become very painful and expensive for Israel. Its direct toll numbers in the tens of thousands – including the dead, the wounded, the bereaved families and the orphans. And that's on top of the economic crisis, the government's judicial overhaul and the rise of religious Zionism and Kahanism which flourish in the world of the occupation and the settlements.
The occupation was always costly for the Palestinians. But it has now become a heavy burden on Israelis, Israel and the entire region as well.
In 1938, Shaul Tchernichovsky wrote, "See oh land how wasteful we have been." In 1981, Emile Habibi said at a meeting hosted by the magazine Al-Carmel with two other giants of Palestinian literature and poetry – Mahmoud Darwish and Elias Khoury – that the thing that pained him most was the price the Palestinians were paying in human life at a time when the Palestinian people still hadn't been able to exercise its right to self-determination.
The blood of all the victims, Palestinian and Israeli, cries out from the ground. Beyond all the disputes, all the narratives and all the historic score-settling, human life is the most precious thing of all, and both peoples have continued to waste it for more than 100 years. People are more important than land, and this land is already saturated with too much blood.
Consequently, we need to strive for a diplomatic solution, put an end to the occupation and respect the national rights of both of the nations living here. And the only possible solution that can ensure justice and security for both peoples is the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel. Nothing less, and nothing more.
Ayman Odeh is a member of Knesset and chairman of the Hadash-Ta'al party.