Peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is the only solution!

Gregory Loew, Stanford Emeritus Professor, June 2025

Hamas’ horrendous attack on Israel on October 7^th, 2023, was its attempt to make a peaceful settlement in the area impossible. We can’t let it succeed. Violence on Israel and the Palestinians has not worked for years and is not the solution. Antisemitism is not the solution. Contempt for the Palestinians is not the solution. The two-state solution, long blocked by the Netanyahu government, is still the only way out of this tragedy. 

The Oslo accords of 1993 and 1995 marked a huge step toward peace in that Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) recognized their mutual rights to exist and to carry forward a peace process between them. The prospects looked promising if it hadn’t been for the assassination of PM Itzak Rabin in November 1995, and the election of PM Netanyahu in 1996. Ever since, the peace process launched by the Oslo accords has been thwarted by political maneuvers and the illegal expansion of the unbridled Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Lack of progress led to the parliamentary Hamas victory in Gaza in 2006 with its position that “Israel does not have the right to exist.” This was a complete reversal of the conditions gained by the Oslo accords.

The endless Israeli campaign that by now has killed more than 50,000 people in Gaza, must stop. What is clear is that Netanyahu will not do this unless the US shows the courage to stop supplying him arms to bomb Gaza. The most effective way Israel can combat the Hamas ideology is by restarting the peace process with the Palestinians in the West Bank. Such a  step is not easy in the current tense atmosphere, but it is the only hope for peace. For this to happen, strong pressure with sticks and carrots from the UN, the U.S. and allies must be applied on a new Israeli government and a a new Palestinian Authority to deal with the principal issues of  contention between the parties: mutual land allocations consistent with the 1967 line and UN Resolution 242, a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, the right of return  of a small number of refugees, and mutual security arrangements. Negotiations should start as early as possible, preferably in a neutral country like Switzerland. They will need a skilled full-time mediator to move the process along swiftly. Somebody like George Mitchell in Ireland/