Why is there no peace in the Middle East? Why is there no progress towards the two-state solution, the ‘obvious’ path to ending the conflict?

For Western governments, including those considered friends of Israel, and thousands of media commentators, the answer is one word: Netanyahu.

Yet in reality, it is not just Netanyahu who opposes a two-state solution – it is every major Israeli political leader, from right to left. It is the vast majority of the Israeli public.

But when a two-state solution is the ‘obvious and only route to peace’ – and Israelis want peace, pray for peace and dream of peace – why are they not supportive?

First, right now Israel is bleeding and grieving. Its people have not begun to process the trauma of the atrocities of October 7. They do not understand why the victims of such appalling and evil brutality are the ones who must make concessions.

Secondly, they wonder why it is Israel that is pressured to accept the two-state solution and not the other parties. Hamas has made its opposition to two states very clear. By word (see the Hamas charter; listen to the Hamas leaders’ speeches) and deed (see October 7) Hamas is explicit in wanting not two states, but one (which eventually will be part of a great Caliphate).

The Palestinian Authority claims to have accepted the idea of two states, but it has not once recognised that one of those states will be a Jewish one. On the contrary, by insisting on the ‘right of return’ for the descendants of refugees (a right not granted to any other population) their policy will result in one Palestinian state and one Palestinian state. Meanwhile, the PA executes those who sell land to Jews. It pays terrorists as a reward for their killing of Jews, despite repeated demands from the West for this to cease. These are not the actions of a party ready to commit to ‘two states for two peoples’.

But the principal Israeli objection to the two-state solution is the glaringly obvious but deliberately overlooked fact.

It has already happened. And Israel is now living, or dying, with the consequences.

In 2005, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, kick-started the moribund Oslo process, derailed by successive bouts of terrorism, by withdrawing every Israeli soldier and civilian from the Gaza Strip. This was a hugely controversial decision. For months Israel was torn apart by demonstrations in favour or against the ‘disengagement’. Some claimed that giving the Palestinians in the strip full authority over their own affairs, gifting them infrastructure that could be used to build their economy, was the way to peace. Others insisted that the move was too risky; taking away Israeli military oversight meant that Gaza would become a launching pad for rockets. Some foresaw a time when Gazans would cross the border and attack or even kidnap Israelis.

Yet for the sake of peace, Israel took the risk.

Within two years Hamas had taken control of the strip and realised every Israeli’s worst fears. It declared war on Israel and commenced the now familiar pattern of firing rockets into Israel’s civilian areas. Israel responded with a blockade designed to prevent weapons-building material from reaching Hamas. Even so, Hamas managed to dig a vast network of tunnels from which to operate their terror machine, and to attack soldiers on the Israeli side of the border.

And then, on October 7, the dire prophecy of invasion and kidnapping, ridiculed as a right-wing fantasy in 2005, came true.

So it is not just Netanyahu who is asking why, when the small-scale version of a Palestinian state has resulted in such a terrible disaster, the response should be to repeat the initiative on a far larger scale. Why, when the town of Sderot and the kibbutzim near the Gaza border have had to live under threat for nearly two decades, and now cannot reside in their homes until security is restored, should Jerusalem and Tel Aviv come within range of rockets launched from a Palestinian state in the West Bank? Why should those in the major population centres have to fear being murdered in their beds?

But, say Israel’s ‘friends’, this time it would be different. There would be procedures in place, international oversight, and structures to ensure peace between two states. Yet one thing that millennia of persecution culminating in the Holocaust has taught the Jewish people, is to ask the question: What will happen if those structures break down?

What will happen if Hamas use an expanded Palestinian state to continue their terrorism, on a much larger scale?

What will happen if Israeli babies are burnt and women raped?

If Israel were to respond in self defence would it be supported by the world? Or would demonstrators march in their hundreds of thousands for Israel’s annihilation ‘from the river to the sea’?

Would the International Court of Justice put the terrorist perpetrators in the dock, or arraign the victims in another political show trial?

And if, astonishingly, the United Nations Security Council were to pass a motion ensuring Israel’s security, would it be utterly ignored, like UNSCR 1701 which was intended to keep Hezbollah and its rockets away from Israel’s northern border?

Israelis are sadly confident that they know the answers.

Netanyahu’s premiership is unlikely to survive the war and the inquiry into security failures that will follow. And then the commentariat will have to find another bogeyman to blame for the lack of progress towards the blessed two-state solution. No doubt they will blame the new Prime Minister, or their coalition partners, or Israel’s ‘extreme right-wing’. But if real progress towards peace is ever to be made, then first the day must come when the Palestinians, their leadership and their supporters, will be truly committed to living in peace with the Jewish state. Though that day seems very far away, we continue to pray that it will come. Then, and only then, will there be hope for peace.