Trump prepares to ditch two-state solution

President Trump seems set to ditch the creation of a Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan (two-state solution) when he meets Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House this week.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce has declined to confirm that the Trump administration supports a “two-state solution” – adding: 

“President Trump is realistic about the current state of affairs. Clearly, Gaza is an uninhabitable place. It needs to be rebuilt with the help of Arab partners.”

Bruce was summarising what Trump himself had stated on 4 February:

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job. Do something different. Just can't go back. If you go back, it's going to end up the same way it has for a hundred years."

Any return to the two-state solution - including Gaza - proposed by Trump in his 2020 Deal of the Century (maps below) - is dead and buried after warfare involving the United States, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Gaza, Hamas and Hezbollah for the last 640 days.

The Biden-endorsed two-state solution – surreptitiously  slipped into United Nations Security Council Resolution 2735 drafted by the Biden administration - is also headed for the diplomatic graveyard after being adopted 14-0 on 10 June 2024 by the Security Council:

“Reiterat[ing] its unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State solution where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders, consistent with international law and relevant UN resolutions, and in this regard stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority;”

Yet a solution is desperately needed right now to end more than 100 years of unresolved conflict between Arabs and Jews that each group is unhappy with - but each group can live with.

Both groups have been made painfully aware that Iran is prepared to unleash its long-range ballistic missiles to indiscriminately kill and wound both Arab and Jewish civilians and demolish their properties and that Iran is determined to continue doing so with those missiles fitted with nuclear warheads. 

One solution has remained untested since 1967  – the division of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) between Israel and Jordan – the two successor states to the 1922 League of Nations Mandate - already between them exercising sovereignty in 95% of former Palestine.

The parameters for the successful conclusion of negotiations between Israel and Jordan would include:

• Redrawing the international border between Israel and Jordan to include within Jordan the majority of Arabs currently living in Judea and Samaria - not requiring them to move from their current homes and businesses

• Demilitarization of – and total Israeli security control over - all the newly-acquired territory of Jordan located west of the Jordan River

• A majority of Arab League member States approving the solution and joining the Abraham Accords or individually signing treaties with Israel – as Jordan and Egypt have already done.

The framework for achieving these objectives already exists in:

• Trump’s 2020 peace plan and 

• The 2020 Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution emanating in Saudi Arabia with the tacit approval of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. 

A secret meeting held with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman on 3 July could be the prelude to seeing Trump adopting this framework this week.