The Illusion of Safety: How Israeli Security Arrangements Undermine Lasting Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Introduction: Israel’s Security Foundations   

Israel’s security doctrine rests on three conceptual foundations. The first is a defensive military strategy designed to deliver a decisive victory upon the presumed failure of deterrence. Prior to the 1967 war, this was the sole foundation of Israel’s security approach. The concept still exists, but it has been complicated by the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the expansion of Jewish-Israeli Settlements, and the diminution of external security threats following peace agreements with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994). The following two foundations now overshadow it.

The second pillar is the preservation of a Jewish state through the domination of the non-Jewish land and population between Jordan and the Mediterranean. What started as a military occupation of Palestinian territories has developed into a de facto annexation and apartheid. This has provoked and sustained a violent Palestinian resistance since 2000, which Rafaella Del Sarto concludes, has led to a general feeling of threat and insecurity among Israeli Jews. In pursuit of identity-based politics and territorial expansion, successive Israeli governments have promoted the sense of existential threat to the Jewish-Israeli public and implemented brutal military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Del Sarto expects that Israel’s normalization of relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco (2020) is unlikely to break this vicious cycle of fear and brutality and may well intensify it in relation to Iran and the Palestinians.[1] The horrific ongoing war in Gaza, the military campaign in the West Bank, the Israeli–Iranian conflict, and missile exchanges between Israel and the Houthis in Yemen since October 2023 affirm her conclusion.

The third foundation is a corollary of the second. As fears around identity and safety increased—reaching an apotheosis on October 7, 2023—security has increasingly been framed as a matter of Jewish supremacy. This view shapes current Israeli strategy in which Israel operates not only against military targets in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon but utilizes the mass killing of civilians, population expulsion, and systemic infrastructure destruction, alongside dehumanization and genocidal rhetoric.[2]

While successive American administrations have remained committed to Israel’s defense, to what extent will they continue to accept Israel’s security concepts and methods? I suggest that this question is best addressed not by examining military cooperation or U.S. arms transfers to Israel, but by analyzing the most recent security arrangements proposed by the U.S. in regards to a two-state agreement and by considering which alternative frameworks have been excluded from consideration.

Security Arrangements Suggested by Secretary Kerry Team

While unimaginable now, security was largely seen as a technical issue during the Camp David summit in 2000 and the Annapolis talks of 2007-2008. At the time, the status of Jerusalem and the 1948 refugees were thought to be the most significant hurdles to an agreement. Members of Secretary of State Kerry’s team working towards a two-state solution in 2013-2014 recall realizing with some surprise that security had climbed to the top of Israel’s list of fundamental demands.[3]

For Prime Minister Netanyahu, security demands functioned not as a path towards resolution, but as a means to preclude a Palestinian state or any significant political process leading to one. Kerry’s naïve assumption, I would argue, was that Netanyahu saw security as part of conflict resolution. Instead, Netanyahu introduced a policy of conflict management and a propaganda campaign to mold Israeli public opinion. Promoted was the message that, in exchange for Prime Minister Sharon’s evacuation of settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel only received Hamas rockets. And suppressed were the harsh conditions Israel imposed on more than two million people and the fact that Gaza was an open-air prison.[4]

In 2016, two of the security experts from Kerry’s team, Ilan Goldenberg and Kris Bauman, reflected on the interrelation of security, borders, and sovereignty and that security should never be an isolated demand. Instead, they presented their own vision of a security system for a two-state solution. Their proposal intended to bridge the contradiction between the security arrangements demanded by Israel and the Palestinian rejection of those arrangements that violate their full sovereignty. Israel will get security arrangements that violate Palestinian sovereignty in exchange for transferring more territory to the Palestinians than they were originally ready to offer. In essence, their plan was predicated on the assumption that reduced Palestinian sovereignty, regardless of its territorial size, creates more security for Israel. But I would suggest the opposite: full Palestinian sovereignty over the 1967 occupied territories with maximum openness and mutual connections ensures Israel’s security. This conclusion, I argue, remains viable even after Hamas’s October 7thattack and Israel’s horrific retaliation.

Goldenberg and Bauman proposed a four-layer security arrangement: the first would operate within the State focusing on counterterrorism and other threats to Israel; the second would be established along the border between Israel and Palestine to prevent smuggling and cross-border attacks; a third layer would be deployed in the maritime, air space, and electromagnetic sphere; and finally, there will be a regional security pact. Crucially, the plan also stipulates that in extreme cases, Israel will retain the right to defend itself independently and unilaterally enter Palestine. The definition of what constitutes an extreme case will be purely determined by Israel, in consultation with the United States. Given that the definition is based almost exclusively on Israeli discretion, such cases would likely be frequent.

To prevent the West Bank from following the trajectory of Gaza after the 2005 withdrawal, Israeli forces will operate inside Palestine as part of the first layer of security. Their visibility in Palestinian streets will be minimal in order to convey the feeling that a meaningful change has occurred and that the occupation has come to an end.

Israel will withdraw from each Palestinian area separately according to a multi-stage plan conditioned on Palestinian compliance with predefined security objectives. The objectives as well as the measures for meeting them will be jointly defined by Israeli, Palestinian, and U.S. representatives. In the event of disagreements, Israel will enjoy veto power over the joint resolution and the Palestinians will be called to improve their performance accordingly. If disagreements persist, the issue will be forwarded to higher political leadership. Goldenberg and Bauman estimate that the transition stage will take between 10 to 15 years, during which Israel will retain full security authority. It should be noted that during the negotiations with Kerry, Netanyahu demanded that the period be extended to forty years.

Under this plan, the future Palestinian state would be demilitarized, maintaining only a police force with an elite counterterrorism unit. This unit would receive extensive legal powers and its capabilities would be enhanced with American assistance. Joint operation command centers staffed by Israeli, Palestinian, and American officers would be established, along with a mechanism to manage operational disagreements among them.

The United States would play an active role in training, equipping, supervising and evaluating the performance of the Palestinian security forces even beyond the transitional stage. In addition, two American teams would operate in the Jordan Valley, on the Palestinian side of the border. One would occupy a 2-kilometer-wide strip in the Jordan Valley while the other would supervise the passage of goods and people from Jordan to Palestine in compliance with Israeli demands. The list of border crossers and their personal and biometric data would be shared among Israel, Palestine, and Jordan and transferred simultaneously to a joint operation room and separately to each of the three countries.

The border between Israel and Palestine would be secured by a physical barrier, security zones, patrols, guards, sensors, anti-tunnel measures, and restrictions on building next to it. In practice, the border would serve as a heavily fortified wall with checkpoints for the Palestinians and as a free-flowing entry and exit point for Israelis.

In the airspace, an agreed-upon protocol would govern routine operations, But in times of emergency, the full control would be transferred to the Israeli air force. Palestinian sovereignty over the airspace would be limited to ten thousand feet, and airports would be built in Gaza and the Jordan Valley. An Israeli-controlled security perimeter would also be imposed around Gaza’s territorial waters, and the same border arrangements applied in the Jordan Valley would extend to Gaza’s port.

While Palestine’s electromagnetic infrastructure would be modernized, overall control of the electromagnetic sphere would remain in Israeli hands.

Review of the Kerry Team Proposals

These security arrangements are built around a militaristic approach. They deal exclusively with military techniques and methods of control characteristic of parties engaged in armed confrontation rather than peaceful coexistence and cooperative partnership. Indeed, as I show below, Israel is preparing for the day after fighting ends in Gaza and Lebanon not by envisioning peace, but by entrenching even more rigid security foundations—ones intended to endure beyond the current framework rather than be replaced by reconciliation or mutual trust.

Second, the proposed security arrangements rest on the presumption of perpetual threat and deep-seated skepticism. Whether citing either incompetence, ideological motivations, or an unwillingness to act against their own people the arrangements assume that Palestinian security forces cannot be trusted to prevent attacks against Israelis or operate in accordance with Israeli expectations. In their eyes, the Palestinians are a permanent threat and will remain suspects even after they sign for peace with Israel. In other words, such an agreement is not intended to establish a new political reality or a fundamentally transformed relationship. The current asymmetrical power dynamic, defined by military dominance and underscored by notions of Israeli-Jewish supremacy, will continue to shape the any future peace–thus prolonging the conditions of conflict rather than transferring them onto non-aggressive tracks.

A blatant expression of this can be found in clauses relating to the deployment of Israeli forces within Palestine, limiting Palestinian sovereignty in the air and sea spaces, and revoking their ownership of the electromagnetic sphere. Palestinian sovereignty will be crippled and limited, but as far as possible, it will not be presented as such to the Palestinian public. They will live under the illusion that they are liberated. However, it is unrealistic to expect that Palestinians would accept such a drastic curtailment of sovereignty over merely 22 percent of their historic homeland. Such an arrangement is not a foundation for peace, but a blueprint for future instability—a time bomb embedded within the structure of the “peace”. Genuine security for Israel cannot be achieved through the continued imposition of Israeli-Jewish supremacy.

Third, these arrangements rest on the assumption that Israel is a peace-loving country. Accordingly, Israeli violence against Palestinians is considered a marginal phenomenon rather than a systemic exercise of violence and state power. The war in Gaza illustrated the extent to which Israeli violence poses an existential threat to the Palestinian people. It is not only that Israel needs security and protection from Palestinian terrorism, but Palestinians must also be protected from Israel’s far greater destructive power. Despite this, Palestine is denied the right to operate security measures equal to those that Israel enjoys. The American document fails to recognize Palestine’s right to protect itself independently, even in extreme circumstances. Instead, it grants Israel sole authority to define what constitutes an ‘extreme case’. History shows, however, that Israel has repeatedly expanded the definition of such threats. In the early 1990s, a “ticking bomb” referred to a person actively en route to carry out a terrorist attack. A decade later, it had expanded to encompass any member or supporter of a terrorist organization, which under their definitions included political activists and administrators.2022, Israel had gone so far as to designate prominent Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist entities.[5] As previously discussed, during the war in Gaza, Israel pushed this logic even further.

Finally, the Goldenberg and Bauman papers reflect the consistent pro-Israel bias of U.S. administrations. Unlike the 2000 Camp David talks, which entertained the idea of deploying a multinational force along the Palestinian-Jordanian border, this document calls for an exclusively American force tasked with enforcing Israeli-defined security terms. As I will go on to show, President Trump takes this alignment even further, deepening this U.S. pro-Israel bias.

It is also worth noting the document’s significant blind spots. Chief among them is the conspicuous disregard for Jerusalem. Beyond its religious, cultural, and symbolic importance, Jerusalem is also a living, dynamic urban center of nearly one million residents. In such a densely populated and connected environment, militarized control disrupts the flow of everyday life and interferes with the people and goods on which each city depends for its prosperity. These disruptions are particularly damaging in a city that attracts millions of tourists and pilgrims each year. Moreover, physical separation prevents the development of good relations between neighboring populations that are deeply interconnected and interdependent within the urban fabric.

The proposal’s failure to engage seriously with Jerusalem is especially troubling given the impracticality of dividing the city according to the principle advanced by President Clinton in 2000—that Arab neighborhoods become part of Palestina and Jewish neighborhoods part of Israel. Anyone familiar with the city can see that implementing such a division would require mass home demolitions and population expulsion. Since 2000, Israel has actively expanded its urban settlements in East Jerusalem to prevent the realization of Clinton’s plan. In many areas, Jewish and Palestinian homes now exist side by side with no physical separation. In others, Jewish settlers have moved directly into Palestinian neighborhoods.

Any lasting agreement in Jerusalem requires divided sovereignty with open or minimally restricted border crossings. Unlike the Oslo process, which deferred the city’s status to the final stages of negotiation, future talks should begin with Jerusalem.[6] The city is not only a symbol, it is a microcosm of the conflict’s core issues: borders, settlements, refugees, sovereignty, economy, sacred sites, and security.

A second major omission in the document is the absence of any economic or civil dimension in the proposed security framework. Its militarized lens ignores the role of trade, tourism, and cross-border labor as foundations for shared interest and mutual stability. It similarly neglects the cultural and psychological aspects of peacebuilding, like cultural exchange, mutual recognition of historical narratives, and the creation of civil society mechanisms for reconciliation. In short, security cannot be reduced to force or deterrence alone. It is forged through cooperation in the mundane activities and everyday contracts of public life.

Security in President Trump’s 2020 Plan

It seems almost impossible that a second-term Trump administration would endorse the Goldberg and Bauman plan that was drafted under a Democratic administration. However, a comparison between the Democratic plan and Trump’s 2020 first-term peace proposal reveals a striking convergence on security-related matters, despite differences elsewhere.[7]7Both approaches envision a demilitarized Palestinian state and reject the prospect of full Palestinian sovereignty. Instead, they prioritize Israel’s security demands, at the expense of Palestinian self-determination.

In both frameworks, Israel retains extensive control over Palestine’s external borders, maintains broad supervision of Palestinian territory, and directly manages Palestinian airspace and electromagnetic infrastructure. Trump’s plan goes even further, extending Israeli sovereignty into Palestinian territorial waters. While the plans differ concerning the scale, duration, and visibility of Israeli control, they are aligned in their underlying logic. Both agree that no Israeli settler should live under Palestinian authority. The Democratic plan therefore proposes evacuating settlers from areas not annexed to Israel. In contrast, Trump’s proposal incorporates all existing settlements into Israeli sovereignty, organizing them into a network of ethnically homogenous enclaves. To facilitate this network of settlements, Trump’s plan proposes an extensive system of bridges and tunnels connecting these enclaves, each secured by a secured border. The implementation of this plan would result in a border of almost 1,696 kilometers—nearly twice the length proposed in the Annapolis talks which served as the basis for the Democratic framework.[8] Both plans also remove the Jordan Valley from Palestinian sovereignty: Trump through outright annexation, and the Democrats by deploying American forces to monitor the area in accordance with Israeli directives. In both the Trump and Goldberg-Bauman plans, security frameworks rest on the assumption that Israeli security requires a hardened and regulated border regime to separate Israelis from Palestinians. Each plan also establishes performance-based benchmarks for Palestinian security forces. As Palestinians meet these benchmarks, Israeli military presence within Palestine would be reduced. Additionally, in both proposals, Israel centrally retains the final authority to judge whether these benchmarks have been met.

A deep contradiction lies at the heart of Trump’s proposal. While it calls for Palestinian economic prosperity, it also imposes a 1,696 km rigid border that fragments the West Bank into 43 Palestinian and 17 Israeli enclaves, True economic growth requires the freedom of movement for people and goods between ethnic enclaves. As long as security measures designed to uphold Jewish supremacy dominate the political settlement, Palestinian prosperity will remain out of reach. Israeli-controlled checkpoints stand as barriers between Palestinian areas and centers of economic activity like seaports and airports. As shown in the example of Gaza since 2007, these checkpoints can severely restrict or even outright prevent the flow of goods and people.[9] The same contradiction also exists in Trump’s plan regarding Jerusalem. While the Democratic plan largely leaves the city untouched, Trump’s proposal entails turning the wall established in 2003 into a permanent border. Under this arrangement a Palestinian capital would be limited to the few neighborhoods on the West Bank side of the wall. A terminal for Palestinian access to the city would be built to the north, deep within Palestinian territory.

At best, Trump’s plan would lead to the establishment of Palestinian Bantustans of manual laborers in Israel and to the establishment of low-tec sub-contractor industries serving the Jewish economy. At worst, it could create an opportunity for the Jewish side to exploit its superiority and annex large portions of the West Bank ushering in a wave of large-scale dispossession. A second-term Trump administration is likely to facilitate such a scenario. In Gaza, Israel has already employed genocide, starvation, and mass expulsion.[10] Under the cover of war, similar patterns are emerging in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have violently expelled several West Bank Palestinian communities, all with minimal international response. [11]

The Gaza War Impact

The two U.S. peace plans reflect not only divergent American administrations but also collaboration with different segments of the Israeli political spectrum. The Israeli partners involved in drafting the Democrats’ Annapolis document were former security officials that hoped to rescue the failing Oslo peace process to which they remained committed. They shared a militaristic Zionist ideology, believing that in order to preserve Israel’s Jewish majority and substantiate its claims of democracy, Israel should end its civil rule over the Palestinians and let them build a small state that Israel would retain military control over.

Trump’s plan, by contrast, was made in accordance with the worldview of the new Israeli elite, exemplified in the position of Netanyahu. This new elite has transformed Israel’s leading identity from classical militarist Zionism to a more overtly Jewish supremacist ideology.[12] Jewish supremacy goes beyond Zionism in its subordination of Palestinians, not only denying their territorial or military autonomy, but also denying their right to national identity.[13] The war that began in Gaza and Lebanon in October 2023, along with subsequent Israeli strikes in Iran are direct consequences of this ideological shift.

The Hamas attacks on October 7th shattered the militaristic security doctrines of both plans. Of the four pillars that Goldenberg and Bauman identify as Israel’s security foundations, three were critically compromised: the physical barrier around the Gaza Strip, the electromagnetic, air space and maritime control systems, and the regional support of Egypt and Qatar that had helped Israel to contain Hamas and manage the conflict with the Palestinians rather than seeking to solve it.

In response, Israel’s Jewish supremacist government forcefully imposed the missing first layer of direct military control. It invaded the Gaza Strip, destroyed much of its infrastructure, and killed, wounded, or expelled most of its civilians. In its brutal retaliation for Hamas’s war crimes on October 7, 2023, Israel committed war crimes of its own.the end of March 2025, Israeli forces had systematically killed over 50,100 people, injured over 113,700, rendered about 70% of Gaza’s homes uninhabitable, and displaced 1.1 million people. [14]

In preparation for the day when fighting ends, Israel created an uninhabited exposed buffer zone along the Gaza border on the Palestinian side and deployed military forces along three lateral routes: Philadelphi, Netzarim and Morag (the latter made in early April 2025).[15] Clearly Israel’s Jewish supremacy establishment interpreted the Hamas attack as an operational failure, responding by intensifying its militaristic security measures rather than replacing the failed system with a peace agreement and cooperation with elected Palestinian representatives. As the war expanded into Lebanon, Israel conditioned any agreement for a ceasefire on the creation of a security zone in southern Lebanon and the freedom to conduct military operations if Israel decides that the terms of the agreement have been violated.[16] During the ceasefire, with backing from the United States, Israel has continued to operate militarily to enforce the agreement and prevent Hezbollah from building drones.

The war in Gaza led Netanyahu to not only extend the proposed transitional period—from the 10 to 15 years recommended by American advisors to a full 40 years—but also to broaden the scope dramatically. His new vision includes a campaign to de-radicalize the Palestinian public by reshaping the education system and media infrastructure. In pursuing such a policy. Netanyahu ignores the failures of the denazification campaign in West Germany. It was not the indoctrination imposed by the victors of the war that changed the German mind, but rather the new socio-political reality forged with the involvement of former combatants and affiliates from both sides.[17]

When Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2025, cooperation between the White House and Netanyahu’s office reached a new heights. During Trump’s first term, the two administrations worked closely on the United States’ recognition of the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, and presented a plan to establish a small, fragmented Palestinian protectorate state in the West Bank. In his second term, they promoted a plan to evacuate the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip. It is worth mentioning that in the first days of the war, on October 13, 2023, the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence recommended the forcible and permanent transfer of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The Israeli Cabinet discussed this paper. [18] It seems that the transfer plan was not abandoned but merely shelved for the duration of the Biden administration. Just about a month into his second term, Trump revived the idea of transferring the Gaza Strip residents to Egypt and Jordan in a meeting with Netanyahu. “We just clean out that whole thing” he said pledging to turn the devastated territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”  [19]

Trump’s plan for the mass transfer of Gaza’s population met with strong resistance from Arab countries and for the moment he seems to have abandoned it. However, Israel’s desire to push as many Palestinians as possible out from its territory remains intact. In February 2025, Defense Minister Katz instructed the IDF to prepare a plan for the “voluntary” emigration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in line with Trump’s original plan. Shortly thereafter, Katz established a new directorate within the Defense Ministry to oversee and implement the transfer process [20]. Meanwhile, at the start of 2025, Israel launched a military operation in the West Bank modeled on its campaign in Gaza but on a smaller scale. During the operation, over forty thousand civilians were forced to leave their homes and barred from returning. [21]

Their extreme measures have gained increasing support in Israeli social media, where dehumanizing rhetoric about Palestinians is widespread. Currently, a majority of the Israeli public is in support of Trump’s transfer plan: 66% in favor and only 14% opposed. [22]  49% supported the forcible expulsion of Gaza residents while only 25% opposed it. Among coalition voters, the support rate for forcible expulsion was 78%, with only 17% in opposition. [23]

Furthermore, Tel Aviv University’s Peace Index from March 2025 found that 62% of Israeli Jews who define themselves as leftist, 72% among the center, 83% among the moderate right, and 78% among the right-wing support providing incentives to encourage Palestinians to leave Gaza voluntarily. The desire to see fewer—or no—Palestinians living in their homeland is a sentiment shared across the Israeli-Jewish political spectrum. To achieve it they prefer using soft force on sheer brutal means.[24] Obviously, those incentives are not limited to non-violent means, nor does voluntary departure exclude the current reality in the Gaza Strip—a place considered unlivable even before its near-total destruction.

Indeed, using war as a pretext to expel Palestinians from their homes and land is a long-standing Israeli strategy. Israel used this method during and after the 1948 and 1967 wars. However, the current war marks a significant development in both scale and character. First in the magnitude of the displacement is unprecedented—at least twice as large as in 1948. Second, whereas past Israeli operations were carried out covertly and remained classified as top secret, today they are unfolding in the open. For decades, documentation of the mass expulsions of 1948 remained scarce until critical historians began publishing academic studies in the late 1980s. Only then did credible evidence emerge of Israeli involvement in ethnic cleansing during and after the war. Since then, Israeli officials and advocates have sought to minimize the perceived scale of the 1948 Palestinian deportations and outlaw any public acknowledgement of them. The Nakba Law of 2011 states that any institution that commemorates the Nakba or includes its narrative in art or publications will lose the state’s funding.[25] However, in the current war, the Israeli Jewish public proudly welcomed the repetition of the 1948 method and asked to expand it. With Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip, population transfer has now been explicitly endorsed and legitimized by the US administration.

In an earlier issue of Logos,[26] I argued that the ideology of Jewish supremacy emerged in direct response to the demographic and political challenges posed by Palestinian presence. From the perspective of the Jewish supremacist regime intent on governing all of historic Palestine, survival depends on the increasingly forceful and violent assertion of Jewish dominance, since Jews now constitute, at most, half the population in that territory—possibly less. This framework offers Palestinians no prospect of equal collective existence alongside the Jewish identity, only a subordinated existence beneath it. From this point of view, the core threat is not Palestinian actions, but Palestinian being and identity.

Following the October 7th attack, not only did members of Israel’s newer elite harden their stance, but the older generation of militarist Zionists also shifted its position. According to the Institute for National Security Studies—an organization home to many members of this old guard—a fully sovereign Palestinian state is no longer feasible in the foreseeable future. Their rationale is based on the  Israeli assumption is that such a state poses a security threat. As a result, Israel intends to maintain indefinite, comprehensive security control across the West Bank, including the freedom to conduct military operations and enforce its policies at will. In exchange, Israel will let the Palestinian Authority marginally expand its limited control over 8% more of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be considered a separate territory governed by a local administration.[27] Whereas the Oslo agreements—which many militaristic Zionists initially supported—envisioned a Israeli authority as a transitional instrument, the events of October 7th have rendered that autonomy indefinite. Consequently, the distinction between Jewish supremacy and militarist Zionism has largely collapsed. Both uphold a system that combines apartheid with Jewish supremacy.

At the core of this system lies a threat-driven military doctrine that defines security as the capacity to dominate. Whether through hard power, soft coercion, or the credible threat of force, Israeli security is framed around control and subjugation. This framework inherently casts the Palestinian population as an enemy, foreclosing the prospect of a genuine peace. In contrast, an inter-human relations paradigm sees security as the product of the prevention of force. It emphasizes diplomacy, trade, economy, culture, tourism, transportation, and civil society encounters as the foundations of sustainable peace. The legal and political frameworks for such a peace can take several forms that are not necessarily mutually exclusive: open borders federation, confederation, or limited confederal arrangement.[28] In the Israeli – Palestinian context, they all share one joint foundation: collective equality and power sharing between two nations, each with its majority ethnic group, national symbols, and a distinct historical narrative. Tragically, Israeli policy remains shaped by fear, reinforcing the very conflict it seeks to suppress. In its pursuit of dominance, Israel became a victim of its own contemporary military superiority—one that fails to ensure peaceful security. With U.S. support, Israel chooses to live on its sword and operate as a fortress state, sustained by military dominance rather than a collaborative peace.

  Notes

[1] Raffaella A. Del Sarto, “Sectarian Securitization in the Middle East and the Case of Israel,” International Affairs 97, no. 3 (May 2021): 759–778,  https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab011

[2] Forensic Architecture, “A Cartography of Genocide,” in https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/acartography-of-genocide; Christiaan Treibert, Riley Mellen, and Alexander Cardia, “Israel Demolished Hundreds of Buildings in South Lebanon, Videos and Satellites Show,” The New York Times, October 30, 2024 in https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/world/middleeast/israel-lebanon-border-photos-video.html; Yuval Avraham, “`Lavender’, the AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza,” +972 Magazine, April 3, 2024 in https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/; Yuval Avraham, “Israel is Falsely Designating Gaza Areas as Empty in Order to Bomb Them,” +972 Magazine in https://www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-empty-neighborhoods-airstrikes/

[3] Ilan Goldenberg, “A Security System for the Two-State Solution” (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2016),  https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/advancing-the-dialogue-a-security-system-for-the-two-state-solution;

Kris Bauman and Ilan Goldenberg, “Symposium: A Security System for the Two-States Solution,” Fathom, Autumn 2016, https://fathomjournal.org/symposium-a-security-system-for-the-two-state-solution/https://

[4] Menachem Klein, The Shift: Israel – Palestine from Border Conflict to Ethnic Struggle, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010

[5]5 Lee, Matthew, “Israel Outlaws Palestinian Rights Groups, Alleging Terrorism,” AP News, October 22, 2021. https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-israel-terrorism-96464d7d14c3a1a0b5adb75a45aa6a5e

[6] Menachem Klein, “Jerusalem: Two Capitals and an Urban Confederation,” December 10, 2023https://www.regthink.org/en/journalposts/jerusalem-two-capitals-and-an-urban-confederation/

[7]7 Jason D. Greenblatt et al., Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, January 28, 2020), https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/peacetoprosperity/.

[8]8 Shaul Arieli, Understanding the Trump Plan: A comparative Analysis of the Trump Administration’s Peace to Prosperity Plan and the Two-State. Option (New York: Israel Policy Forum, December 2023), https://israelpolicyforum.org/understanding-the-trump-plan/.

[9]9 Gisha, Reports (Tel Aviv: Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement), https://gisha.org/en/publication_type/reports/.

[10] Lee Mordechai, Witnessing the Gaza War, March 9, 2025 https://witnessing-the-gaza-war.com/; Mike Corder, Read the Full Application Bringing Genocide Charges Against Israel at UN Top Court, Jan 3, 2024, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-the-full-application-bringing-genocide-charges-against-israel-at-un-top-court; Younis Tirawi, New Revelations Regarding the Paramedic Massacre in Rafah, April 23, 2025, https://x.com/ytirawi, https://x.com/ytirawi/status/1915010445221544283?lang=en; Suzi Hansen, “Israel’s Crime of the Century How Israel with the Help of the U.S., Broke the Foundations of the Humanitarian Law,” New York Magazine, June 16, 2025, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/israel-palestine-gaza-war-crimes-genocide.html; Meron Rappaport, “For More Israelis Calling Out War Crimes Is No Longer Taboo,” +972 Magazine, May 29, 2025, https://www.972mag.com/israelis-war-crimes-gaza-taboo/; Dahlia Scheindlin, “A Grim Poll Showed Most of the Jewish Israelis Support Expelling Gazans. It’s Brutal and It’s True,” Haaretz, June 3, 2025, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-03/ty-article/.premium/a-grim-poll-shows-most-jewish-israelis-support-expelling-gazans-its-brutal-and-true/00000197-3640-d9f1-abb7-7e742b300000?fbclid=IwY2xjawKwukxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFBalp0SXBVNGd2MTJmRUFIAR5t4DZvuAV1NASC3IUAr9Iv2-I9jLH_I6AjR7AaWH6lp8LQm9R8i2vkFQFl4A_aem_TPr3X0crxTkRrMtcNG4I7w

[11] Leila Molana-Allen, “Hardliners Violently Expel Palestinians to Expand Israeli Settlements in West Bank,” PBS NewsHour, August 21, 2024, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/hardliners-violently-expel-palestinians-to-expand-israeli-settlements-in-west-bank.

[12] Arieli, Ibid.

[13] Menachem Klein, “The War for Jewish Supremacy,” Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture”, Vol. 3, no. 3 (2024),  https://logosjournal.com/article/the-war-for-jewish-supremacy/

[14] David Gritten, “Israel’s War in Gaza: How the Death Toll Got So High,” BBC News, December 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67630489.

[15] B’Tselem, “Establishing a ‘Security Zone’ in Gaza Is a War Crime,” B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, February 21, 2024, https://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20240221_establishing_so_called_security_zone_in_gaza_is_a_war_crime; Allison Kaplan Sommer, “Explained: Philadelphi and Netzarim, the Two ‘Corridors’ Blocking a Gaza–Israel Cease-Fire,” Haaretz, April 21, 2024, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-08-21/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-two-corridors-that-are-stymieing-a-gaza-israel-deal/00000191-7500-d2f3-afdf-7dd97ce70000; Haaretz, “IDF Gearing Up to Remain in Gaza Until End of 2025—at Least: This Is What It Looks Like,” Haaretz, November 13, 2024, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-11-13/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-gearing-up-to-remain-in-gaza-until-end-of-2025-at-least-this-is-what-it-looks-like/00000193-2230-d76d-a7db-637196a00000.

[16] Jonathan Lis, “Countering Hizballah’s influence: Israel explores proposal for Lebanon cease-fire,” Haaretz October 21, 2024, in https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-21/ty-article/.premium/countering-hezbollahs-influence-israel-explores-proposal-for-lebanon-cease-fire/00000192-ae91-daee-a9fb-ee9b526a0000

[17] Lazar Berman, “Netanyahu Says Israel Will Retain Security Control of Gaza, Calls for Deradicalization of Population Like in Germany, Japan after WWII”, Times of Israel, July 24, 2024, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-says-israel-will-retain-security-control-of-gaza-calls-for-deradicalization-of-population-like-in-germany-japan-after-wwii/

[18] Yuval Abraham, “Expel All Palestinians from Gaza, Recommends Israeli Gov’t Ministry,” +972 Magazine, October 30, 2023, https://www.972mag.com/intelligence-ministry-gaza-population-transfer/.

[19]Betsy Klein and Lex Harvey, “Trump Suggests His Plan for Gaza Strip Is to ‘Clean Out the Whole Thing,’” CNN, January 26, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/26/politics/trump-clean-out-gaza/index.html; “Trump Says US Will ‘Take Over’ and ‘Own’ Gaza in Redevelopment Plan,” Al Jazeera February 5, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/5/trump-says-us-will-take-over-and-own-gaza-in-redevelopment-plan

[20] Emanuel Fabian, “Katz Announces New Panel Tasked with Advancing ‘Voluntary’ Emigration of Gazans,” The Times of Israel, February 18, 2025, https://www.timesofisrael.com/katz-announces-new-panel-tasked-with-advancing-voluntary-emigration-of-gazans/

[21]Bethan McKernan, “Israel Says West Bank Operation Will Last for a Year as It Sends Tanks to Jenin,” The Guardian, February 23, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/23/israel-west-bank-jenin-tanks

[22] Witnessing the Gaza War, March 9, 2025, https://witnessing-the-gaza-war.com/

[23]Ron Gerlitz, “A Social-Psychological Perspective on Israeli Public Opinion Regarding the Government and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, aChord, June 2025, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wIuQvjfAJsk7OQXNCOGGFZIsnPpsTV3G/view?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0L2aXmYDaWfm2w

[24] Dahlia Scheindlin, “A Grim Poll Showed Most Jewish Israelis Support Expelling Gazans. It’s Brutal and It’s True,” Haaretz, June 3, 2025. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-03/ty-article/.premium/a-grim-poll-shows-most-jewish-israelis-support-expelling-gazans-its-brutal-and-true/00000197-3640-d9f1-abb7-7e742b300000

[25] “Nakba Law” – Amendment No. 40 to the Budgets Foundations Law, Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 2011, https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/496.

[26] Klein, Ibid.

[27] Udi Dekel, “NO, to a Palestinian State or a ‘One-State’ Reality Without a Jewish Majority; YES, to the Establishment of a Palestinian Entity with Limited Sovereignty (PELS),” Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), March 25, 2025, https://www.inss.org.il/publication/palestinian-entity/.

[28] Omar M. Dajani and Limor Yehuda, “A Two-State Solution That Can Work: The Case for an Israeli–Palestinian Confederation,” Foreign Affairs, September 19, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/two-state-solution-can-work.

Author

  • Menachem Klein

    Menachem Klein is professor emeritus of Political Science at Bar Ilan University. He was an advisor to the Israeli delegation in negotiations with the PLO in 2000 and was one of the leaders of the Geneva Initiative. His most recent book is Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed.

    View all posts

Latest Issue

2025: Vol. 24, No. 1-2

Latest Issue

2025: Vol. 24, No. 1-2

Elodie Fabre: The Challenge of Tackling the Far-Right in France

Fred Block: The Path to Oligarchic Governance

Darren Barany: The Center Needs to Fall ...

Menachem Klein: The Illusion of Safety: H...

P. Adams Sitney: The Avant-Garde Film, Revisited

Joy James: Ringing bell hooks: A Brilliant Feminist Calling for Liberation

Justin Elghanayan: You Do Not Talk About the...

Robert Lacey: On Authenticity: Townes Van Zandt, Natasha Rostova, and the “Uncles”

Fred Camper: Remembering P. Adams Sitney

Daniel Heller-Roazen: A Tribute to P. Adams Sitney

Akua Nkansah-Amankra: Jonathan Swanson Jacobs’ ...

Oluwatoyin Adepoju: Exploring Yoruba Across Time and Space: Toyin Falola’s Global Yoruba

Eduardo Mendieta: Peter Gordon’s A Precarious Happiness

Jack H. Guenther: Matthew Specter’s The Atlantic Realists

Joseph Pomp: John Powers’ Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture

Hank Kennedy: David Mikics’ The Mad Files

Joseph Chuman: Hartmut Rosa’s Democracy Needs Religion

Warren Leming: Sarah Wynn Williams’ Careless People

Christine Norton: Benjamin Heim Shepard’s On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting

Maor Levitin: Matheus Romanetto’s Critique and Affirmation in Erich Fromm

Benjamin Heim Shepard: Alexei Navalny’s Patriot: A Memoir