When the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of Palestinian statehood in September 2025, with only 10 against and 12 abstentions, it appeared that the diplomatic balance had tilted toward a Palestinian state. Yet nothing of substance followed – no borders of the Palestinian state were recognized as an example.
This gap between rhetorical solidarity and actual policy is the starting point for a more sobering Also to be considered:: in practice, the project of creating an independent State of Palestine is on indefinite hold. A status quo of continuing Palestinian autonomy on the West Bank and eventual international supervision of Gaza is the most likely endgame of the war launched by Hamas in October 2023.
Several trends underlie this Also to be considered:: the abraham Accords, IsraelS rightward shift, the weakening of Palestine’s patrons, and finaly the radicalization by Hamas of Palestinian narratives, which are opposed by international law and even Islamic jurisprudence.
The Abraham Accords and the Reordering of Priorities
The Palestinian question is no longer the organizing principle of Middle Eastern diplomacy. The Abraham accords - normalization agreements between Israel and Muslim-majority states – have inaugurated a different logic.
For the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Kosovo and Kazakhstan, relations with Israel promise access to advanced technology, security cooperation against Iran, investment flows, and closer ties with Washington. These regimes are acutely aware that their populations sympathize with the Palestinians; they therefore pay a rhetorical price for continued engagement with Israel.
For Israel’s neighbors with long-established peace treaties – Egypt and Jordan – the Gaza war has not led to changes in their priorities. Despite the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, neither Egypt nor Jordan opened its frontiers to a large-scale influx of refugees.Their reluctance is partly rooted in history. Jordan, in particular, remembers the near-civil war of 1970, when the PLO challenged the hashemite monarchy. Both governments fear that importing a large population of traumatized Gazans could result in a radicalized politics and armed networks that they cannot fully control.
Nevertheless,they have chosen to manage that domestic discontent rather than mortgage their strategic interests to the fate of the Palestinian cause. This reflects a classic realist calculation: state survival, regime security, and material gains take precedence over ideological solidarity. In liberal internationalist terms, it also signals a preference for incremental economic and diplomatic integration over maximalist demands for a “just solution” as a precondition for normalization. The Palestinian issue has not disappeared from official communiqués, but it has been compartmentalized. The implicit message: we support your rights, but we will not sacrifice our own national projects to secure them.
As more Muslim-majority states quietly move along this path, the leverage that the “Arab position” once held diminishes.Israel is less isolated, less dependent on Palestinian acquiescence for regional acceptance, and thus less susceptible to pressure to concede statehood.
Israel’s Rightward Shift
The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack caused a major shift in Israeli public attitudes towards a palestinian state. Israelis saw not only the mass killings of Israeli civilians but also widespread support for this attack among Palestinians on the West Bank.
The views of rightwing Israeli leaders such as Itamar Ben-Gvir were strengthened. They see the conflict as an existential zero-sum contest in which the Palestinians seek to replace Jewish sovereignty “from the river to the sea.” In this worldview, palestinian national aspirations are not a partner for compromise but a threat to be neutralized. In the Israeli political center, which in prior times has supported a two-state compromise, support for negotiations has collapsed.
These positions are anchored in deep historical trauma. The Holocaust has imprinted a narrative of “survival at
