Obstacles and Opportunities in the Pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Introduction

In a 2024 policy brief, I assessed the first three months of the Israel-Hamas war, focusing on Hamas’ strategy, Israel’s options, and the dilemmas faced by both parties and mediators. The year since has witnessed escalation, destruction, displacement, and despair; many rounds of failed negotiations; the decimation of Hamas’ leadership and military capacity; the intense polarization of Israeli society and politics; a seeming retrenchment of the Iranian “Axis of Resistance”; and now a delicate ceasefire agreement that seems under growing strain.

The latest Israel-Hamas war will likely be a turning point in the history of the conflict. What the conflict might be turning toward, however, is up in the air. As of February 2025, the ceasefire agreement announced on Jan. 15 continues to hold, with hope that negotiations over an extension as well as phases two and three will succeed and usher in an end to the war and allow for relief, recovery, reconstruction, and ultimately, a durable peace.

In December 2024, Baker Institute nonresident fellows Gilead Sher and Samih Al-Abed published a framework for negotiations toward Middle East peace, security, and normalization. Sher and Al-Abed’s document offers valuable ideas for principles, process, and implementation for an agreement to maximize outcomes for Palestinians, Israelis, and the region, as the world seeks to prevent the occurrence of wars, such as this one.

This policy brief seeks to complement Sher and Al-Abed’s framework by attending to the following:

• Historical and geopolitical landscapes surrounding the conflict.
• Issues and fragilities accumulated in the years leading up to the current war.
• Actions for actors working to advance a lasting resolution in the war’s wake.

This desire to break cycles of conflict and despair in favor of a new era of peace is shared by many. For this to be realized, decision-makers should acknowledge the challenges that contributed to the current conflict and embrace new approaches for overcoming them.

Tinderboxes and Paradoxes Shaping the Conflict’s History

Since the late 1990s, there has been a widespread sense among both the public and political leaders that resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict may be unattainable, with the parties seemingly trapped to intractability and sporadic violence — leading many to believe that a postbellum era is unlikely and that an interbellum period may persist.

Concurrently, different narratives emerged: that the region and the world were no longer prioritizing resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; that the Middle East was losing geopolitical importance; that there appeared to be no solutions to the conflict nor partners for peace; and that the other party only understood violence or would, eventually, surrender or be defeated. The resulting stasis from these conflicting narratives and assumptions has led to the tensions seen today.

It was not always this way. Over three decades ago, it seemed that peace was taking root across the Middle East. The Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 had set precedents once-thought unimaginable. The Oslo Accords — signed on the White House lawn in September 1993 — seemed to represent a clear path toward an end to the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts. By the end of the decade, multiple rounds of negotiations had led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which held presidential and legislative elections, established a presence in Gaza and parts of the West Bank, and signaled incremental progress on key issues between the parties.

In the final years of the 1990s, major gaps between the parties remained, as evidenced by the 2000 Camp David negotiations. Still, in that time, seven Arab countries — Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia — had established some form of official diplomatic relations. Despite setbacks and foot-dragging that characterized the peace efforts across the final years of the 1990s, there was reason to believe one of the world’s most complex conflicts was near a peaceful resolution.

Unfortunately, the optimism of the 1990s gave way to the past two decades of failed attempts at resolution. The collapse of the 2000 Camp David Summit froze the Oslo Accords’ interim steps to their current status, now 25 years past their intended expiration date. In that quarter century since, there have been three formal rounds of peace negotiations — Taba in 2001, Annapolis in 2007, and “the Kerry initiative” in 2013–14. These diplomatic breakdowns, along with a long list of partial agreements, initiatives, frameworks, memoranda, protocols, and the like — such as those from Hebron, Wye River, Sharm el-Sheikh, the Roadmap for Peace, the Mitchell effort, and the 2020 Trump peace plan, among others — combined with intermittent cycles of war and violence, led to a widespread sense on both sides, and beyond, that a diplomatic agreement to end the conflict would likely be unachievable.

Since 1948, resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has been inhibited by long-standing challenges which regularly surface as well as by larger political and philosophical dilemmas that remain unresolved. A central lesson of the conflict’s history is that these tinderboxes and paradoxes, discussed below, do not disappear over time. Rather, failure to address them has made the conflict more uncertain and difficult to resolve.

Tinderboxes

In the past three decades, a number of flashpoints, such as the following, have continued to simmer, growing more tense and uncertain over time.

1. Jerusalem’s Holy Sites: For both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, and billions around the world, the Holy Land’s religious sites hold extraordinary religious and cultural significance. The Old City of Jerusalem — home to the Western Wall, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — is revered by adherents of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike, making it a focal point of contention. Disputes over access, control, and sovereignty around these sites have historically triggered tension, violence, and unrest, exacerbating the already complex dynamics of the conflict. Hamas, for example, named its Oct. 7 attack Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, claiming that the holy site dispute was partial impetus for its attack. While serving as Israel’s security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir frequently referenced the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in his political rhetoric. Beyond the city’s religious and cultural significance, West Jerusalem also serves as Israel’s governing capital, the aspirational capital of a future Palestinian state, and a home to people of diverse identities in close proximity. Efforts by actors to push the boundaries of established religious and sociopolitical norms threaten the stability of Jerusalem and beyond. Minimizing frictions around these sites is necessary for stability to be maintained and a political process to proceed. 
    
2. Settlements and Frictions of Occupation: As the conflict has stagnated, the growth of Israeli settlements has significantly exacerbated frictions, tensions, and a sense that peace or even separation may be unachievable. As settlements in and around Jerusalem and “Area C” of the West Bank have expanded, the settlements’ footprint has fragmented Palestinian territory and impeded the viability of a future Palestinian state. The accompanying architecture — checkpoints, roads, walls, utilities, movement of people — creates frictions that regularly lead to violence between groups. Politically, right-wing Israeli leaders use the settlement issue instrumentally by rallying voters who favor applying Israeli sovereignty to occupied territories when needed and freezing settlements — in the case of the Abraham Accords, delaying full annexation — as an occasional negotiating chip. The fate of any future diplomatic process and prospects for any solution are inextricably tied to the trajectory of the Israeli settlement enterprise. 
    
3. Extremism: As the political process stagnated, more radical voices on both sides became empowered, drawing on and pushing public sentiment to extreme positions. In Israel, right-wing voices came to play an outsized role in the discourse and policy around the Palestinian issue. Increasingly, this has manifested in increased violence against Palestinians committed by extreme factions from some Israeli West Bank settlements and in some cases against Israeli authorities themselves, raising alarms from senior Israeli officials. For Palestinians, the PA’s weaknesses and failures, especially in its inability to deliver Palestinian statehood, created the environment in which Hamas, with its message of armed resistance, has been able to gain support. Hamas, for its part, believed, particularly if joined by the broader “Axis of Resistance,” that the Oct. 7 attacks could result in a winnable war of attrition against Israel, in global opinion and/or on the ground. As time has dragged on, extremist violence from both sides has become a regular part of the conflict. 
    
4. Gaza Containment Strategy: Since the Palestinian civil war in 2007, and the resulting division between PA control of the West Bank and Hamas control of Gaza, there have been multiple rounds of violence between Hamas and Israel across periods in 2008–09, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022, 2023, and the current war. Over this time, a cycle developed which Israeli security termed “mowing the grass” — periods of an established modus vivendi with Gaza’s de facto government, interrupted by wars which diminished Hamas’ capabilities and reestablished deterrence, after which a modus vivendi was reestablished. Alternatively, Israeli governments have had the ability to incentivize quiet and stability with Gaza’s Hamas government, through controlling the flow of goods and people, allowing funds from Qatar to enter the strip, and setting the number of permits for Gazans to work in Israel, for example. Ultimately, while the approach had the advantage of maintaining a Gaza-West Bank division, which some in Israel viewed as advantageous, the approach ultimately did not achieve sustainable security, as evinced most dramatically by the Oct. 7 attacks. Altogether, Israel’s containment strategy of Gaza has not proven to be a sustainable model.

Paradoxes

While there are many reasons for the persistence of these tinderboxes, a key consequence of refusal to engage seriously in resolving the conflict is the proliferation of paradoxes. The politics and narratives of both Israeli and Palestinian publics push their peoples into increasingly complex and costly problems, making solutions more difficult to achieve.

Over the past three decades, issues of nationalism, religion, violent resistance, and identity have intensified, leading to limited resolution options and giving rise to the paradoxes of this conflict.

1. Sources of Security: Over the past 30 years, security for Israelis came to mean the mechanics of security — checkpoints, weapons, planes, surveillance, Iron Dome systems, and the like. But this definition of security, which will always be a necessary part of a state’s geopolitical mix, misses the longer-term necessity for a mutual agreement between the two peoples with national aspirations on the same land. Israel is a small country and is not invincible. Israel does not have the capabilities to support a perpetual multifront war, nor can it continuously defend borders that are effectively thousands of miles long. The Israeli military might be able to achieve some of the results Israel desires, as has been seen in recent months by the deterioration of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian “Axis of Resistance.” However, across the 75-plus years of the conflict, it has not yet proven a panacea for the core issue of what to do about the dual claims on the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. 
    
2. Maintenance of Palestinian Division: Relatedly, for much of the past 20 years, Israeli governments — mostly led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — have sought to maintain the division of the West Bank and Gaza to foreclose any progress toward a two-state political process. The claim of having “no partner” for negotiations and the like became a standard reason for the peace process’ collapse. The calculation seemed to be that Hamas and the semi-regular violence that erupted between the group and Israel could be managed, generally allowing a status quo advantageous to Israel. In the minds of some, on a long enough timeline, Palestinians will abandon their aspirations for statehood under a unified West Bank and Gaza, and either leave or accept a different set of rights than Jewish Israelis. Since Oct. 7, it is clear that Hamas’ control over Gaza will no longer be tolerated by Israel, but it seems unlikely that Israel will offer an affirmative idea for a system to replace Hamas’ governance. The Netanyahu government’s response has largely fallen under the shorthand phrase of “No Hamas, No Abbas” — meaning PA President Mahmoud Abbas — but has not yet offered a workable alternative to either. As the ceasefire agreement evolves into its second and third phases, answers to the question of future governance for Gaza have become even more essential. 
   
   Relatedly, the PA is viewed with skepticism to many, yet remains a key element in any potential solution to this puzzle. Among Palestinians, the PA is widely viewed as ineffective for its inability to achieve statehood for the Palestinian people; inefficient due to its lacking governance; and illegitimate by preventing elections and propping up Israel’s occupation. For most Israelis, the PA has become an adversary to be weakened and/or dismantled. But the destruction of the PA may also be detrimental for Israel, not to mention the Palestinians, as the PA is the West Bank’s primary employer and service provider. With its collapse, Israel would then come to manage these services along with the day-to-day lives of millions of Palestinians. Thus, an adverse feedback loop subsists in which the PA, the most legitimate partner Israel has — at least in the eyes of the international community — is being weakened and delegitimized, its purpose disappearing. The result of this may be Israel absorbing the PA’s responsibilities and citizens, or some effort to recreate it — neither option boding well for stability. 
    
3. Maximalism and Binary Choices: Particularly over 2024, maximalist narratives in the conflict have come to the fore. The discourse has moved from determining solutions to the problems created in 1967, to litigating the issues created at Israel’s founding in 1948. Both peoples’ historic traumas and concerns around ethnic cleansing, displacement, and discrimination have been reawakened. The political discourse has moved from debating political rights to historic rights, with little room for nuance. This polarization makes any potential diplomatic compromise even more difficult and obscures the issues to be addressed and resolved. For many Israelis and Palestinians, “Oslo, “peace process,” and “two-state solution” have become dirty words. At the same time, the concerns of both peoples highlight the necessity of addressing the rights and peoplehood of both. 
    
4. Counterproductive International Support: A final paradox of the conflict is the often-counterproductive nature of the international community’s relationship with it. At times, Israel’s most bedrock supporters in the international community — particularly the United States — have encouraged the impression that critical decisions around a political horizon to the conflict can be postponed indefinitely and without consequence, and that they may even disappear. To ensure Israel’s long-term status as a secure, democratic, and Jewish-majority state — historically a bipartisan priority in the U.S. — efforts to define a political endgame toward the Palestinians will be necessary, as will efforts to prevent the collapse of Oslo-era institutions. Currently, these conversations and decisions along with the frictions to which they might lead have been avoided, risking elements of Israel’s security and identity, which its steadfast supporters hold paramount. In the extreme counterexample, Iran’s support for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has led to disastrous effects for Palestinians and the Palestinian national movement, Hamas, and potentially Iran itself, which has seen its levers of influence across the region severely weakened over the course of the past 18 months of the war. Going forward, transparency, consistency, moderation, pragmatism, and patience should characterize the U.S. relationship with Israel in particular, and with regional partners and interlocutors more broadly, as all seek paths out of the current conflict.

The Possibility of Transformation or Continued Stasis

Since Oct. 7, there has been a widely held sense that the prewar status quo is gone. There is a sense that political progress toward a just, secure, and sustainable separation has never been more necessary. There is also a sense that Palestinians and Israelis are carrying an unprecedented amount of trauma, distrust, and anger, making it difficult to envision a compromise. And finally, there is a sense, in some circles at least, that — especially if the process has a regional integration component — the war could represent a real opportunity to revive negotiations for the first time in a decade, and place the conflict on a path to resolution as a part of the wider vision for a more secure, integrated Middle East long-sought by U.S. and regional leaders. So again, a paradox: most of the regional and international community see it as critically necessary and urgent to achieve two separate, secure, successful states, but at the same time, this option has never felt more distant. The challenge is building the political will and momentum necessary to overcome these impressions in order to move forward constructively.

The eight examples above of tinderboxes and paradoxes are challenges and assumptions that have existed for years and precede the current conflict. Today, the problem set is as complicated as it has ever been, addressing the traditional final status issues, but also Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction and the political dynamics around the conflict at a delicate time. But what the issues above also point to is the human dimension of this conflict — the necessity of understanding where these two peoples are and how both peoples can move toward sustainable peace and security.

In pursuing a sustainable peace, actors should seek to find a way to thread the following needles:

1. How to address Gaza’s aid, reconstruction, governance, and security needs in a way that supports recovery, reunification with the West Bank, and empowers a sovereign and effective Palestinian government over the combined areas. 
    
2. How to reach agreement between Israel and the PA and/or Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on the traditional final status issues between Israelis and Palestinians — including permanent settlement, borders, Jerusalem, refugees, security, resources, and other critical issues — while avoiding the spoilers and incrementalism that have hindered past efforts. 
    
3. How to integrate this process and an Israeli-Palestinian agreement into a broader regional security framework that promotes security and prosperity for all, while garnering the support necessary to build momentum. 
    
4. How Israeli leaders — addressing the majority of their public who identify as center- to right-wing on the political spectrum — can present the rationale and importance of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. 
    
5. How Palestinian leaders — addressing a skeptical Palestinian public — can explain the rationale and importance of a peace agreement with Israel. 
    
6. How Jewish and Islamic religious leaders — addressing societies in which religion plays a central role — can affirm that pursuing a peace agreement aligns with religious values and principles.

This is a challenging task that demands creativity, sustained focus, political will and leadership, and a keen sense of the domestic political constraints each side faces. It requires cultures of compromise and mutual respect being encouraged and taking root over the maximalism and extremism of the past decades. It requires the parties, along with regional and international actors, to play central roles in incentivizing agreement, ensuring accountability, and facilitating implementation. Frictions and tensions will be inevitable, and the second Trump administration’s approach to diplomacy may, in some cases, find openings for traction.

However, President Trump’s recent proposal for Palestinians in Gaza to leave the strip — either voluntarily or otherwise — and be absorbed by Egypt and Jordan, which could destabilize both countries, as well as the suggestion for the United States to control and develop Gaza, garnered widespread regional and international criticism. These exchanges highlight the sensitivity, delicacy, and interconnectedness of issues related to the conflict and the vital role that U.S. regional allies will need to play.

In any scenario, strategic partnership and coordinated execution, along with careful consideration of the second and third phrases of the ceasefire and their ripple effects, will be crucial to ensuring the short-, medium-, and long-term success of U.S. diplomacy toward a sustainable solution for Gaza and toward actualizing the “historic opportunities” the Trump administration has highlighted in the region. 

Conclusion

The policy brief from January 2024 concluded with a summary of the key assumptions that have come to characterize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past decade:

• Conflict can be “managed” without addressing its roots.
• Palestinians will prioritize economic advancement over self-determination.
• Israel’s military strength ensures it invincibility.
• Hamas is moderating its political and ideological stance.
• Regional normalization can proceed without addressing the Palestinian issue.
• The United States can effectively withdraw from the Middle East.

Over the past year, all of these assumptions have come under heavy reassessment, if not abandoned outright. The year 2023 will join the ranks of 1948, 1967, 1973, 1978, and 1993 as moments that drastically shaped the trajectories of the conflict, and the peoples engaged in it. The current war has made it clear that the conflict will likely not be resolved on its own, and that resolution will require intense, sustained commitment, effort, and compromise by the parties and those invested in ending the conflict. It has also made clear that a conflagration in this part of the Middle East does not remain contained and represents a threat to security far beyond its immediate reach.

Breaking the impasse described above will be exceedingly difficult and require an extraordinary diplomatic effort. President Trump’s election, in part, reflected a desire for a leader with the perceived ability to advance U.S. interests and break with long-held international and domestic norms. In his first term, Trump demonstrated his instincts for leveraging U.S. power, utilizing economic incentives, shaping narratives, and capitalizing on the power of relationships and personalities. In his second term, he will be tasked with steering the situation away from continued conflict and toward a postbellum set of goals that offer transformative benefits for the region, as well as for American global leadership, security, and prosperity — key pillars of his foreign policy. Should this challenge be embraced, the good news for the president and his team is that the global momentum for progress has perhaps never been higher.

This publication was produced on behalf of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Wherever feasible, the material was reviewed by external experts prior to its release. Any errors are the responsibility of the author(s) alone. 

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